One Under Par

A Newsletter from KeyGolf...December, 2000

CLEAR TALK

Taking a look at Clear Keys from a perspective other than golf can help you build comprehension, while confirming the reality of the process as it is lived out daily, not to mention in your golf game.

Clear Keys have been used successfully with a wide range of activities, both knowingly and quite unwittingly. Pitching in baseball, throwing darts, serving and receiving in tennis, foul-shooting in basketball, running (as in track), billiards, and managing the anxiety of the dentist's chair are on that list. Illustrations occasionally emerge from unsuspected sources, as well.

The Movie IRON EAGLE, presents a young hero going about his business well outside traditionally accepted limits. The "maverick" theme is at the heart of the story and all of the actions in it. The story emphasizes, among other things, that "doing the right things" is more effective than "doing things right." As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that one of Iron Eagle's more noticeable "quirks" is his obsession for playing his own special music on strafing and bombing runs. When he is not allowed to use his music, he can't hit the broad side of a barn. With the music, however, he is deadly accurate. No matter what label you give to it, that is how a Clear Key works.

An archived chapter from The Simpson's on TV showed Bart in competition with one of his peers in a putt-putt contest. At a most critical point in the match, Bart stepped over a long putt he needed to make and was heard to say "A tree grows in the woods...a tree grows in the woods..." while he was in the act of stroking the putt. He holed it. We are confident that the writers did not set out to illustrate Clear Keys, even though they had Bart and his sister engage, at the show's beginning, in the same kind of conversation that might take place between a player and a sport psychologist. They were looking for a clever way to produce a laugh, and they were successful. Even so, the point was unmistakable. (I have had people write to me to find out if the Bart Simpson writer(s) had attended a clinic on Clear Keys).

Awhile back, during an interview on the Golf Channel, Duffy Waldorf recounted a victory story that also illustrates how clear keys work as we have observed and understood it. He did not, however, use the expression "clear keys," or its cousin "zone," and he didn't appear to realize he was talking about such conditions. Duffy was only responding to a question about the images and words his wife and family regularly paint on his golf balls.

Duffy told the interviewer that by focusing on the images on the golf balls, it took his mind away from the anxieties of hitting the shots. Even though he didn't seem to notice it, he was referencing the singular way we all have of managing anxiety (and being on automatic). That gift comes from thinking about anything, except what we are doing, while we are doing it. He acknowledged it helped, but if he knew why, he wasn't saying it, and we don't blame him. It tends to sound peculiar because "the why's" of automatic performance don't get through to media representatives. They just don't get it. And they feed that back in such a way that what everyone else derives is the "don't get it part." So few see it and almost nobody "gets" it.

When Ben Crenshaw won his last Masters, he had just returned to Augusta from the funeral of his very dear and loved mentor, Harvey Penick. By his own acknowledgment, it was that which filled his mind during the tournament. He was playing in the zone created by not thinking about what he was doing while he was doing it. That may seem like an exceptional zone, but it isn't. It is the zone created by a real, normal part of life, that acts as a Clear Key for one's actions. The Clear Key is the tool that puts you in a zone that you can manage - on that doesn't just fall into your lap.

In a pitching appearance in a World Series game back in the '80's Orel Herschiser had a similar experience with a version of "clear keys" which he related to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. In response to Johnny's question about the anxiety of pressure pitching, he said he handled it simply by "singing the Doxology" in his head while he delivered the pitch. He occupied his mind with things that had nothing to do with what he was actually doing. The Doxology was his Clear Key at that time. One may be tempted to label what Orel was doing as the BIG Zone, or some kind of divine intervention. Close scrutiny will show, however, that it was a pure function of the everyday zone - again, the one that is self-manageable. It was subject to the same universal principles available to everyone, even when they are doing something as simple and innocent as brushing their teeth.

If you saw the movie "For Love of the Game," and you heard Billy Chapel say "Clear the mechanism," you'll have yet another indicator of what clear keys can do and how they do it - again from ordinary, everyday experiences.

We don't imply that some point should have been made about Clear Keys in these cases. We simply note for our readers the range of opportunity that exists to confirm how thoroughly the automatic principle is entwined in everything we do, even when people are not aware of it. We call attention to it as a way of reinforcing the perception necessary to increase our determination to appreciate and apply principles that are transferable in their usefulness, even though not obvious to the casual observer.

By allowing ourselves to think "differently" about how we do things, we can avoid being limited to seeing things the way we always saw them and using the way others see them as the standard for measurement.

In golf, the basic issues relating to the automatic principle didn't get "lost." We simply never quite got through the maze of conditioned perception to find them in the first place - until now. We got close, but never there. We have always been urged to play on automatic, wonder about it, speculate on it, oversimplify it, and even immortalize it, but not "How" to do it, so we didn't understand it well enough to build it in to our shot-making and playing.

Even Robert T. Jones, Jr., with all his mental and physical genius, couldn't quite finish the statement. We found a reprint of an article he wrote in 1929 called "Mental Hazards of Golf." It is eloquent. Jones says, "The golf swing is a most complicated combination of muscular actions, too complex to be controlled by objective, conscious mental effort." One could hardly reject that idea.

Then he says, "Consequently we must rely a good deal upon the instinctive reactions acquired by long practice." Now we have a problem. What does "good deal" mean quantitatively? What percentage shall we pick from 1 - 100? Is it "long practice" or focused practice that builds our skill to the effective habit level (the difference can be critical)? And which part really is instinctive (reaction) and which part is learned (action)?

Then Bobby goes on to say, "It has been my experience that the more completely we can depend upon this instinct - the more thoroughly we can divest the subjective mind of conscious control - the more perfectly we can execute our shots." He could not have been more correct in that statement, though we are still left with the question, "How do we do that?" If we accept his former statement, unevaluated, this one falls easily into place. A second look, however, reveals that he was reflecting on his own experience accompanied by any presumptions he might have had about the meaning and locus of "instinct."

Bobby's next words in the article are profound. "I have even had the experience that when I played some of my best shots in trying situations I had not the slightest recollection of hitting the ball." Unfortunately, we don't know, and may never find out, what his thought process was during execution. We also do not know how thoroughly he was versed in the relationship between conscious and unconscious thinking, or if, in fact he made any distinction there at all. But since he is describing the state of "defocus" that invariably accompanies true automatic, we know he was there at least part of the time, by his own words, which does offer a measure of verification.

The Clear Key process may be in its "youth" as a definable entity, but it is safe to say that it's been around longer than we were aware and it's here to stay.

Let us know if you have questions or comments.