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The title comes from a tee shirt made recently
visible by "Cafepress" products that also include throw pillows
with slogans. We borrowed it for its "bottom line" implications so
appropriate to collective current impressions being touted toward, and rather
glibly bought into, by golfers in general.
For sometime, we have tried to find a way to clarify, stress the importance
of, and add useful recommendations for management of the reality and
substance of anxiety, especially as it affects golfers and the game they
play. Perhaps the most unavoidable principal, inherent in human nature, (not
an invention from us), is that anxiety cannot be excluded from human
experience and therefore should be an integral part of any information base
that would fully inform every golfer's self and game management. It can be
omitted, of course, but not without consequences, ranging from vaguely
noticeable to severely compromising. Curiously, the fact that it is all but
non-existent in mental game presentations and media, we wind up with cute conundrums
like, "anxiety makes me nervous." Sadly, people laugh, and then
ignore what it may mean.
Apparently very few people either see, or are willing to accept, any idea, no
matter how valid, that "nervousness" is anything more than the
down-home, colloquial, safer-to-use expression that leaves them feeling they
have removed the target on their backs and are no longer involved in anything
anxious. Fear of the unknown is a slave driver, so it is time to allow
knowledge to undo the unknown part and remove the fear. But absence
of needed information is in command and the vacuum can be found in almost
every quarter.
Consider what a short trip through the Google index, using keywords
"nervous golf," regurgitated:
" Worryingly, Els
added that if nerves were a factor, then 'take a tablet if you cannot handle
it'.
There have been rumors of players using beta-blockers, but those
prescribed such drugs for medical reasons reported they played worse. Golf
does not have a drugs policy, but is working on one. It would need one if
golf became an Olympic sport, which may happen as soon as 2008. The move has
the firm backing of last week's first ever Congress of Women's Golf."
[Copyright 2004 Independent
Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.]
And:
" DAVID HOWELL has
admitted a bad attack of nerves brought on by playing alongside Tiger Woods
wrecked his chance of winning the US Masters. The 29-year-old from Swindon
was leading the year's first Major during the second round when he got to
five under par. However, when Howell was paired with the world's No1 - and
eventual winner - in the third round he started with a double bogey, dropped
another shot two holes later and slipped down the field with a 76….
"But when I went out with Tiger after the rain delays on Saturday
evening I made a really nervous start. How much of it was playing with Tiger
and how much being in contention for a Major I don't know."
And:
Wayne Gretsky "gets nervous" when he plays golf. "That’s what the Great One said
when he spoke to the Owen Sound Sun Times about his upcoming charity golf
tournament. 'There’s nothing worse than a three-foot putt with 100 people
watching. It’s nerve wracking'.”
The Sun Times said: " It’s always amazing to hear a professional
athlete admit they get nervous doing something in front of a crowd of people.
Gretzky spent his entire life performing in front of arenas jam packed with
18,000 people or more a night. It’s hard to believe if you put a 100 people
watching him putt he turns into Robert Sarver when the word luxury tax is
uttered."
And:
"Rocco Mediate
said, as he approached the US Open playoff, 'I'll be nervous as a cat'."
And:
"Roger Federer
receives the following report: 'Roger Federer has won nine of his 10 Grand
Slam finals but the 25-year-old Swiss said he was nervous playing in front of
his new friend Tiger Woods.' The world number one golfer attended the US Open
final as Federer's guest, sitting in the front row of the players' box to watch
him beat American Andy Roddick on Sunday. Federer said despite all the
pressure surrounding the Grand Slam tournament final, he was aware of Woods's
presence. 'You get that feeling. It's like maybe the first time your parents
see you do something special, or somebody comes to you, you really maybe look
up to,' Federer told reporters. 'For me, it's like when I go out there and I
see Tiger sitting there, it's like, I try to play well, you know? I try to
kind of get my act together and focus and get off to a good start'."
And:
There is a ton more if you want put your fingers to your keyboard.
So what does that tell us about our own games and ourselves? Are you ready to
hang it up and just do what you always did? There are no free passes here.
Jack Nicklaus once said, “The
difference between being nervous and scared is being prepared.”
And:
Austad's (Equipment People), are quick to quote
Dale Carnegie, the renowned rationalist, saying, "Only the prepared speaker deserves
to be confident."
Or you can take one of Ernie's "tablets," find yourself a
hypnotist, all of whom guarantee they can stop all that anxiety, or follow
the most common trend offered and just be a positive thinker and you won't
rattle you brain with all that nervous negative stuff. (If that works, and
you believe it, I have a proverbial bridge for sale to offer you).
If "being prepared" and all the other palliatives had really
worked, the world we personally inhabit would look a lot different, given how
much veiled text there is addressing the issue, however obliquely. A lot of
folks can demonstrate "preparedness." We are not even sure that
anyone has clearly defined what "being prepared" means. But none of
the above "preparedness" has worked consistently, at least not in
the long term. However, many will go the route of the Benjamin Ehingers out
there, with "three steps" to get you past your "nerves."
" The first step
to getting over your nerves is to get used to having others watch you while
you play golf. This can be done by playing in more tournaments with people
you do not know. Playing with people you do not know is something that will
help you get used to others watching you hit your shots. This is a big part
in taking control of your nerves.
The second step is to take control of the situation. Take your time
stepping up to the tee. Take a few practice swings before you step up to the
ball. Take a few deep breaths and take your time setting up. Sometimes just
by taking your time you will be able to get over the nerves before you actually
swing.
The last step is to take control of yourself. You need to be in control.
You cannot let your emotions get the best of you. You need to close your eyes
and mentally picture the perfect shot that you want to hit. Make sure this is
your last most dominant thought before you actually swing the club. You
cannot be thinking about the out of bounds, the trees on the left, or the
people watching. Find your zone.
So with these three steps you can overcome your nerves. Relax, take your
time, take control of the situation and yourself, and make the last most
dominant thought in your mind the perfect shot that you want to hit."
We do not know whether to laugh uproariously or cry hysterically. There is
just enough truth there to bring false, temporary comfort to a listener, but
full bore attention will reveal that it is no more than three peripherals to
the main theme, which does not even get a mention. It's like talking about
how good your printer is and it's not even connected to a PC.
How complicated is it to hear and understand that the natural human function
of anxiety is a necessary resource in our makeup as part and party
to the first line of human defense against any kind of invasive element that
life can bring to us. It is not our enemy. It is our friend. We need
to know how it works and how to manage it since no one in his right mind is
going to either engage, or succeed, in controlling it. We must manage it -
Yes - but it's necessary function is simply not on the safe list for
"control." It is not possible to control it. Attempts to do that
will precipitate denial, inability to know when danger is near, and leave the
"controller" vulnerable to illness, danger and/or death. Even
though it may seem to a golfer that those things are not applicable, that
becomes just another form of denial, since the energy wasted in the exercise
of control, especially in golf, is cumulative and wasted in the process,
leading to poorly finished rounds and haphazard scoring.
For our purposes in the game, we see the masses having apparently decided to
try to put a stake through the heart of the "anxiety" vampire, by
reducing it to "nervousness." It seems that is aimed at making it
go away. However, in view of the clinical reality that anxiety (even if we
call it nervousness) cannot safely be set aside by any attempt to hide it
through intentions to "control" it, we will simply reaffirm a
commitment to the process that suspends the anxiety signal, without needing
to actually disarm the anxiety itself. We know from 29 years of observed
experience, that 12 to13 seconds per shot is sufficiently long enough to
deliver an unencumbered, uninterrupted golf swing, and that we can enable
that process by introducing a clear key to block the signal. That will
prevent the anxiety signal from "telling" the immune system to be
"on guard" and do much the same as what a skunk does when
threatened - it will turn around and blast off.
It should not be necessary to blather on about
the importance of well-developed skills that have been shaped into effective
habits. That's part of the process. But it is time to master our
understanding of all that influences that process, which includes, first and foremost,
a full appreciation of the role and effect of anxiety in and on our lives and
games.
Sadly, should you decide to surf the net, what
you will find are hundreds of pages of repetitive "formulas," not
unlike what Benjamin Ehinger proposes, that completely misrepresent (perhaps
unintentionally, however ignorantly), both the nature and function of anxiety,
AKA "nervousness," and you will not find a single reference even to
the remotest remedial process, unless you stumble onto clear keys. The words
are there, but the music is not.
We have read Shoemaker, Rotella, Hogan (Chuck),
Darren Clarke (Golf-The Mind Factor), Gallwey, Rowe (Energy Psychology and
the Yips), Nilsson & Marriott, and Gigerenzer (Gut Feelings, The
Intelligence of the Unconscious), Mackensie (Golf, The Mind Game), Enhager
(Quantum Golf), Coop (Mind Over Golf), Miller and Redfield (Exploring the
Zone) and Goleman (Emotional Intelligence). Each one makes a point within the
range of accuracy, but not one considers the most important ingredient of all
- How to implement what they are saying into the context of how every action
we perform is in some manner and to some extent affected by pressure and
anxiety, and/or how to manage that. Their words are often inspirational and
instructive, but lack the ultimate test in applicability for enhanced
performance.
Lest that go into the record as over-stated, in our library are all the books
mentioned above along with several more that have been written on the mental
game, which were obtained over time with the hope that we would find
something more than what we are suggesting here. Even the best-promoted names
in the business do not make that trip. Twice we did come across a smidgen -
one in a book of collaboration between John Andrisani and Phil Ritson,
"Golf Your Way," (c. 1992) the last chapter of which gave an early,
incomplete and slightly misleading chapter largely devoted to what Ritson
learned directly from us in early 1990; and another book with Andrisani,
"Think Like Tiger," written in 2002, which also references our
work, again with a few errant strokes of the pen. And we found that Shoemaker
and Enhager came close, but didn't quite finish the journey.
We firmly believe that until and unless the community of those who refer to
themselves as psychologists, psychiatrists, mental game coaches, hypnotists,
EFT therapists, emotional intelligence advocates, spiritual advisors and
instructors who fancy themselves "peak performance" experts grasp
and promote the universal reality of what anxiety means for all of us, we
will continue to have a mental approach to golf that is, for all practical
value, locked in the 1920s and before, and is ultimately simply incapable of
top duty. Even some of the finest physicians we know have not noticed the
relationship between what they know of the immune system (the answering
machine for anxiety signals) and side effects in medication management and
it's relationship to the management of a golf game, though they are quick to
make that connection once it is made evident to them.
You may run as fast as Usain Bolt, swim like Michael Phelps, use the balance
beam like Shawn Johnson, or play golf like Tiger Woods, but you will still
not be exempt from the immune system and it's number one "alarm
clock" that we know by the name "anxiety." You will not arrive
by excluding that reality from your mind or pretending it is only "nervousness"
and that familiarity is all you need to "control" it. Unless you
really devote yourself to understanding the role and impact of that resource,
you will find yourself in default to whatever nature gives you in tension, high
blood pressure, sweating, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, nauseous
secretions, systemic flinches and jerks, not to mention unwanted results in a
flood of technicolor. It may not happen all the time, but happen it will, and
usually when the circumstances need the opposite and you are least prepared
for it.
If we sound like we have a hammer in hand, you are hearing it correctly. It's
not meant for your head, but for the point in reference. Here's hoping the
nail will hold that point in place till you own it for yourself.
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