“God help him,” I thought to myself, “Learning golf to relax?”

“I hope he has patience, and a sense of humour“, I said.

I had a vision of this already-stressed guy going to golf lessons and getting even more confused about what he actually had to do to get the damn ball to go where he wanted it.

I truly feel sorry for anyone taking part in conventional golf-instruction.  “Do this, don’t do that, remember this.” The list can seem endless, and it’s amazing how we can complicate the simplest of tasks.

What else do we reduce to such mechanics?  There seems to be nothing more likely to reduce us to quivering, uncertain wrecks than this type of teaching.

Imagine knocking a nail into a wall with a hammer.  Can you do this?  Of course you can, and the more you did it the better you became – you learned through feedback.  After all, it’s a pretty uncomplicated task.  Take hammer, hit head of nail with the hammer, force moving in the direction you want, and repeat until complete.  If you hit it a bit to the left or right you automatically and easily correct on the next blow.

Can you imagine the instructions given to a new recruit at nail-hammering lessons if it was taught in the same way as golf?  (Even the idea of teaching nail hammering sounds crazy) Distribute your weight this way, take the hammer back on this plane, move it through at this angle, do this with your wrist, keep your eye on the nail!

I guarantee that if you learned this way you would be hitting your fingers with the hammer so much you would be anxious everytime you were about to use it.

Chances are the nail wouldn’t be going where you want it to go.  Your mind (and possibly your instructor) would be telling you what you did wrong, and what technical instruction to make sure you carry into your next attempt.  Your head would be filled with “hammer thoughts” (mental-keys to help you hit the nail better).  Do you see where I’m going with this?

Playing golf isn’t too different from hitting a nail into a wall.  We take a stick and hit a stationary object in the direction we want it to go. How complicated is that?

So, imagine if we let ourselves learn to golf the same way we learned to hit a nail into a wall, or how we learned to throw a piece of scrunched-up paper into a waste basket – through feedback, through “getting it wrong” and adjusting the next time.  That’s how we learn most things we do, including really important stuff like speaking and walking.

Golf is easy – but there is a whole industry that feeds and needs insecurity and uncertainty.  There is a flawed learning-model at the heart of most golf instruction, and it doesn’t work. It patently doesn’t work, as most golfers play with a fear that they will “lose it”, always a few bad shots away from the wheels falling off the wagon.  Even the top touring professionals are constantly fiddling and tinkering, hitting slumps and losing confidence, before magically “finding something”.

Is there anything else we do in life that even though we’ve been doing it for years we live in constant fear of losing?  Driving, speaking, writing, making a coffee?

Can you imagine it – “Well, I’ve been making coffee now for 20 years, working hard at getting it right, but just lately I can’t seem to get the coffee pot in the right position above the cup.  I think it may be to do with my elbow position as I lift the coffee pot up.  I’m going to be working with a new coach, so hopefully he can help me have a few pouring-keys to make sure I get back to where I was.”  Ridiculous, right?

So why is golf any different?  Seriously – why?

My daughter who is almost 3 years old as I write this loves hitting a golf ball with my putter – it’s fun, and now she can make the ball go more or less in the direction she wants it.  The longer she does this, with encouragement and gentle feedback, she will get better – by that I mean she will become more intentionally efficient (she will become more skilled in getting the ball to go where she wants).  It’s natural, it’s how we learn.

In my view learning is more powerful than being taught. A good coach provides a framework for their student to explore within, so that the learning is their own. A good golf coach enables, encourages, asks questions, and provides a safe, supportive environment within which their charge can learn their own game.

So, I sincerely hope my friend’s son (remember him?) takes a few clubs with a bag of balls and goes somewhere where there is no advice, no instruction, no technical, or mechanical keys.  A place where he can play golf, where he can have fun hitting balls and learning how he can make the ball do what he wants it to.  After all, that’s what golf is, isn’t it?  It’s not complicated.

Many years ago a young Spanish boy called Seve did that, spending time on the local beach with an old 5 iron, and he turned out be a pretty good player.

Boy, was I disappointed.  It seemed like every new article I read contradicted the last one.  I was all over the place, almost literally tying myself in knots.  It was horribly frustrating and as time progressed I approached each swing with an ever expanding checklist of things I had to remember.

When I hit a good shot I felt happy and relieved.  When I hit a bad shot I immediately went through my mental checklist trying to figure out what piece of instruction I had forgotten, believing that to be the reason for the bad shot.

Having found what I thought was the missing piece I would then focus on that particular swing thought for the next shot.

It was an exhausting process, and I often felt a sense of relief if I just managed to get through a round reasonably intact and without a disastrous score.

I played this “swing thought” game for a while until I learned to trust that if I just stopped listening to the voices in my head (no matter how helpful they appeared to be) everything would be fine.

When I do golf mental game coaching, I help golfers experience the space between their thoughts.  They often experience a wide-open silence in their mind, uncluttered by “I need to…” or “Don’t forget to…” instructions.  As they stand over the ball I intruct them to, “Swing from the emptiness“.

The results can be breathtaking, and at times even moving.  One pro told me that for the first time on a golf course he wasn’t thinking, his head was quiet, and he “knew” his shots before he hit them.  He felt free and experienced a level of integration he had not known since he was a boy, hitting balls for fun in a local field.

The first time I had that experience was a real eye-opener.  I was playing with a friend and we were on the 6th green at a course in near the Ochil Hills in Scotland.  I was about 35 feet from the hole.  There was an absolute certainty that the ball was going to drop – it was almost like it was pre-destined.  My job was just to help it happen.

Sure enough, I hit the shot, the ball rolled beautifully, and landed in the cup.  My playing partner went wild – “That was an amazing putt.”  I agreed, but didn’t feel I could in all honesty take any credit, as it seemed like the putt had very little to do with me, magnificent as it was.

This is one of the many mysteries that golf can help us experience, and even for golfers who don’t think too deeply about the game, I’m sure at some level it’s what keeps us coming back and compels us to pick up our clubs again and again.

It’s akin to a quest – we know there is something special to be discovered, and if we just keep looking a little bit longer – perhaps…

The best way to enter the inner mysteries of golf is with a quiet mind, patience, and to drop our arrogance and have the humility to allow the game to play with us, rather than have us try and conquer it.  Then we open up a space to experience magic, free of the trying, constraint and tightness of holding our mind full of technical instruction.

It’s a strange thing, but we always seem to assume that we’ll be back on the course sometime. Perhaps you have a round arranged for later this week? Maybe you don’t have a specific future date, but you’ll get back out there, right?

Well, maybe…

A while back I was on the course on my own, grabbing a quick 18. I was hitting it well, keeping well out of the rough and the gorse bushes, and so was making a good pace.

There were a few clear holes in front of me (which I like), but eventually I caught up with the figure that I had seen in the distance at various points on the front nine. His name was Mike.

We agreed to finish our round playing together (this is one of the great delights of golf for me – the way we bump into “strangers” and share time).

Over the remaining holes of the round we complimented each other’s good shots, commiserated with putts that should have dropped and chatted about all things golf.

Mike shared something with me that struck me. He had only being playing rounds of golf on his own for the past six months. In the twenty or so years before that had played two or three times per month with one of his good friends.

His friend was a good golfer, better than Mike, although he was the kind of guy who was always in a hurry, never happy with his game, and quick to criticise his own mistakes. In Mike’s words he was, “always trying to get somewhere”.

You may know someone like this – you may be like this yourself.

Everything Changes

But something happened one day, and Mike’s friend became ill. An illness that meant he could now physically no longer play golf. And so Mike became a solo player, occasionally bumping into others like me and sharing some company and some golf.

What really struck me was that Mike told me that his friend really missed golf. He missed the banter, he missed the shots – he basically missed getting out and spending 3 or 4 hours hitting a ball round the course.

It’s a curious thing to me, because by the sounds of it, Mike’s friend was the sort of guy who “never was where he was”, if you know what I mean.

He spent a large part of his golf life experiencing impatience and a lack of acceptance of his game; he didn’t take the time to appreciate what he could do, and rather focussed on what he couldn’t do.

And so, when he was actually playing golf, he wasn’t enjoying the experience as fully as he possibly could.

And now it’s too late. He’ll never swing a golf club again.

Playing Golf With Awareness And Appreciation

I wonder how his last round was?

Would he have played it differently, experienced it differently, been alive to every aspect of this wonderful game if he had know it was to be the last game of golf of his lifetime?

I think he would. I think I would. I’m sure we all would.

Let’s hope you haven’t played your last game. But perhaps you’re next one might be. Knowing that how differently will you play? How different will your attitude be?

Let’s savour every moment we play – in golf and in life, because we never truly know when it’ll time to lay down our clubs.

From time to time we all have rounds where things don’t quite go as well as we had hoped. That’s a guarantee with golf. But as a wiser man than me once said, ”It’s not what happens that’s important, but how you deal with it”.

This was illustrated for me by one of my playing partners on the day. A young guy in his early 20s who beforehand told me he had been out three times earlier in the week to get into the groove for this competition. He was confident.

He shot bogey on the first hole (as did three of our foursome, including me), and from his body language I began to notice that even this early his Plan A was beginning to fall apart. I was about to find out there wasn’t a plan B.

Off the second tee he hooked out-of-bounds. The driver received a good thumping off the ground, and he shouted and cursed at himself. His next tee shot (now playing 3) went the same way, but amazingly hit a fence post and came back onto the middle of the fairway!

He played the rest of the hole with a sense of desperation, seemingly piling more and more pressure on himself with each shot. Even his good shots weren’t good enough (although I would have killed for them). It was becoming clear that all of the expectation he had brought to the day was weighing him down, and he appeared unable to get it off his back. It was painful to witness, especially as we’ve all been there and know how bad that feels -to be lost in a whirlpool in your own mind.

His body language was that of a broken man, and the energy he gave off was a mixture of frustration and self-loathing, manifesting as a silent “don’t f*@{9410e802baa14e65b891350d650d2f7b070a2cc9237129851185767f5afe86d0}ing talk to me” vibe. So I kept the chat with him to a minimum.

On the fourth green he picked his ball up from the green and walked on to the next tee. So, that was it, game over.

I myself wasn’t scoring at my best, (having taken an 8 at the 2nd) but I was enjoying the day. The sun was shining (we’re in Scotland in April so that is reason to be happy on its own!), the other two guys I had been paired with were good company, and I was playing golf. Of all the things I could have been doing there was nothing else I would have wanted to do in that precise moment.

Once we got to the turn the young guy walked back to the clubhouse, we re-arranged score-cards, and the final 9 was great fun, without the sulk walking alongside us. The golf didn’t get any better, but it was a great morning.

For me it was a real example of how the mind can ruin our pleasure of life. That young man spoiled what could have been a great round by being caught in his mind and self-judgements. He is a good golfer, he apparently hits it well, but for all of his skill his lack of mental game strength let him down.

Expectation causes pain. Well, let me clarify that – attachment to expectation causes pain. It’s our need for things to be a certain way that means our happiness, peace, or whatever we have invested in the desired outcome, is a hostage to fortune. As soon as things change (as they inevitably will) we are lost, as long as we are dependant on them.

The key is to practise non-attachment. This is not new advice – it is one of the fundamentals of most spiritual traditions. How to do it? Well, it’s surprisingly easy to do with sufficient commitment and the right tools. For me, that means regularly practising meditation every day. The result? I give it my best, and accept what is.

It is a path that is characterised by contentment and compassion. Once you take a step on this path, there really is no other road to travel on. It makes a bad golf day, good, and a good golf day, great. And the best thing is that it also works in every other area of our lives.

The inner game of golf is crucial to our golfing success and enjoyment. The single biggest thing that I see spoil the game in golfers is judgement, and it’s close friends, criticism and impatience. But the great news is that judgement isn’t an actual thing, it’s simply a point of view. And as such it is something that we can change. It’s just like a program running in our mind. We can play better golf when we free ourselves from these destructive internal influences.

On the course our biggest opponent isn’t another human being, or the wind, or the condition of the greens, but what is going on in our head. The incessant chatter, the voices telling us what not to do, or telling us that we’ve screwed-up yet again can completely ruin a round of golf.

And of course, we have probably all experienced the opposite – moments when the mind is calm and the swing is a thing of beauty and simplicity. “Wow, I wish I could play like that more often”. Well, the good news is that you can, but it’s going to take a bit of commitment to begin to do something new, and that is exploring the inner game of golf.

In 1998 I learned a very simple series of meditation-like techniques called Ascension from a group of monks called the Ishayas. It had such a profound effect on me that now I’m a monk too and share these techniques. I know, I know, a golfing monk? It sounds a bit strange, but we’ve come this far so please stick around.

What these techniques did for me was to change my relationship with the thoughts that I had, to begin to help me to be more present and not always caught in thinking about the past or the future. The techniques are only taught in person and you can find more information on this website.

Inner game of golf exercise (part 1)

Although it says “Inner Game of Golf exercise” the truth is that this is for every part of your life. In a moment I want you to close your eyes and watch what is happening in your mind. As you close your eyes be gently alert and notice the thoughts move through, and as they do count them – 1, 2, 3, etc. Keep your eyes closed for about two minutes. Close them now.

So, how did you do? Were you able to count them? If not, try again, but be gentle. So how many were there – 4, 10, 30? The number doesn’t matter, but what is important is that you can begin to experience that you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are actually something outside of you. You are that which is aware of them. Just like watching cars going by on the highway we can watch safely from a distance.

But just like on the highway the trouble starts when we start getting in the way of things! When we resist or get involved in thinking the thoughts we lose ourselves and begin to experience whatever the content of the thought is. So if the thought is self-critical, and we begin to relate to it, we feel that in our body. Do you swing well when you’re thinking about how badly your round is going? Of course not, and we all know that it’s only going to get worse if we stay on the same mental page.

So using this simple method is a great way to make a change. You don’t need to change your thoughts. That’s worth repeating. You don’t need to change your thoughts! You’re not the one that’s making them anyway. All you need to do is to change your relationship with them. So for example by taking a moment to count them, the thought, “I have to make par, I have to make par,” and all the pressures that come with it, simply becomes thought number 5.

Now I’m not proposing that you wake up and start counting your thoughts all day long – the average person has over 80,000 per day! What we are doing is making a start.

Inner game of golf exercise (part 2)

So let’s progress this a bit. This time when you close your eyes for two minutes don’t count – just watch. Go ahead.

How was that? The more you do that, gently observe, the more you will experience the mind becoming quiet. Being the observer, not judging or resisting any thought begins to help you be free of their influence and will make you a better golfer, and improve how you experience all of your life.

So, does this inner game of golf stuff actually make a difference? Let me give you an example. I had my first introduction to golf as a teenager. I grew up in Scotland and golf was popular, cheap and it was a chance for me to hang out with my father. He bought me a half-set of clubs, showed me what to do and off we went.

We were playing at a lovely small course near the coastal village of Carradale on the Kintyre peninsula. We were on the 3rd or 4th tee and I swung an air shot. OK, so what? But the group behind caught up and were waiting. I swung again – this time with a bigger audience – and whoosh, more fresh air. Someone coughed . My embarrassment was intense, my face tomato- red, and I tried even harder with the next swing with the same result.

We let the other guys play through. I couldn’t watch (I didn’t want to make any eye contact), I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. In my 13 year old mind a belief was born, a new program – I don’t like it, and I don’t play well when people watch me.

This is not unique. Lots of people lose their game when they find they have an audience. Yet this is purely a mental block, there is nothing technically different in the shot. That’s why, to play great golf developing your inner golf game is critical.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago when I came up behind a four ball. Graciously they indicated that I could play-through. From the tee I hit a perfect slice – OB, off into the trees to bother the squirrels. Behind me I heard someone cough. Like a bullet the memory of Carradale came back, along with the thoughts and beliefs planted in that experience.

But through my meditation practice I was able to stay uninvolved with these thoughts. In fact, I felt carefree and very content. With a sense of inner peace I teed up another ball, swung with no tension and struck a beautiful shot which left me with a nice 8 iron to the green.

The truth is that we are going to have bad shots when we play golf. It’s just in the nature of the game. The trick is to let them have no impact on how you play the rest of your shots. Being the impartial observer of the movement (and the peace) in your mind is a great way to be more natural when playing.

If your belief is, “From now on I am going to enjoy my golf” then you may find that the mind throws up some qualifiers – “I will if I play well, I will if I can finally beat my buddies, I will if I can get my short game together“, etc, etc. It may be that believing this “if” thought is the only thing that stops you having a great time.

Personally, I now have the experience where I enjoy the development of my game; I accept it for how it is in any moment; and appreciate that if I have commitment to practice, and don’t take it, or myself, too seriously, I can allow the journey to unfold in a fun, and sometimes magical, way.

You can too. Go on, do something different, start exploring the inner game of golf.

Golf preparation is hugely important. Hopefully you have a pre-shot routine for golf, but what about a pre-game routine? What you do in the 30 minutes before you hit that first ball can play a huge role in how your golf round will transpire.

Let me give you an example… I have friend who I play golf with every 6 weeks or so. Invariably he arrives just at tee-time, breathless, apologising for being late, in a rush, his head full of the stuff he has been dealing with earlier in the day. He then spends a few seconds trying to be present, has a couple of quick swings with his driver before (8 times out of 10) hooking the ball, cursing himself and swearing that he’ll be better organised next time. Phew, it’s tiring even reading that!

The thing is that this guy is a better golfer than me. When his head is clear and his body relaxed he has great distance and a nice touch around the greens. But given how he generally turns up I know that I am pretty much guaranteed to win the first two or three holes.

This is a good example of how not to prepare for your round. No matter the nature of your round, social or competitive, you want to give yourself then best chance of shooting a low score, and consistent golf preparation can help you.

Most golfers mistakenly think that the game begins on the first tee, whereas I believe that it begins in the half hour before a ball is even hit. In your golf preparation you need to consider two main areas; mental preparation for golf, and preparation of your body.

Golf Preparation – preparing your body for golf

Stretching and warming up before any form of athletic activity pays dividends in performance terms and in helping reduce the risk of injury.

Although golf is not the most physically demanding of games it does require balance, stamina and the ability to deliver a large amount of energy in a split second. The potential for pulling a muscle or straining yourself is high if you have not prepared your body for what it is to come.

If you have a regular fitness or stretching routine then you give yourself a great chance of playing your best golf. I particularly recommend yoga because it develops your body in a balanced manner, and helps you build-up your energetic reserves. It also helps keep your mind calm.

But even if you don’t have a regular regime then stretching before your golf game is important. Make sure you incorporate some twists, squats, and that you gently rotate your wrists, knees and ankles. Slowly swinging with three irons together is a great way to stretch and loosen up.

Proper nutrition is important for good golf. Have you eaten enough food? Have you eaten too much? Having a big meal in the clubhouse before your golf round is a big no-no. Have something light that will give you sustained energy release, and take some snacks with you for on the course.

Regularly snacking between shots and holes on nuts, seeds and dried fruits is a good choice for keeping your body and mind fuelled. It helps sustain your energy levels and maintain mental clarity.

Being properly hydrated and staying that way is essential. Give the beer cart a miss, and stick to water with a pinch of sea-salt, or make your own sports drink by mixing 500ml of fresh orange juice with 500ml of water and a pinch of sea salt. Avoid commercial products like Gatorade as they tend to be full of stuff you shouldn’t have in your body.

Make sure you drink regularly throughout your round. Remember, if you feel thirsty you’ve already left it too long to have a drink, so avoid thirst and keep drinking. You could make a make a habit of drinking a little before every tee shot.

Golf Preparation – Mental preparation for golf

Sitting in the locker-room or in your car before your round for 10 or 15 minutes and meditating is probably the best thing you can do for golf preparation. Your mind will settle down, tension will leave your body and you will give yourself a great chance to play inventive and creative golf.

You want to be able to stand on the first tee and have the shot you are about to play be clear in your mind. And you want to be confident that you can achieve it. Many great golfers play an entire round in their head before they play it for real. They visualize themselves playing every shot, they see the flight of the ball, how it lands, what club they will pick etc. in great detail.

Visualization is a great mental tool for golfers. So in the few minutes before your round see yourself playing the first hole, and see those shots being played perfectly. However be realistic. If you hit your driver 230 yards, don’t visualize yourself getting it onto the green 320 yards away. Play the actual game you know you can play.

See the hole backwards – imagine you’re standing next to the flag. What would be the best way to get there? If you can get to the green in two then where would be the best place to play that second shot from? Hitting the ball as far as you can isn’t always the best call. Sometimes laying-up a little can help us take a hazard out of the equation and give us a longer, but easier, second shot. So, perhaps taking a 3 iron rather than a driver may be a more intelligent choice. Allow your natural creativity to come through, and begin to trust your intuition.

By the time you stand on the first tee you should be clear on what your task is and what you are about to do.

Before hitting your ball practice the exact shot you are about to play. Don’t just swing aimlessly. You should already be stretched and loose, so swing the shot you are about to play. Try it a couple of times with your eyes closed to really get a feel of it.

Now hit the shot and enjoy the rest of your round. Thanks to your golf preparation you have given yourself a great opportunity to play the best golf you can today.

originally published in Caribbean Golf magazine

I recently had the pleasure of walking in mountains. The the air was pure and refreshing, the inherent peace of nature was thick and tangible.  It reminded me of many experiences that I have had on golf courses, and made me realize just how much the physical setting of the game we love has a deep impact on us.

We play on the most beautiful of arenas. Some golf courses and holes simply take your breath away. They seem to be the perfect co-creations of God and the course architect, a wonderful combination of that which has always been there and that which has been added and shaped.

Even the most mundane of courses or holes can be transformed by Nature’s paintbrush: a sudden rain shower, early morning mist, thunderous clouds above or a powerful wind forcing its way through the trees. How fortunate we are to be a part of these landscapes.

Nature has it’s own pace yet it often seems there can be just too much pressure involved in golfing. Our tee-times are squeezed in between others, and it’s not always easy to feel relaxed when you have other golfers breathing down the back of your neck for three hours.

Personally I love playing when I can feel the sense of isolation (which is precisely what I love when walking in the mountains or forests). That can happen at any time of the day but early morning or late in the day are particularly special. Courses are generally quieter and at times it seems like the entirety of Creation is watching in anticipation as we play a stroke. These are moments when it is very easy for us to feel connected with everything, or put another way, the sense of separation melts into the pervading peace and we become part of a greater play.

And although it can be easier to transcend the mundane when things are quiet the truth is that the stillness is always there. But sometimes we just don’t experience it. We preoccupy over strokes when we’re not actually hitting them. It’s a funny thing, but our actual golfing takes up a very small part of the time we spend on-course. Mostly we’re between shots, either walking or waiting.

A bit like life, really – our day is filled with meetings, meals or tasks, but most of the time is taken up in the time between things. The problem (just like on the golf course) is that our attention isn’t fully present. Most of the time it’s on thinking about what we’ve done or are about to do. So, we actually don’t experience the bulk of our lives. Which is a great loss, for just like on those beautiful golf courses, many wonders await if only we would see them.

I’m probably telling you something you already know. “Be in the moment” we hear a lot, and although it seems like the simplest of things (and it is) it is also, paradoxically, one of the hardest because we are seemingly locked into this habit of having our attention in the past or future.

That is where having a technique can help. Through this website you can find out about the one that works for me, but the important thing is to allow yourself an opportunity to experience the fullness of what your life has to offer you.

I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why many of us are drawn to this game – because to play good golf demands that we are present. And being present feels fantastic, vibrant and alive. You can’t get that ball out of the sand and close to the flag if you are thinking about what is going on at work or at home.

Good golf demands your attention. Golf is like a jealous lover who punishes us if our attention or focus strays. But give it our full care and attention and, oh boy, what delights we can receive in return.

originally published in Caribbean Golf magazine

Where do you go when you play golf? It sounds like a strange question, doesn’t it? The local public course, or the country club, may be answers that spring to mind, but I’m asking where your attention goes?

I’ll give you an example. A number of years ago I spent a month on the Isle of Man, a lovely small island in the middle of the Irish Sea. Three mornings per week I played at Rowany Golf Club; a wonderful course with some breathtaking views over the heather-clad mountains and regular winds roaring in over the water.

The tenth is a par 5 hole that seemed to be eagerly waiting for me every time I came around. 7 times out of 10 I would slice the ball out of bounds into a neighbouring field of horses. After two weeks of watching this performance when I approached the tee box their look-out would give the signal for them to hide behind a wall! Who says animals have no intelligence?

So, when this hole came around deep inside there was a sense of deflation, almost trepidation. The thought, “Just get through it without too much damage” was like a whisper in my mind. Of course, nothing was more guaranteed to ensure that damage was inflicted!

here was just something about this hole! It was my jinx hole – just waiting to puncture any hopes I had of carding a spectacular round.

After suffering this for about three weeks I had a revelation. I realised that when I was playing this hole I was switched-off, not at home, call it what you will, but I was not on the 10th hole. I just wanted this hole to be over, to move onto the next one (also with OB on the right, but for some strange reason I always hit that fairway!). As a result of this I was hurrying, not focussing, and my scores revealed this.

So, what I needed was patience, not to be distracted, to simply play one shot at a time, regardless of the number that had preceded it. I had to maintain my alertness and be absolutely conscious of the entire shot – not endlessly thinking about every detail, but being fully present in that precise moment so that the shot had a opportunity to be played with intent and intelligence.

The result of this gentle vigilance? Well let’s just say the horses felt safer, and the 8’s and 9’s became 5s and 6’s, and although it was never my favourite hole, I had exorcised myself of the Hole 10 demons!

Perhaps you have a hole or two like this on the course you play? Ones where you “check-out” – probably quite unconsciously, but nonetheless significant. None of us enjoys unpleasant experiences and subconsciously we try to avoid them. So, some part of our mind comes to this hole, says, “Oh, oh. Here we go again” to itself and goes to sleep or starts thinking about other things. It’s a fairly normal functioning in the mind, but like many habits it doesn’t serve us.

To change this program requires a degree of commitment to do things differently; so being alert, not engaging with the thoughts and staying consistently present allows us to open up to a new experience. Having some guidance in the process can be helpful too, someone to remind us to be where we are, and not off on some unrelated or destructive train of thought.