Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
HOLE 1
Waking Up
The word buddha means "the awakened one," and the golfer comes closest to this state at the moment of impact with the golf ball, usually a point when the thinking mind stops and a unity occurs among body, mind, spirit, and the delicious senses that arise with that hopefully pure impact.
What is Mindful Golf?
It may be an oxymoron linking mindfulness and golf, but the game is so wedded to success and failure, that it is the perfect venue to practice and train in the great art of being present. In the blink of a flubbed chip, you are challenged to either accept reality and move on with grace or stew in that reality and let it drag you into the ashes. In that chip, you are left exposed, your emotions laid bare for your playing partners to see. There is usually a deep silence after such a disastrous shot, a silence that almost resonates through the cosmos. The black hole of the flubbed chip, sucking all into its vortex. Beings light years away turn their heads toward that silence, noticing the faint gasp of pain uttered by its source.
Pain, suffering, discontent, the skulled or chili-dipped chip, in that moment, hits the chipper like the Big Bang in its moment. How you react is a measure of your level of mindfulness. In fact it may be the closest human beings come to knowing what the Big Bang felt like, and indeed felt equally by presidents, butchers, plumbers, judges, surgeons, and street sweepers: golfers all.
The Buddha said all life is suffering. But he also said there is a way out of life's suffering moments, a way to be free from suffering. So when you do botch a chip, you can learn from it, accept it, and move on. Getting bogged down in that moment, means missing fully living subsequent moments, and that is the opposite of mindfulness. You are trapped in suffering. You drop your club to the ground, you slump over, lowering the brim of your cap, and say, "There goes my freakin' round. I am such an idiot."
Of course, the Buddha never did play golf, nor did he stick with his wife and child, two of life's true tests of enlightenment. We've given him a pass all these years because he talked a good game, and, man, could he meditate. And, oh yes, he chose instead to enlighten all sentient beings. But we have a more direct and immediate opportunity, given the razor's edge of golf. In every round there will be any number of shots that test our courage, our intelligence, our resilience, and our tendency to forget to remember. With each moment, we wipe the slate clean to make ready for the next, as a newborn might, fresh, alive, unburdened by the thought of failure or disappointment in the last.
The mindful golfer is not necessarily an accomplished golfer. Nor is the scratch golfer (i.e., zero handicap) necessarily mindful. The mindful golfer will think well of his playing companions or opponents. She will notice the egret wading in the pond where she just hit her approach. He will acknowledge how fortunate he is to be playing this game even after hitting his tee ball out of bounds. He will feel happy for his playing buddy after watching him sink a thirty-footer, something the Buddhists call mudita, or taking pleasure in the good fortune of others.
A mindful golfer will take heed if deer or geese are in the line of his shot, so as to protect from hitting them. And she will take extra care to make sure she doesn't hit another golfer who may be forward of her ball. In other words, the mindful golfer is conscious and aware of his or her surroundings. He keeps his voice down after making a great shot so as not to disturb the concentration of others nearby. Courteous, polite, considerate — these are all characteristics of the mindful golfer.
This does not mean such a golfer does not, at times, get angry, frustrated, demoralized, and even a bit depressed. It's just that he doesn't hold on to these states of mind. She knows they will pass if she allows it.
There is an ingenious and very low-tech monkey trap in South America that consists of a gourd with a hole at one end and a tether attached to the other with the whole deal hanging from a tree. A ball of food is placed in the gourd. The monkey comes along, puts his hand in the gourd, grabs the food, but can't pull his hand out since his fist with the food inside is too big. The monkey hunter comes back and bags the trapped monkey. All the monkey had to do to escape was open his hand and let go of the food to easily pull his hand out of the gourd. But he won't let go of the food, and that is the essence of the trap.
For we golf monkeys, who won't let go of the negative feelings generated by poor shots that can sabotage the next series of holes, all we have to do is let go of the memories of the shots and get ourselves free.
It's very rare to find a mindful golfer. Golf is a game involving desire of such strength it turns into an opiate. You have to find that balance between playing the game and getting gamed by the play. How do you know if you've attained that balance and are moving in the direction of mindful golf? You assess your level of suffering. This takes clear and deep honesty, for Freud has shown us all the ways we avoid that honesty. But you'll know what suffering feels like thanks to those mind states that don't go away so quickly, namely guilt, remorse, anger, fear, and shame.
Hope you find your game ... and the path that leads to always enjoying it no matter what the shot or score.
The Golfer's Mind
The human mind desires. For a golfer who is standing on the first tee, that translates into wanting to hit it long and straight, setting him up well for the next shot, and ultimately leading to a good score. For the beginner, that desire may just be getting it off the tee and airborne. For the accomplished player, it may be as specific as putting the ball in a certain place in the fairway. It's all "wanting" just the same. So you might ask, "What's wrong with wanting?" Without it, there would be no progress, no ambition, no striving. And it's true: we need wanting and desire to live in this world. But when wanting becomes the end all, be all, of our lives (including our golf game), there is often dissatisfaction. And with dissatisfaction, there is little happiness. And if golf doesn't bring happiness, then why play? Unfortunately, more people then not are coming to that conclusion and are dropping out of the game.
The basis of desire in golf lies in the score, and scoring is a major factor in distinguishing golf as competitive or recreational. If you play it as a competitive sport, keeping score is necessary and desire is essential. Of course, you can view keeping score in a less attached way, but that probably won't win you many tournaments or help lower your handicap. In that case, go ahead and increase the degree of your wanting and be prepared for considerable mental suffering. Just rest assured that all things, including suffering, arise and pass away. Of course they often arise again after a time of more wanting.
For those who play the game more for recreation, I recommend deemphasizing keeping score. I know this may seem heretical to those who consider keeping score sacrosanct, but here's my rationale. The great satisfaction of golfing has to do with making pure contact with the ball, both tee to green and with putting and chipping. There is no other experience in sport like it. That is the element that draws people to the game — much more than attaining good scores, although good scores often follow if pure contact happens consistently. With a pure hit, there is a sound like no other — a whoosh that only the wind outdoes. There is a solid sensation of the contact of ball against clubface. There is the hang time of the ball in the air as it approaches fairway or green. There is the feeling in the hands controlling the club and the flight of the ball. There is the feeling of exhilaration in the mind, in the heart, in the spirit at making pure contact, a feeling that can rarely be put into words.
It is what touring pros feel, and is about the only sport where the amateur can, at times, feel what the pro feels. I made a sixty-footer for birdie recently. I've made three holes-in-one. I've chipped in a number of times. Flew an 8-iron directly into the cup for eagle once ... when I was fifteen. Tiger Woods made, what Jack Nicklaus called, "one of the most incredible golf shots you'll ever see played" when he pitched it in from just off the green at the Memorial to effectively win the tournament. His feeling then and mine on the previously mentioned shots were not much different in the moment of the accomplishment. It's that kind of game. Of course, Jack forgot to mention his 1-iron at the '72 U.S. Open at Pebble that hit the stick and settled about a foot from the cup for a tap in birdie to insure the win. Again, his feeling over that shot, and mine were different in degree, but not in spirit.
How to get to that feeling of pure contact requires some reining in of the tendency of the mind to want and desire. When Woods hit his "incredible" pitch, I'm sure he was focused on the ball and not on the result of the shot. He studied the daunting challenge, chose his club, took his stance, opened the blade of his club, and judged how long a backswing he needed. But when he pulled the trigger, he was in a world of his own mind beyond any other in the universe at that moment. At that instant, he was beyond desire. He was experiencing what the Buddhists call True Self. Tiger has his faults, sure. Don't we all? But despite his desires, goals, and ambitions, when he strikes the ball on any given shot, he is in this True Self/Golfer's Mind.
At the moment of impact between ball and club, the mind and body need to be in a state of calm, achieved through even breathing, no thought, a connection with the ball via the eye, and execution of the proper fundamentals of hitting a golf ball, only the last of which will you need a pro to point you in the right direction. All the rest, you can accomplish through your own volition, personal practice, and training. Yes, the fundamentals learned from a pro are essential to progress in technique, but learning to quiet the mind and focus on the task at hand is the real challenge.
Taking on that challenge does not involve leaving home and joining a monastery. Devoting some time each morning to sitting still and letting your thoughts settle like filtrate drifting to the bottom of a test tube, leaving clear liquid behind, is a good start. Ten to twenty minutes would be fine. Then every time you go to the range, make that practice ground a form of meditation. You are most often there alone, quietly practicing. It's a tension-free time by yourself and for yourself. Check your fundamentals then focus on the ball before you hit each shot. Do this for ten minutes of your practice session. When you play, see if you can carry over the practice of concentrating on the ball at address. A swing thought (or simple reminder of how to initiate a part of the swing) or two is fine but before you pull the trigger, shut off the thoughts and let your eyes take over without any judgment of what they see. Just the back of a ball, the strike, and looking up after impact to see the result. Success in this case is not where it landed but how it felt. Get used to sensing how it felt after contact and even predicting where it landed based on how impact felt. Get to recognize the feel of when you've hit the ball solidly. Remember, you can still hit it solid and have an off-line result. Your friends or playing companions may not think the shot so good, but you are the final judge, jury, and executioner of how solid you've hit the ball. Only you can tell if you have attained True Self/Golfer's Mind.
The mind cannot be seen nor fully understood, but it is the one element in golf that most influences the performance of the game. I have spent a lifetime examining the mind, my own and others, and have barely scratched the surface of how it works. Most of my insights come via Eastern approaches, specifically through Buddhist meditation and psychology. There is no mystery to these approaches. In fact, they are quite practical and can be demonstrated by examining the minds of successful golfers.
Let's take a look at one of the more successful golfers on Tour, Jason Dufner, winner of the 2013 PGA Championship. Bland fellow, Jason is (ever hear of Dufnering, where the practitioner sits on his hands on the floor, and looks bored? Jason started this trend when he visited an elementary school classroom in 2013), and his golf swing is no better than any other pro out there. But there is a huge difference with how Jason conducts himself on the course compared to his competition, which is not only other players but the course itself. He doesn't worry or even think about how anyone else is doing at any given moment. He just lies back and plays golf and has fun with it. It doesn't look like Jason is having fun, because he may be the least emotional guy in the field. But since I don't know what's in Jason's mind, I will take him at his word that he is indeed having fun. (If you need convincing that The Duf is having fun with golf, see his parody instructional video, "How Duf Does It" from "Funny or Die".) That is a good state of mind for a touring pro, the reason being that he doesn't get in his own way, which is something all of us can learn as well. Because most amateurs do get in their own way, at least as far as golf is concerned, and possibly in other aspects of life.
The problem mostly revolves around negative thinking, something we learn from childhood. Through a series of actions and reactions, we begin to see ourselves as not getting it right. It's what a much different Jason Dufner looked like when he blew a four-shot lead and the playoff against Keegan Bradley in 2012 PGA Championship. It's what I looked like after hitting a great 6-iron fifteen feet from the pin on the par 3 15th at Bennett Valley recently only to 3-putt for a bogey. The first putt was uphill and woefully short, deflating my confidence for the next five-footer and missing it badly. When the first putt is bad, negative thinking can set in for the next and a ton of confidence suddenly drops into a pool of insecurity. In golf, this can happen often within a round, each putt or chip feeling like a looming land mine.
The golfer's mind is like a dog off leash. Anything can trigger it into a spasm of distraction. I laugh at the pros needing absolute quiet before hitting. Noise from the crowd is the least of their worries. The noise in their heads is much more a distraction than any hiccup or camera click. Same thing with amateurs trying to putt while their companions carry on a conversation about their latest business deal. In fact, amateurs might feel less stress on the tee if they knew no one really cared about the results of their shot. To quiet your own mind — and that is where golfers and Buddhist meditators come together — you must first hear yourself talking to yourself, and then tell yourself to shut up. There will always be external noises and sights that you have no control over — crows, people, squirrels, waterfalls, alligators — but the voices within can be commanded to stop. After all, you only need about thirty seconds of silence to accomplish a noise-free shot. Most Buddhist meditation sessions last about thirty to forty minutes of quieting the mind, so performing a golf shot with full attention on the ball is a piece of cake in comparison. It doesn't require any esoteric instruction either. You simply yell "Quiet!" to yourself or "Stop!" in your mind or sub-vocally and return your attention to either your feet contacting the ground, your grip pressure, the sight of a dimple on the back of the ball — anything physical that doesn't trigger any analyzing thoughts. Buddhists call these objects of meditation, and are effective means to accomplish quiet concentration.
Too often, we think of the results or consequences of the shot. How can I avoid the pond? I don't want to reach that bunker. If I hit it too short I'll have a very difficult chip. These are negative thoughts that creep into the mind and affect the body. Such thoughts cause tightness in the body, tightness affects rhythm and timing, and, even for a good player, a shot can stray slightly left or right and wind up in trouble. A golf course is designed with such aberrations of timing in play. It is truly not an easy game.
Of course, there is a time for thoughts on course management. Annika Sorenstam advises standing in an imaginary box behind the ball before taking your address position and thinking through the shot. Once accomplished, you then take your address, clear the mind, and pull the trigger. A few years ago, Kevin Na struggled with starting his swing after addressing the ball, probably the result of too many thoughts invading his head. Great suffering, the Buddhists would say. But eventually Kevin was able to move through this, pull the trigger, and hit often-good shots. He was very open about his process, which I admired, and eventually worked through this, pull the trigger, and hit often-good shots. He was very open about his process, which I admired, and eventually worked through this traumatic time. He was too talented a golfer to stay stuck for long. Essentially, Na got out of his own way.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Mindful Golfer"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Stephen Altschuler.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
