• The question is never, “What do I feel?” It is, “What memory of mine is being associated with this experience?”
• Neurologically speaking, life can be effectively described as a series of biased interpretations of experience. As awful as this sounds, it does suggest that if interpretation itself can be altered, and not experiences, life can be quite different.
• I often ask a trick question to athletes: What do you do if you want to get to really know someone? I always get good responses. I then ask: How many of those things do you do to get to know yourself? In the middle of competition is not the right time to learn about yourself!@izzyjustice

Why Train in EQ?

So why invest in learning about the brain and Emotional Intelligence (EQ)? I recognize that you are already spending hours on the range, on the putting green, in the short game area playing with 14 different clubs, each of which you can use to hit a variety of shots depending on grip, swing, force of strike, and so on. There is a lot to practice in the physical game of golf and shots to have. There are also all the equipment changes that come out every year from clubs to grips, balls, and so much more.

So why add yet one more dimension to your practice plan? Perhaps the best way to establish the case for this is to review several examples of what happens all the time in golf and other sports. Below are actual stories by professionals and amateurs alike. I had literally hundreds to choose from, but selected just a few that underscore the fact that mis-hits (bad shots) are virtually guaranteed to occur in golf, and it is your emotional response to them that can be the difference between underperforming and recovering to overachieve.

“I think maybe I hit only one perfect shot a round.” –Jack Nicklaus

• In the 1989 Masters, Scott Hoch had a one-shot lead with two holes to go. As he walked to the 17th tee, he said he started thinking about winning the tournament for the first time. He hit his drive into the 15th fairway, from where he said he made a mental mistake by trying to hit his second shot all the way back to the flag instead of leaving it underneath the hole like he knew he should have. He hit it over the green and missed a short putt for par.
  He ended up in a playoff with Nick Faldo. On the first hole of the playoff, number 10, Hoch hit a perfect drive and second shot in the middle of the green, while Faldo hit it in a greenside bunker and made bogey. Hoch had to two-putt an uphill 20-footer for the win. He ran his first putt two and a half feet past the hole and had a downhill left-to-right breaking putt for the win. He recalled that on the 17th hole, he had backed off his short par putt, which he missed. On the playoff hole, he said that he wanted to hit the breaking putt firmly, so as to eliminate most of the break, but he was not comfortable over the ball and knew that he was aiming too far to the left for the speed he wanted to hit the putt with. He said that he did not want to back off again because of what happened on 17, so he continued on. Everything seemed to be going too fast. He ultimately hit the putt too hard for where he was aiming and missed the putt that would have won him the tournament. He then lost the playoff on the next hole.

Analysis: The emotional anxiety of potentially winning led him to hit his shot on 15 farther. The emotional memory of the putt on 17th compromised his ability to hit the putt harder on the playoff hole. High negative emotions redirected his neuropathways (thinking routes in the brain) so everything appears faster as fewer options are explored. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews, Doug Sanders had a two-foot putt on the 18th green to beat Jack Nicklaus by a shot. Sanders said that, over the final three holes, he was already thinking that he had won the tournament and how great it was. On his two-footer on 18, Sanders took an inordinately long amount of time over the ball. Before he took the putter back, he was distracted by what he thought was a small pebble between his ball and the hole. He bent down to pick it up, only to realize that it was just a piece of discolored grass. Instead of going through his normal routine again, he went straight back to his stance over the ball. He said he could hear people in the gallery laughing and he thought to himself, “I’ll teach them to laugh at me,” instead of thinking about his putt, which he ended up missing. He lost a playoff to Nicklaus the next day and never won a single major championship.

Analysis: Hitting a two-foot putt was not the issue. Allowing his focus to wander was. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 1961 Masters, Arnold Palmer was leading Gary Player by one shot when he hit his drive to the middle of the fairway on 18. It was going to be his third Masters in four years. His good friend, George Low, was in the gallery at the spot of his second shot and congratulated him on his victory. Palmer proceeded to hit his shot into the greenside bunker and make a double bogey to lose to Player by a shot. In many interviews Palmer has given since regarding that loss, he regrets how his emotions got the better of him with the congratulatory comment.

Analysis: Even for the most talented and skilled golfers, vulnerability to unwelcome emotions and thoughts is high. The racing thoughts in his head over-powered the ability to hit the desired shot. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie, Jean Van de Velde held a three-shot lead on the 18th tee. Knowing that he only needed a double bogey to win, Van de Velde hit a driver off the tee instead of a 3-wood or even a long iron for safety. He hit it so far to the right that he luckily avoided the water hazard to the right of the fairway and ended up on the 17th hole. When the camera man zoomed in on his face after the tee shot, Van de Velde put his hand over the lens in embarrassment. After the fortunate break off the tee, he merely needed to pitch the ball back to the fairway and then play to the green from there. He later said that he did not want to win that way, by pitching back to the fairway, and instead wanted to win with a flare by hitting a 2-iron over the hazard in front of the green. His 2-iron flew into the grandstand to the right of the green, ricocheted off a metal pole, hopped off the rock wall of the hazard, and buried itself in a miserable lie in the waist high rough, still not over the water yet. Again, instead of pitching the ball sideways, he tried to go over the hazard, but did not hit it hard enough and hit it right in the middle of the water. After a drop, a pitch that found the front bunker, and a bunker shot, he ended up having to make a 7-footer for triple bogey just to get into a three-man playoff, which he eventually lost.

Analysis: Pitching the ball back in play was the right cognitive decision with the lead he had. His emotional desire to look heroic in victory trumped an otherwise simple decision. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 2016 Masters, Ernie Els was playing his first hole of the first round. After missing the green and chipping up to three feet, Els experienced one of the worst cases of the yips that have ever been seen. Just the previous week in Houston, he had led the field in putting from inside of 10 feet. His stroke on the first green was so shaky and violent that he never even came close to hitting the hole on his 3-footer. He did the same thing on the comeback attempt from two feet and ended up missing three more times from less than three feet. He ended up six-putting the hole for a score of nine, and ultimately missed the cut. He admitted after the round that his game coming into the week was very sharp and he put a lot of pressure on himself to win a tournament that he desperately wanted to win in the late stages of his career.

Analysis: With each miss, it was less about a two-foot putt and more about the emotion of failure which diluted his focus on a routine putt. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• At the second stage of the 2012 PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, a mini-tour player had finally gotten off to a solid start at the stage that had been his stumbling block to getting back out onto a major tour. This was the last year in which a player could play their way straight onto the PGA Tour, but still with the consolation prize of assuring membership on the Web.com Tour. Through two rounds, he was nine under par and had only made a single bogey.As he sat in the hotel room that evening, his mind started thinking ahead to how great it would be to at least get back out on the Web.com Tour, where he had not played since 2007. He was well inside the cut number and playing nearly flawlessly, so he was essentially planning his schedule out for the next year.He was paired with two high profile players in the third round and felt like his brain was in a cloud all day. He was caught up in comparing his game to theirs and began hitting poor shot after poor shot. He shot 74 in the third round to put himself on the cut line. He was again paired with two notable players in the last round, and was again playing in a mental fog. He shot 75 in the final round to miss advancing.

Analysis: There are three competitors in golf in this order: (i) you, (ii) the course, and (iii) other golfers. The emotions of playing with two better-known players reversed the order of importance and focus. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 1991 Ryder Cup at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Mark Calcevecchia was playing against Colin Montgomery in the Sunday singles matches. Calcavecchia was four up with four to play and knew that even a half point either way could win or lose the Cup. Montgomery won the 15th and 16th holes, but hit his tee shot in the water on the par-three 17th. Needing only to hit the ball on dry land, Calcavecchia topped his tee shot into the water. After both dropped and played to the green, Calcavecchia needed a two-footer for a double bogey that would tie the hole and win the match. He missed the putt and lost the 18th hole as well to end up halving the match. After suffering what appeared to be a panic attack in the minutes following the match, Calcavecchia said that he had suddenly felt the entire weight of winning the Ryder Cup for his teammates when he was ‘4 up with 4 to play’ and it became too big for him.

Analysis: The “weight” he is talking about is nothing more than the extreme emotional condition of that moment. The mistake was not in feeling that, but rather in not knowing how to deal with it. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• A junior golfer had an AJGA tournament where several college coaches would be in attendance. She had been playing very well and had a great practice before the round. To her surprise, when she walked up to the first tee, virtually all the coaches were there even though several groups had already started before her. She had played in front of people before, but she said she had never felt so many eyes on her and became aware that every single thing she did on that tee box would be analyzed. She proceeded to block her shot out of bounds and never recovered. For the remainder of the round, she was more anxious to finish and get out than to try to recover and salvage a decent score.

Analysis: Her issue on the tee box had nothing to do with all the practice she had done on her physical game. She told me later she never practiced for a moment like that and had no idea how to process all that stimuli in her head. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 1996 Masters, Greg Norman held a six-shot lead going into the last round. The Masters was always the tournament that he wanted to win the most, but it was also where he had suffered the most crushing defeats of his career in years past. He had played flawlessly in the first round, tying the course and major championship record of 63. His play had become more ragged over the next two rounds, but most analysts were still practically conceding him the tournament with 18 holes to go. In an interview almost 20 years later, Norman admitted that when he woke up Sunday morning, he could sense that he was “off”. He said that he was struggling with an off the course issue that was at the verge of boiling over, yet he never told anyone about it. On the range before the round, he admitted that he was panicking, despite his coach and caddie both telling him his swing looked perfect. On the course, he opened with a bogey and made mistake after mistake, eventually shooting 78 and losing by five shots to Nick Faldo.

Analysis: We are human beings with one brain. There is no way to compartmentalize personal life from golf as it is the same brain that houses all experiences and memories. Personal life has arguably the largest emotional impact on a golfer because golf is a non-reactive sport (unlike basketball or tennis) where most of the time (93%) is not on the physical game. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In the 2016 Masters, Jordan Spieth was attempting to become the fourth player in history to win back to back tournaments, as well as his third major championship. During the final round, Spieth made four consecutive birdies from holes 6 to 9 to open up a five-shot lead with nine holes to play. After playing his most solid nine holes of the tournament, Spieth later said that he started the back nine just trying to make pars to protect his lead. He began to hit poor shot after poor shot and made two bogeys in a row before hitting his tee shot in the water on number 12. After taking his drop, he proceeded to chunk his third shot into the water again and made a quadruple bogey. He ultimately lost the tournament by three shots. When later asked what his thinking was during those shots in the water, he said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a tough 30 minutes that I hope I never experience again.”

Analysis: “Not being able to think clearly” is the sure sign that emotions have taken over, not that you cannot think. Managing emotions well is determined by how quickly you can think clearly again after a bad shot. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

• In 2014, a new reality show came out, called The Short Game. The show documented a group of junior golfers, ages 7 to 9, and their parents, as they prepared for and competed in tournaments around the country. In most of the cases, a parent would caddie for the child during the competition and would very often harshly criticize and yell at the child after he or she made the first mistake of the round. This more often than not would trigger a tailspin of worse shots by the child and even harsher criticism from the parent, leaving the child in tears before the round was even over. The children in those situations never showed any signs of improvement during the season and often appeared to resent the game as well.

Analysis: Experiences are stories told using words in monologues in our minds. Each carries an emotional value especially from people of importance in our lives. For kids and young adults, golf is mostly emotional as what it means to self-esteem and acceptance by others matters more. The challenge was not physical, it was mental/emotional.

Clearly, there are hundreds more of these kinds of stories that can be shared. And it is not just in golf.

Other Sports

Athletes from all sports experience similar surprises, setbacks, and losses that are not attributable to the athlete’s physical or technical skills. What must be noted in these other sports and athletes is that the common thread is how all athletes are, first, human beings built with the same physiology and neurology, and exhibiting the same emotional responses as golfers.

• A basketball player practices free throws thousands of times and makes all of them, yet something is different when the free throw has to be made with one second to go and the game is on the line. What is different? Is it the size of the basketball? The size of the rim? The distance to the basket? Did the basketball player suddenly lose weight or get shorter or lose 20 IQ points? No, of course not. What is different is the pressure of the situation – the emotions of the situation. This is not physical, it is emotional.
• At an Ironman event, a pro athlete was leading the race until about mile 16 of the run when another pro athlete passed him. He had led the entire race and was shocked to get caught. So disheartened was he by this, that he decided to try to keep up with the new leader and go faster than he knew he could. Intellectually, he knew that he could not keep up the faster pace this late in the race but chose to ignore this, and push himself even harder. By mile 22, he was spent, and instead of a certain second place finish, he ended up 12th. After the race, he was visibly upset. He just could not understand why he reacted the way he did when he got passed, why he abandoned his race strategy and how he let his emotions at the time cause him to ignore his training, and instead, adopt a totally unrealistic running pace. He clearly underperformed and it had little to do with his physical skills.
• A NASCAR driver and his crew chief tell me that the race is called and raced differently in the first 200 laps versus the last 50 laps. The difference between the winner and the next 10 drivers is literally seconds, so the last 50 laps are critical for finishing position. But the track is the same as it was in the first 200 laps. What is different is the pressure of those last laps where critical decisions are made. Those last laps are no longer about cars and all about the decisions the driver and crew chief make. It is not about the equipment, but the emotions of the situation.
• A professional tennis player tells me the difference between the first four sets and the fifth set is just one thing: mental strength. She says it almost ceases to be about tennis, and whoever can remain calm in the moment of pressure and execute the shots they know they have hit thousands of times before in the fifth set almost always wins. What is the difference between the sets? What is different is the pressure of the situation – the emotions of the situation.
• The New York Knicks had a 105-99 lead with just 18.7 seconds left before Indiana Pacers’ guard, Reggie Miller, sent them falling into one of the most stunning end-game collapses in NBA history by scoring 8 points in nine mind-blowing seconds. Miller began by hitting a 3-pointer. Then he stole the ensuing inbounds pass and dashed back out to the 3-point line, where he wheeled and drained another 3 points to tie the game at 105. “We were shell-shocked, we were numb,” Knicks forward Anthony Mason remembered years later. “We became totally disoriented.” The Knicks still had a few more chances to win, but John Starks missed two free throws, and Knicks center, Patrick Ewing, missed a 10-footer before Miller was fouled on the rebound. He made both free throws to give the Pacers a shocking 107-105 win, and then he ran off the Madison Square Garden floor yelling, “Choke artists!” The Pacers went on to win the series in seven games.
  — Johnette Howard

Terms like “shell-shocked” and “disoriented,” used by the Knicks and so many other athletes in all sports to describe how they felt, are lay terms, in effect conceding that something happened to them that they cannot explain. For any athlete, golf or other sport, there should be no part of his or her performance that he or she should not be prepared for, much less not be able to explain.

It should be noted that there is a fundamental difference between these kinds of stories of underperformance and others where athletes underperform because of physical reasons. If you have a strained back, it is going to be tough to hit the shots you know you can hit no matter how much emotional strength you have. When something irreparable happens to your body, no amount of EQ can compensate for that. Similarly, if you do not have the skill to do something in practice, then no amount of mental strength can create that skill on the golf course. If you do not have a high draw in your repertoire and never hit that shot successfully on the range, you simply cannot “will” yourself to do it.

As a neuro-sports psychologist, I have found that disappointment and frustration do not come from failing to execute on something never done before. They come from underperformance, the inability to execute on the very things you have done many times before, but not when in matters most: during game time. It is the examples given above that are much harder to swallow because you feel it was something mental, and the root cause of your poor reaction is still inexplicably a mystery to you. In these underperforming situations, you feel like you lost control and let something derail you. You feel like you beat yourself. This is where neuroscience and EQ can make a tremendous difference.

“What separates great players from the good ones is not so much ability as brain power and emotional equilibrium.” -Arnold Palmer

So Why Train in EQ?

As described above, rounds of golf are littered with these stories of self-inflicted wounds where the mind inexplicably chose to make poor decisions in the heat of battle during ‘game time’, and in many cases, decisions that were contrary to what they and their coaches had already agreed on during training. Why did their minds deviate from their strategy? Why did they react in a manner where, in hindsight, and with a much clearer mind, they would have all made different and better decisions? What is it about golfers’ emotions during anxiety situations that shut down very logical decision-making, decisions that they can make on any other day without blinking an eye? What could they have done during practice to prepare them for the “heat of the battle” scenarios?

In all sports, if athletes are able to maintain composure, access their training memories, and simply perform as they have trained, then their chances of being successful go up significantly. This is obvious. How to do it is not so obvious. This is why we train in EQ. We need to understand exactly how our brain works and what our brain is doing in those situations so that we can change it. Arguably the worst feeling an athlete can have is performing poorly during game time and have no idea what is going on in his or her mind and body. We need to prepare ourselves to stay focused and positive in the midst of surprises and distractions so that we can perform our best – be it on the golf course or in everyday experiences.

The reality is that golf is a game of surprises.

Since golf is full of surprises, and surprises are processed in the brain, it is, therefore, a game of mental/emotional strength. This is a learnable skill, like any other, and is required 100% of the time you are playing golf, be it over a shot or in between shots. This fundamental shift in reframing how you view and play golf is the first step in building your Golf EQ and using the GYRA Scorecard.

I define mental/emotional strength as the ability to recognize and convert negative thoughts/emotions to positive ones.

Note that mental/emotional strength is different from being in a zone. I will discuss the latter in the next chapter. My contention is that not only can these surprises be managed differently during a round, but in fact, you can effectively train for them and increase your EQ. It is impossible to predict what is going to go wrong and when it will happen, but suffice it to say, in all likelihood something will happen that will cause anxiety just before or during your round. This we can all agree on. And if you concede this, then, in order to perform at your best on game day and hit a shot that counts, your practice must prepare you to manage your emotions and thoughts.

A plan that incorporates mental training will help you manage the unpredictable but certain to occur anxiety-inducing experiences, and your responses to them. As noted in the introduction, if you are going to spend so much time and money desperately searching for a perfect swing and shot, why not spend just a few minutes a day to grow your EQ and remain positive and focused in the throes of situations that are beyond your control? No one wishes for chaos of any kind during a round, but a positive recovery from a bad situation can actually be incredibly motivating and powerful to spur you on to an even better performance.

“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch court, the space between your ears.” -Bobby Jones

Please take a few moments to write down in your own words an experience where you underperformed in a round, similar to the stories shared earlier in this chapter. In subsequent chapters, as tools are shared, you will be asked to come back to this story and personalize your learning. By writing down your own personal experiences, your own emotions and presence in the experience will make the learning and subsequent growth a much richer endeavor. As you write your story, try to describe yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically, as well as the situation you were in as graphically as you can.

Note that a surprise is not just a situation where something has gone terribly wrong, like the stories described earlier, but surprises can be anything where you have lost your focus and as a result, deviated from your capabilities and underperformed.