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“…When you throw a ball to me, without thought, my hands go up and catch it. When a child or animal runs in front of your car, you automatically apply the brakes. When you throw a punch at me, I intercept and hit you back, but without thought. ‘It’ just happens. ‘It’ is the state of mind the Japanese refer to as “mushin,” which literally means “no-mind”. According to Zen masters, mushin is operating when the actor is separate from the act and no thoughts interfere with the action because the unconscious act is the most free and uninhibited. When mushin functions, the mind moves from one activity to another, flowing like a stream of water and filling every space.”
“And how does one attain this state of no-mindedness?”, I asked.
“Only through practice and more practice, until you can do something without conscious effort. Then your reaction becomes automatic.”
Bruce Lee ( speaking to his friend and student Joe Hyams in Hyams book, Zen in the Martial Arts.
Tom has been a student of mine for almost a year. He plays to a 12 handicap but relies on his athletic ability to a great degree since he was self taught for the most part and uses a swing rife with serious flaws. His play, as a result, is quite erratic, with scores ranging from the high seventies to the mid nineties. In our lessons we almost always hit on the same three or four basic swing errors, but since the correct movements need to be done all at the same time Tom has a hard time organizing his attempt to make a lasting change. It doesn’t help that Tom is an avid reader of golf magazines, and I spend at least part of every lesson saving him from the latest “tip of the month.” This week’s lesson is no different…
Wayne: “So, Tom, how’s it going? Did you play any good last week?”
Tom: “Well, I had a very good round on Saturday, then started well on Sunday, but by the end of the round I wasn’t doing very well.”
Wayne: “What were you thinking about out there? What were you trying to do?”
Tom: “That’s just it. I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
Wayne: (Eyebrows raised) “Oh, really. And why was that?”
Tom: “You know, It was the strangest thing. I was in the bookstore at the Mall looking at the golf books and I came across this book by Bob Rotini or something like that called Golf is not a Perfect Game…
Wayne: “You mean Bob Rotella, and it’s ‘Golf is Not a Game of Perfect’.”
Tom: “Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, I’m reading this book, and it’s like a light goes off in my head.”
Wayne: “Are you sure it wasn’t your brain exploding?”
Tom: “Very funny. No, really, it really clicked with me.”
Wayne: “What clicked?”
Tom: “When he said that you should just look at the target and swing. No thinking! And here I was, thinking about every little thing and getting practically paralyzed. I even wrote down a quote for you. Listen to this: ‘Nick Price wants to think only of his target as he swings. He tells me (Rotella) that he’s constantly struck by how much better he swings the more sharply he focuses his mind on his target. Fred Couples says he tries to have no swing thoughts at all. They are the new golf avatars’. “Can you believe that? I figured if those guys do it, it would probably be good for me.”
Wayne: “Fred Couples, huh? Isn’t that the guy who said he doesn’t want to answer the phone because there might be someone on the other end? And don’t forget that Nick Price went ten years without winning a single tour event? Do you think he was on the range for ten years thinking about nothing? Maybe that’s what he worked on with Leadbetter, how to get better at thinking about nothing but the target.”
Tom: “Say what you want, it really worked on Saturday, and it was great. It was easy. I haven’t enjoyed a round so much since I can remember. Probably never, since I’ve always been thinking out there.”
Wayne: “O.K., O.K., but what happened on Sunday?”
Tom: “That’s what bugs me. I don’t really know. I was focusing on the target the exact same way, at least as far as I could tell, but the ball stopped going there. In fact, by the end of the round, I had no idea where it was going.”
Wayne: “So did you try to correct yourself?”
Tom: “No, I tried not to. That would have meant I had to start thinking again.”
Wayne: “So how did you figure you were going to hit good shots?”
Tom: “I just wanted to stick with it. I guess I hoped it would just come back and the ball would start going where it was supposed to.”
Wayne: “You know, we’ve been working together for some time, and it seemed to me that we were on the right track. Every week I show you that you consistently do the same basic things wrong, then we work out a plan of attack so that eventually you can do them right and play better golf. We talk about the “process” and how difficult it is to change what has become habitual, and you usually agree. So what’s with this not thinking stuff? I don’t get it.”
Tom: “I read somewhere that Jack Nicklaus said that golf was 10% mechanics and 90% mental. I seem to spend all my time on mechanics. And it’s so hard! The positions you put me in, all the stretching and pulling, Oy, it can’t be that tough. The guys on TV make it look so easy, like they’re expending no effort at all. Why should it feel so uncomfortable to me? I’m a decent athlete, I’m not stupid, so why should it take so long? After I read Torelli I figured it was worth a shot. It worked, then it didn’t, so here I am.
Wayne: “It’s Rotella. Look, I can’t fault you for trying. Getting better is all about experimenting, and lucky for you I’m here to monitor your experiments. I remember reading that Nicklaus quote and thinking “what planet is this guy on?” Has he ever seen 99% of the people who play golf? Let’s put it this way: On a scale of 1 to 10, rate Nicklaus’s game back in the sixties and seventies.”
Tom: “He’s the best player ever, so it would have to be a 10.”
Wayne: “O.K. Now rate your game on the same scale.”
Tom: (Chuckles) “About a 1, I guess.”
Wayne: “So, if Jack is a 10 and for him the mental game is 90%, then since you’re a 1 that would mean that for you the mental game would be 10%. Which leaves 90% for mechanics. When your game gets to a 10 you can spend 90% of your energy on the mental side. It’s really pretty simple. You have a hard time with the game because the game is so hard. The guys you watch on TV grew up with the game. Their bodies are physically tuned to it. What feels like an incredible strain to you is second nature to them. It will never be that easy for you. And don’t kid yourself. You only see the guys who are playing the best every week. You never see the ones who miss the cut. If you want to see proof that the game is incredibly hard at every level just talk to a guy who’s missed 4 or 5 cuts in a row. He won’t be telling you how effortless his swing feels.
What I’m trying to say is that golf is a very physical game, and it’s a thinking man’s game, as well. Consciously trying not to think is just that, a conscious thought. It takes an incredible amount of practice to make any movement as unnatural as the golf swing automatic. We already know what your swing looks like when you don’t think about anything. It looks incorrect, and it hits bad shots. Looking intently at a target, feeling good about yourself, going through a consistent routine, deep breathing to relax, all these are good ideas and can be helpful, but none will make a chronic swing flaw disappear.
If you are trying to think of too many things at the same time you need to organize your swing thoughts into no more than two general, simpler, suggestive thoughts to replace the list you have going through your head. But you still need to think about what you are doing. You will find that when your understanding and execution of your technique truly gets better you will find yourself thinking less specifically about what you are doing, to the point where you may even look back at a round and say “I wasn’t really thinking about anything, I was just swinging.” That moment is like the moment described by Zen Masters as satori, or the moment of enlightenment. After years of diligent searching and practicing with the singular goal of attaining this enlighted state and failing to do so, the student loses himself in the daily living of his practice. The goal fades into the background and he simply does what he does out of enjoyment, with no expectations. One day, the student the finds himself to be a Master. He hardly noticed.
There are very few who reach this state. Athletes find it every now and then and refer to it as “the zone”. But it’s something that just happens, and not very often at that. Most of the Tour players you see and read about work very hard on their mechanics and play with one or more swing thoughts. Sam Snead and Fred Couples are the exception, not the rule. There is a middle ground between too much thinking and none at all. The goal of the vast majority of golfers is to find the right balance which allows them to move freely while reminding themselves of the objectives of their motion.
So for now, what you need to do is to simply do the work each day the best you can and focus on one shot at a time. Try to remember that the next shot is the only shot over which you have control. The essence of every great practitioner of golf has been his ability to place 100% of his attention on the shot at hand, knowing that this shot has the possibility of being the best shot he ever hit, the shot that will bring him golfing enlightenment, and that to give it anything but total focus means he has given up, something champions never do.”
Tom: “Jeez, that was some lecture. You ought to write a book or something. If Tortoni can do it, why not you?”
Wayne: “I’ll think about it. In the meantime, why don’t we have a look at your swing and see if we can come up with something constructive for you to think about.”