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The Fairway Of Life
Simple Secrets To Playing Better Golf By Going With The Flow ~
Rand Scott Marquardt
Life & Mental Golf Performance Coach 
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Our subconscious brain runs everything in our life, including our golf game. Stated another way, we become conditioned to same or similar patterns of behavior time and time again, unless we don’t. Unless we break free and create new neurological pathways. In other words, if we keep thinking the same thoughts, we keep getting the same results. How we play, how we respond, how we score, how we react are all conditioned patterns of behavior. It’s almost like clockwork. Over time these conditioned patterns of behavior fall into the realm of being in our comfort zone. Anything on either side of this comes across as a miracle, a fluke, being on, being off, or sometimes an outright aberration. However, for most of us we continue to stay stuck in the confines of mediocrity; within a few shots either side of our comfort zone. Our actual comfort zone can actually be pin pointed to a single score.
Finding Your Comfort Zone – page 279
Our Comfort Zone is actually comprised of a single score, while our general Comfort Zone in golf may on the surface appear to be three or four strokes either side of our actual Comfort Zone. It’s easy to find this single score. Once we find this score, we acknowledge it, know longer are we disillusioned or in denial. Applying the Mental Edge Golf Technique (MEGT) to our Comfort Zone can be a very enlightening experience.
It’s important for you to know your own Comfort Zone, without any self-deception, in order to start the process of lowering it. I also suggest you complete this procedure on a daily or perhaps weekly basis. How much time you invest in your own mental game is a direct match to what you reap.
Imagine lowering your Comfort Zone by a few strokes, or even a single digit or two. In the world of professional golf, the difference between averaging 69.5 and 70 could very well be millions of dollars. For many it’s the difference between making the cut, or not?
Here’s how you find your Comfort Zone. For the actual process of lowering it, buy the book, or let me Coach you.
Step One: Pick a score that is several strokes higher than what you normally shoot on your home course. The idea being that the first time you finish the statement, you will feel confident; it will feel true for you.
Example: I would pick 83 and begin there. If I were to play only 9 holes I would pick 42. Eighty-three, and forty-two is much higher than I normally shoot.
Step Two: Complete the following statement and then answer yes or no.
Statement: “I am confident I can consistently shoot _____ 83, answer (yes).
Step Three: Keep on repeating this process, one stroke at a time lower and you will get a feel for your own game. Keep on doing this until you get uncomfortable and you can no longer with 100 percent certainty say that you can consistently shoot that score.
Example: “I am confident that I can consistently shoot _____ 83 (yes), 82 (yes), 81 (yes), 80 (yes), 79 (yes), 78 (yes), 77 (yes), 76 (ah…no, can’t quite claim 76 consistently).” So, shooting 77 is my actual Comfort Zone number. The score just above where I could no longer say I can consistently shoot. Shooting a 76 (trombones) raised a doubt in my mind. I’ve just discovered my Comfort Zone. Have I shot 76 before, certainly! I also shot a few 70’s, 71’s, 72’s, 73,’s, 74’s, and 75’s. Besides my Comfort Zone limitation, shooting in the 60’s is also one of my self-limiting barriers that I wish to break through. I’ve only done it twice in my life.
Note: Disappointment is the understanding that we have settled for less than what we know we are capable of. Knowledge of this is critical to your ongoing and ultimate success. Most people want to think they are better than what their Comfort Zone tells them. It is okay to feel this disappointment. You’re supposed to feel slightly upset with yourself that you are not quite playing golf to your full potential. That’s what this book and my message is all about.
So, now that you know this what do you do to improve? One must change their internal programming in order to change what they get. It starts with your thoughts. You must create new thoughts that support your intention. What is your intention? What is your goal? What do you desire to experience yourself as? The MEGT will give you, your mind, body, and soul an opportunity to change and create new focus and beliefs.
In order to change, you’ve got to change your own internal paradigm. You’ve got to acquire new neurons and pathways to emerge from your new thoughts. You’ve got to believe it and practice it everyday. You’ve got to imagine the event happening already and it will find you. You’ve got to allow it to happen, and you cannot force it. You’ve got to feel it and actually become it before it has even happened. You’ve got to act as if it is already so. Then, the field of quantum mechanics and physics becomes a match to you.
My whole book can be summed up in one sentence – I’m gonna be a 5-handicap golfer…by July 4th. The time agenda need not be there either…I just didn’t want to procrastinate. Once I became a 5-handicap I set a new intention. “I’m gonna be a 2-handicap by the end of summer.” I ended that year at a 1.2 handicap index.
From this statement of intention, you don’t have to know how. Okay! Why, because that’s how The Universe works. The how’s will be shown to you when and only when you have fully committed. If you see the steps of how it’s unfolding, then that’s not it! Trust it, and it will unfold without your knowing of how. It will come even more wonderful than what you may have imagined. That’s exactly how the how’s started coming into my experience. The end result was even more incredible than I imagined it to be.
And – even before I set the intention, if I hadn’t done the internal work within myself, I wouldn’t have been able to get to the point to actually believe and trust the Universe / God in this process of creation. It would have been all woo woo kind of stuff, which most likely is for many of you. So, I get it…and each is on there own journey. There are plenty of paths, no one path better than another. I just share my message and what worked for me and believe me, I have dealt with plenty of demons and challenges and adversity on my way – and still do! It’s about keeping on!
Like I state in my book, The Fairway of Life, if you set an intention, or dream your dream and end up saying…but, or yeah but, or any number of negative statements, you end up killing the whole thing. I also give an in depth technique to lower our comfort zone. Like anything else, few will do it, some will only listen, and others will do nothing at all.
Life is like a circle. It is as simple, and as complex as that!
What am I so afraid of?
“Fear of any kind is the number-one enemy of all golfers, regardless of ball-striking and shot making capabilities.”—Jack Nicklaus
I ask you, what are you so afraid of while playing or thinking about this game of golf? Answers will inevitable vary with each individual. And that’s why coaching another in the “mental and emotional aspects” of the game is unique to each golfer, and not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, many of us have had and continue to have similar experiences and tendencies. I’d like to share a few of them with you now. I’d also like to invite you to journal about your own experiences to uncover the block(s) that have been holding you back from expressing yourself freely to play your best golf. And remember go easy on yourself because this game of golf and life is an eternal process and we will never get it all done – it will never be “perfect.” Yet what if it is perfect just the way it is? I like to call it “perfectly imperfect.” Because if you gravitate toward the feeling that you’re never satisfied, then you’ll be never satisfied and this state of emotional being will come more in the form of frustration with perhaps some glimmer of hopefulness.
I’d also like to suggest some different techniques that may cause you to let go of some of your FEARS or False Evidence Appearing Real. These fears are nothing more than your own fantasy appearing real. In my book, The Fairway of Life, I suggest using the Mental Edge Golf Technique as another method to overcoming this perceived fear. It’s a simple form of acknowledgment, acceptance, forgiveness, and creating new more empowering beliefs and focus. In case you haven’t already; pick up a copy – I guarantee if you put even one of the many coaching suggestions or simple secret reminders into place it will benefit you and it will benefit the game of golf by the clarity of your example. Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm – it’s contagious! Pass it on and pay it forward.
Remember: fear is an illusion in our mind and it is the opposite of who you really are, yet at times it appears as being so real. Therefore, our objective becomes clearing this mental stress, these obstacles that have been holding us back, which eventually leaves only pure positive energy, known to golfers as The Zone. This form of emotional state operates in, and even transcends the joy, knowing, and freedom realm. This is when and where we play our best golf.
Therefore, I invite you to look fear in the eye and simply be with it for a moment. What you look at disappears. I invite you to use affirmations as well. I looked “fear” in the eye and said, you come to me with confusion and darkness and failure…but I come to you in the light and strength of my being. I am in alignment with myself and you cannot stand against me.
“It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized.”
I Ching: Hexagram 5, Hsu – Waiting (Nourishment)
Facing things exactly as they are is the key to becoming better than you used to be. If you are unwilling to accept yourself just exactly as you are right now you will continue to stay stuck living the life of quiet desperation and you will keep getting and repeating the same old mediocre results year after year. You keep thinking you can figure this all out. I know that was me for 35 years of my golfing life.
If you desire change to a more free golf game it begins with accepting yourself and your golf game just exactly as you are and it is – all the while pointing into the direction that you prefer. What you prefer is your asking and it works with the power of intention. What happens next is providence or divine inspiration will begin moving through you and the how’s begin showing up in forms you may never have imagined before. The formula is dreams, or intentions of what you prefer + action = the how’s + manifestation.
Dreams + Action = How’s + Manifestation
In other words you don’t have to be ready and know how – the how’s will be shown to you once you make the 100% commitment and decide to play full out. You have been and are doing the very best you can with the tools and resources that you have available at this particular moment in time. Now you have been giving more. Why – because you are asking and drawn to hear these words. I invite you to simply become aware.
1. First, we must we acknowledge the areas that have been holding us back. We must come clean with ourselves and take note to the things that have been holding us back, our weaknesses, our fears, or things we can improve upon.
2. We need to accept ourselves, and our golf game, exactly as we are and exactly as it is right now, even though we might not like it.
3. We point in the direction of what we prefer. In that moment we make peace with ourselves.
4. If we choose, out of these enlightening understandings will come the clarity and wisdom that will allow us to evolve and grow and expand into more of who we really are; as a golfer and as a human being. It is as simple and as complex as that.
Case Study: what is it that you are so afraid of?
“My shadow and hitting the ball in the shits. It’s a tough shot with danger all around and I don’t want to f**k up. I’ve got a good score going and I don’t want to throw it all away. It takes a lot of work. (Pause) Wait a second what am I getting all jacked up about? I say work, but golf is a fun game. So what if I put the ball in the pond shooting a 39 instead of a 37…so what? I also want to eliminate the bad round or bad nine. I shot 38-52 at Charlevoix Country Club and I need to eliminate the bad round or bad nine.” The following dialogue is what Chris Shepler said when I asked him this question at 10:30 am on Tuesday, January 13, 2010. This is real life stuff for most golfers.
How many issues or blocks from playing his best golf can you name here?
1) I am scared of my own self.
2) I am scared of hitting the ball where I don’t want it to go. A lot of what I don’t want going on here.
3) I am scared to f**k up.
4) I am scared to screw up my score. Too much result-oriented.
5) I am scared to blow it. I want to be more consistent.
6) I feel like I am in a fight.
7) I finally found some relief with acknowledging it’s a fun game. I finally found some relief with thinking so what.
Underneath some of these issues lies the real culprit, hidden and stuffed away deep inside. We have people-pleasing and personal-perfectionism issues. On one hand we want to impress others in showing them what we are capable of. We want to play well for others and show them what we are capable of. On the other hand we want to hit “perfect” or good golf shots and when we don’t we get frustrated. In either case our emotions slide to the lower half of our emotional scale. If left unchecked the downward spiral sets in. Frustration, irritation, and impatience can lead to disappointment, doubt, worry, anger, rage, and even drop so low to feelings of unworthiness and despair. I ask you, can you play your best golf when you are experiencing these kinds of emotions? Of course not!
Here is my simple solution: the moment you begin dropping into negative emotions, below the contentment level, catch yourself and accept and embrace everything exactly as it is. You may not like what just happened, yet you must accept it. Work it out later on the range. Just know that Well-Being will come to you as you are pointing into the direction of what you prefer. You will save more rounds of golf than you can possible imagine. I can’t tell you how many times I have been 5 over par after 3 holes and still posted 77 or 78. Whereas before, lights out I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore – for sure 85 or worse.
Here are a couple other things with Chris that I observe: 1) Scared of hitting the ball in the shits, or where I don’t want it to go. Mastering the mental game invites you to begin shifting your focus upon what you do want, eventually giving yourself more and more of that. Once again the trick is to get out of the mindset of not thinking about what you don’t want and more in harmony with what you do. Not thinking about, or not wanting something only draws more of that into your experience. You’ve got to train your mind to focus on what you do want. You’ll find yourself slowly gravitating toward the target in your minds-eye. Rather focus in on what you do want. Remember: the shot produces the swing, not the other way around. Give more airtime to positive beliefs and eventually the old negative thoughts begin fading away. The only way to get rid of negative thoughts is to give more airtime to positive ones. The process:
1) Visualize
2) Visualize
3) Visualize
2) Too much result-oriented and in the future thinking going on. I remind another, just as I remind Chris, that it’s just one shot at a time. Bring yourself to being present, in the now, with this shot right here, right now. Bobby Jones knew this and he was right, yet “It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it.” Everyone needs a reminder, myself included. Now if you want to keep venting and spiraling further out of control, then go ahead and be my guest. Or, you can catch yourself and get back to playing present golf, having fun, pointing in the direction of what you prefer, and allowing it to be. It’s okay – stop beating up on yourself. Lighten up – maybe you can use some extra work out of the bunker? Ya see! Here’s a simple three-step process to let go of too much result-oriented, worrying about where the ball is going, and being in the future process. Focus only on:
1) Good set up
2) Good alignment
3) Good swing
See your trusted PGA golf professional to get you back on the train tracks and the plane of your swing in harmony with your natural way.
Finally, relief comes when we realize that golf is a fun game. Too much seriousness around golf creates too much tension and stress. Look, I’m out here with my friends. It’s a beautiful day. I’m off work (ah Professionals treat it as fun and leisure), and no matter what, I am going to have fun.
Above all, no matter what happens simply acknowledge it, accept it, embrace it, and become an objective detective in your own process. Some days will be better than others. So what? Be like Walter Hagen and simply shrug your shoulders when things don’t necessarily go your way. Eventually if you practice these principles things will improve and the better it gets, the better it gets. It may even seem like a miracle at the end of the round or season. You may just amaze your incredible self. You have so much potential in you; I’m here to draw that out of you.
Be as you wish to seem and act as if it is so,
Rand
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