When you go to play, what do you expect? When you practice, what sort of expectations are you hearing inside your head? Do your expectations change from time to time? If so, in what way? If you are having a bad day either in practice or on the course, does that cause you to change your expectations? What happens with a good day?

If you have a sore back, blisters on your hand, tendonitis, shoulder pain, or some other painful body part, what effect does that bring to your expectant picture? What about if you have had surgery in the not too distant past and this is your first time back to the course? What happens to your expectations? Suppose you wake up feeling "top of the world." Does that make a difference? What kind?

Perhaps you have heard the common pronouncement that we "should all be positive and affirmative with our expectations." Or maybe you have heard that cast in the negative - "Don't have negative expectations." Maybe you once even got hold of Napoleon Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich," from which comes the often quoted phrase, "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Or you maybe got it from Henry Ford, Norman Vincent Peale, Ron Hubbard, Tom Hopkins, or Anthony Robbins, to name a few more. And that does not mention the hundreds of experts on the subjects of "Success or "Achievement" that have come down the pike with their Power Point presentations and satchels loaded with solicited testimonials made especially for the seminar circuit. Nor does it touch the predominance of golf's mental game experts who take that same familiar road. The sum of those points of view comes out: "Expect it to happen and it will."

Their collective urgings have been so visible that one might wonder why we all have not become immaculately successful, masters of positive thinking and expectations, blessed with health, wealth and spotless golf games. It is quite certain that time has not been the problem. It would be hard, with so much emphasis on "expecting the best," not to wonder how we got into an economic freefall world wide, and how we have managed to leave progress in playing the game showing no overall improvement in scoring, would it not? Should it surprise anyone that there is such parallelism in the international downturn and the lack of progress in golf? We are not surprised, since the often unrealized promise of success has been a universal phenomenon in virtually every life arena for a long time, with little pause to consider what really contributes to the journey and what substantially hinders it.

What appears to fool us is that going forward takes more than "what the mind of man can conceive and believe," and going backward requires no resources, or effort, at all. it is an uneven board. Going uphill involves locomotion. We can coast on the downhill. Success can't happen without effective resources. Failure is a consummate snap.

There have been fundamental flaws in our collective thinking about golf that have kept the universal level of play returning the same average scoring, relatively unchanged for decades. In other words, our "expectations" for golf have been left to coast by a mindset that has never found a finish for its sentence. Golfers are regularly urged to "just think positively," "get rid of the negative thoughts," and all will be well. That insufficient claim will have to change, since it is sadly and pejoratively encapsulated in unfinished business. That has been so recalcitrant that only a few references can be found showing any progress whtsoever. Transitional progress has been slim, but visible.

In that transition, we found that Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine in 1897, mentor of Napoleon Hill, said, "The best educated people are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledge from every possible source and at every opportunity." Unfortunately he forgot to mention the companion resource of "skill," though somewhere he may have inserted that line. If he did, it wasn't given much attention, and the masses only picked up on the "think it and you'll get it" part.

A few have finished the sentence completely, but not many. For instance, in 1985, Steven Brown, President of the Fortune Company in Atlanta, completed the sentence in one of his books, and we heard him personally do that. It went like this, in paraphrase: "If you can think it, you can do it, provided you have the knowledge and skill available to accommodate your thoughts." We even asked him what would happen if someone had the skill without the knowledge or vice versa? His response indicated such would fail to make the grade, and he illustrated it with a reference to surgeons. Think about it. Would you go under the knife of someone with knowledge who was not sure what to do with a scalpel, or one who could use a scalpel but was not sure what he needed to cut? Perhaps the mention of the name Chesley Sullenberger will call to mind the meaning and essential nature of knowledge and skill as they combine to affect the results we get from our actions and behaviors.

In 1988, Steve Jobs said, "You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best." We take the word "tools" as reference both to knowledge and skill, and that pair of resources is what we have pointed to for the game since 1980. Happily, a number of players have seen and believed what we have noted. One will not get to the zenith of his or her ability without both the skill of the game (turned into habits), and knowledge in quantitly and quality that goes well beyond grip, stance, posture, alignment and swing plane. Conversely, one can have expectation to whatever degree they want, but if the knowledge and skill are lacking, expectations will be wasted, and time thinking about them, lost.

Sidney G. Winter, a PhD from Yale, and a professor of Management Studies, recently wrote, "knowledge and competence are useful things for a company to have." So that brings to the present moment, at least, a reference to combining knowledge and skill (competence). Could that reflect positive forward motion? Are we starting to find our way past conventional wisdom? Of course, notice that Winter did not insist. He just dropped the idea as being something "useful," a somewhat tentative note. We see it as an imperative, a vital requisite.Bear in mind, we are referring to knowledge, not simple information.

Experience shows that not very many have given attention to putting all that together, so our comments are launched under what amounts to a shroud created by lack of awareness and the sound of regret that so many have missed such critical issues.

We will dare to quote 1 Corinthians 14:8, which says, "If the trumpet should give an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for battle?" And we think the answer is, "almost no one, if not all." At least that's what shows constantly in the golf world. We have little problem hearing the numerous "trumpets" out there blasting away with "uncertain sounds."

It is not enough to think good thoughts. We may be wrong, but we thoroughly suspect that Tiger Woods not only thinks he can win, but has the knowledge and skill to back it up. If you go down the tour roster, you can gauge the combination of what is missing and what is not, in apparent levels of visible inconsistency and uneven competence in players' results. If you visit only a few golf forums and simply read the titles of threads, you will see nearly 100% evidence of doubt and failure in knowledge presented and not a lot less than that showing where skills are discussed. And it is not uncommon to notice fiery insistence upon defending what is unrealistic or spurious with much greater fervor than is directed toward genuine knowledge.

Do we need to stress the issue that skill and knowledge are integrally linked to finding consistent success with one's golf game? They may not be necessary if a "fun game" is all one prefers, but it's been awhile since we encountered any golfer who plays at least 30 times a year, who was not trying to find a way to be "better." Those who are playing only for fun, though that should be one of the benefits for all, may be spending more time in the 19^th hole than they are on the learning tee, and may not have opened a book since their school days.

Finally, a sort of postscript: We have frequently encountered those who used the words of "great expectations" for their games, only to see them flounder and falter short of their personal "finish lines." Some have been able to discuss that with us, and on responding to our questions, have acknowledged that they tended to approach their goals, objectives and game plans with gusto on the surface and lingering doubt underneath. The presence of any kind of doubt is the alarm bell that rings for the knowledge and skill classes to begin. Where there is uncertainy in any size, shape or form, it should be heard as a rich signal to which one needs to respond with a brisk walk to the learning tee, the counseling room or the library. It is cardinal that the playgound of doubt invariably takes residence in our non-conscious thinking, since the conscious mind may speak, "go," but when the "go" doesn't happen, that uncovers and confirms the louder sound of thinking coming from a non-conscious location, which has not yet had the advantage of the developed knowledge and skill necessary to breed confidence, so it says "wait," "stop" or "quit." The task is not just to think differently, but to train differently for its value to all of our thinking resources - 3% conscious and 97% non-conscious. Scratching the surface is simply not enough.

Is it not time to evaluate what it is players really own, at least for those who have earnest goals and desires to reach their own personal pinnacles? In addition, do we not need to evaluate available resources, so that we know the difference between thinking as we always thought and going beyond conventional traps? We think it is, and if what you own is not finished, you may join in on what we own any time you decide to do so. It is well past time to "finish the sentence" with authority and commitment.

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