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One Under Par
Volume 7, number 3

A Newsletter fromKeyGolf.....June, 2006

"How We Know What Isn't So"... borrowed from the title of a book by Thomas Gilovich

After several years of putting forth what we have found to be valid and relevant issues for golfers, we have to conclude that a lot of our messages got buried underneath “a failure to communicate,” except for a fairly small minority of players and instructors, who have, indeed, heard, understood and implemented.

We are not fretting. This is not a sour grape. It is a simple confession of a fresh revelation. There is much, much more to getting a message to fly than either saying it, or even giving evidence of it. The non-verbal message we continue to hear from many others is: “Don’t bother me with the truth. My mind is already made up.” It is also reminiscent of Sir Winston’s words, "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

Perception is a strange phenomenon in some respects, and absolutely commonplace in other ways. There are some principles that are readily apparent in the way we humans perceive things, and those may need occasional attention to refresh our vision in the same way the “refresh” button works on our computers. It may even be a little like the “Restore” function in Windows, if you accomodate that metaphor in the genetic character of our human make-up.

We begin with an acknowledgement of an intended result to be derived from the content of this newsletter. Gilovich's title and its meaning is our springboard. So here is our “Bottom Line for today:”
"WE GAIN NEW PERCEPTIONS ONLY THROUGH NEW AND SIGNIFICANT EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES"

The objective here, then, is to identify where such experiences may be found...and where they are not present.

To get there, the principles below are offered as pieces to consider, but not “as if nothing ever happened.”
Our version of some changes coming from "new emotional experiences," are interspersed along the way.

To measure the full effect of how our minds act like the "screen capture" function on a computer, give some thought to something - anything - that you may have heard as a child or youth that has forever colored your view of the world.

The one that comes immediately to my mind was the Sunday School song about “Andy.”  We sang it a lot: “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me...” We just thought "Andy" was Jesus' friend. Much later, our original view became something to chuckle about.

A little more of our meaning can come from taking a quick look occasionally at something as mundane as the single frame daily news cartoon called “The Family Circus,” by Bill Keane. A recent one has the child asking, "How can laughter be contagious? It's not a disease is it?" Skewered perceptions, finding their way into golfers' minds can easily create images that lead where they do not want to go.

And whether you like him or hate him, no matter your political positioning, Bill Maher's latest book, "New Rules," can lead you to think “outside the box.” Getting a mental jolt (a form of emotional exerience) that cuts a hole in one's box may be the only path available for clearing our minds of the rubble put there by the imprint process that has saturated our brains since birth - largely without our permission.

So what does "knowing what isn't so" have to do with golf? Nothing more, really, than perhaps exposing and eliminating some of the strange concepts players have fostered for generations, preventing any general improvement in playing ability, scoring, learning and enjoying the game. We still hear a majority of players holding tight to notions like "playing by your personality," "play the way the champions do," "build muscle memory," "make yourself mentally tough," "control your mind and your game," "concentrate," "be consistent," "play target golf," "stop thinking negative thoughts," "use training aids that will teach your muscles what to do and then you can play with a blank mind," "learn to trust your swing," "practice, practice, practice," "hit a lot of balls." Doubtless, you can add to the list. You will find a widely accepted myth or two holding court in each of those. And there is not one of them for which a case can be made that will supercede the automatic principle and what clear keys have shown in support of that principle. In fact, if a player masters the automatic principle and uses it, what is implied in every one of the foregoing admonitions is subsumed and put in its proper place in the continuity of one's game.

However, some of that preceding list have just enough truth in them to insure that they will hang around to haunt players, notwithstanding that unchanged scoring averages keep telling a rather rude tale.  When "none of the above" act as "promised in advertising," we begin to hear a few sour notes in the chorus. It should surprise no one that soon to be heard are golf's “apologists:” “Well, after all, we’re only human," or, ”The reason scoring averages are no different today, even with better maintained courses and higher tech equipment, is that the courses are longer and tougher, and my newest driver is troublesome and makes me wonder if it's the shaft, the grip, the length, my tempo, my alignment or my mind.” The "or-my-mind" part is where the demons with the sharpest talons hide.

Are those "reasons" true or not? If they are true, then maybe it's time to adopt the "c'est la vie" mode and quit even trying to do more. (They haven't added much so far). If they are not true, perhaps we should give closer attention to what has left us in that position. So let’s move to another level. Since we are “only human,” maybe the point is that we need to act according to the parameters set for human experience instead of messing around with stats, labels, promises that derive from some super-human formula or worse, some theorized, opinion-oriented exhortation, all of which lie basically out of the range of successful implementation for human beings.

Even as we write, the US Open is showing a distinct pattern of the world's finest golfers being unable to keep the ball in the fairway and produce high greens-in-regulation stats. (Only 10 players managed better than 61% of fairways hit, and only 7 managed over 60% greens in regulation, which certainly puts a question mark on the importance of the "target-golf" argument). So there must be something more than talent and practice that is in play here. First, let's hear it for the "toughness" of Winged Foot. Then let's try to understand how so many great players, with outstanding shot-making ability, could hit so many shots off-line. There was a very low precentage of par three's hit from the tee and Phil only managed two fairways in the final round. One surely would not like to include a mental picture of intimidation, we suppose, (with tongue held firmly against the left cheek), since that would introduce the subject of anxiety, which treats everyone alike - pro, am, child and adult. What you saw in the Open was an unsually large number of "yipped" shots, without prejudice to any given club or player. Human? "Yes," but minus the understanding required for prevention...else most of them would not have encountered those roadblocks in the first place.

Perhaps, we should start with a list of issues, clarified, researched, explained, and carefully identified. The most outstanding of those centers in “style,” as differentiated from “personality.” No matter how much we say about it, the articles, books, public forum comments and questions from players, all reflect a belief that "personality" is “key” to playing golf at the highest level. If personality were the prime product as claimed, there would be a ton of players out there getting better by the minute. Personality can be molded, but notice – while that gets considerable "press," if you know the "program," you can literally see style countermanding personality when it counts the most. Personality may work on the driving range, at our jobs and socially, but not on the golf course when the game is on. We can “change” our personality, but we can’t change our styles – at least not without major consequences, one of which is a failure to improve our golf games, and another of which is vulnerability to one of a variety of short or long-termed mental or emotional twists that prevent the best of what is on our ownership lists. And if that seems strange to you, just review data from the last 30 to 50 years and see the many potholes that have marked our human failures in education, social interaction, and business practices, as compared to what was available immediately following world war II. In many ways, we have either "stayed put," or gone backward. We have developed the resources, and a lot of quantity, but not much progress in quality.That goes double for our golf games, too.

That same status is present with golf equipment. Balls are hotter and go further. Clubs show advanced "tech" and are made “stronger.” Instructors say they know more, the golf channel shows “all” daily, but even the best players can’t seem to hold the line. Standard five iron got 170 yards in years past. Today that same club will cover 230, by some accounts. Of course, that creates yet another set of myths. So with all that power, and a game plan filled with “mental toughness” and a set of requisites to make you a “champion,” why is it that no one, not even Tiger, has made that work as a steady diet, even though he seems consistently the closest to it.

The latest in a long line of “perception generators," among those inherited from historic patterns of misinformation is called a “MIO watch.” This one qualifies on the list of touted "golf support items" that appear to help pave the road to unfinished business. This one promises to monitor your heart rate while you play. Here it is from an "authority:"
Golf Illustrated
November/ December 2005

"Performance Feedback. Combining biofeedback and playing statistics, the MioELITE Golf XE watch can help golfers improve their performance. The watch takes an ECG-accurate heart rate, which is a good indicator of emotional and mental state. Because every golfer has an optimum heart rate, monitoring and learning to control it can enhance your performance..."

Good luck in adding that to an already overactive thinking process most golfers employ on their way to some mis-perceived goal that never gets reached. Apparently, this is a piece of “hardware” offered as a "companion" to the recently postured Heart-Math "software.” We pulled the following quote from this website.

"HeartMath's research has shown when you learn how to intentionally shift to a positive emotion, heart rhythms immediately change. A shift in heart rhythms may not seem important but in fact it creates a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal and biochemical events that benefit the entire body. The stress-reducing effects are both immediate and long lasting."

A wonderful statement. But what is deceptive is that the heart is not the producer, as implied in the passage above. The heart only leaves evidence of changes (signals or symptoms) resulting from added or reduced stress, so it is the management of stress factors that creates the relief, not management of the heart (or "controlling the heart" as it is most often presented). They say, "A shift in heart rhythms may not seem important but in fact it creates a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal and biochemical events that benefit the entire body." The change in heart rhythm accompanies those other physiological conditions. It doesn't create them. The heart only responds to the relief (or absence of it). The lifetime research of Hans Selye, MD, and the results from it, which are considered classic within the medical fraternity, show that there is no difference between the systemic stress response from "good things" or "bad things," in the way in which we humans see and evaluate them at our conscious level. We emphasize "conscious," since most folks do not even know about non-conscious thinking and many of the rest prefer to deny that it is actually an active force in lfe.

We may possibly condition our perception (over time) to see that some of the things we thought would "do us in" are really "paper tigers," and based on that, to condition ourselves to be less affected by shots gone OB, water balls, chili-dips, three-putt greens and terrible golf scores. In turn that might have a lower heart rate side effect, but to say that stress is not in play there is to live with a mythological perception. The heart will respond, in one way or another, but you cannot tell your heart to block a stress response, and it will not prevent other physiological changes. It will accompany them. A heart monitor, like a thermometer, does not correct what may be wrong. It will merely show whether there is a problem or not - good information to have, but of itself, not oriented either to treatment or rehabilitation, though it may point in needed directions.

Now insert here what you know about how we present and use the clear key, which is the tool that interrupts the communication between anxiety and the immune system. It is the anxiety signal that precipitates the stress response from the immune system in the first place. That, in turn, leads to changes in the heart-beat. Trying to change your heart-beat in the expectation that it will reduce stress is like hitching the horse behind the wagon. It may look like a winner, but it doesn't subscribe to the rules set by Mother Nature for human activity. The last time we looked, our hearts were beating on their own, not on our command or under our "control." Guaranteed, if you learn to use a clear key, your heart will cease excessive palpitation when your key is going, and a number of other physiological conditions will moderate or disappear as well. Should you want to verify that, purchase an MIO watch and check it out yourself, or for a few dollars more, you can get a "Freeze Framer," which looms as a "Cadillac" among monitoring devices. (You could also wear a blood pressure cuff and find a caddy cart eqipped with, not only a range finder, head lights, direction signals, and refrigerator, but a couple of downsized EEG and EKG machines).

Beyond the irony and sarcasm, we certainly see how there might be some interest in knowing what happens to heart-rates as we play golf. We prefer that such knowledge not be considered as a “cure” or remedy for anything, since it is merely able to show one more symptom of what is taking place. Such information may tell you that you need to do something, but it will not include "what" that something should be. We hope no one is going to wear this thing and consult it prior to every shot being faced, since it is unlikely such players will want to bear the burden of playing "on the clock," or under the heavy eye of an official, because they had to wait too long for the heart beat to "slow down." The HeartMath claim of "long-lasting," may be true in overall conditioning, but that will not eliminate the effect of any immediate anxiety attached to THIS SHOT - the one right now. The problem for comprehension here is that for many decades, much more attention has been given to control of symptoms than to recognizing core causes and providing the "know-how" to manage them. It's time for that to change, folks. It is TIME!

If we could, of course, control our hearts, that might make sense. Be thankful that none of us can do that, since there are not many now living who would or could successfully survive so much as the next trip to town and the traffic patterns on the way. There are known, special circumstances, by which a person can employ a resting technique to slow the heart rate, but "resting" is a far cry from dangers on the road, competition on a golf course, or some other sports action. Can you not see Dwayne Wade and Gary Payton on a fast break pausing to look at their MIO watches to see how their heart rates are doing? Of course that is different from a golfer's circumstance, but it is predictable that one's heart rate will vary from pre-shot to execution, so what can be gained, in the present moment, by looking at the watch anyway?

Even with an EKG, it cannot show a heart-attack unless you are having it while hooked up to the machine. And the EKG does not offer a "cure." It only registers what is going on (sympoms). It will not show the condition before the attack or after it, unless, of course, you have some long-standing irregularity present, but even then it will not show the present "attack." Heartmath's "intentional shift to positive emotion" may momentarily create a "change in rhythm," but without a means to hold that demeanor, it will change again as soon as the demand for action enters the mix. Measuring, before or after the experience presents itself, is one thing. Preventing the experience is another thing entirely. You can do the measuring with an MIO but you will still need a clearkey, or comparable tool, for prevention.

It is the existence of persistent promotional marketing, carrying implicit sounds of plausible promises, coupled with firmly fixed personal perceptions that play on the minds of "hungry" athletes, and others. So unless you stop to consider other evidence, you can easily be roped into even a well-intentioned misrepresentation. We are not picking on any one idea, notion, item or person, but on the whole world of exaggeration, mis-information, twisted "facts," and half-truths. If you saw the "20-20" presentation on ABC Friday night, June 16th, there was an entire show dedicated to such shenanigans. We don't like it as they showed it, and we don't like it when it invades the world of golf and produces benchmarks that can't possibly be accommodated in mind or action. And we like it even less, when golfers persist in staying with what cannot and will not behave according to the promises made, especially when those promises become personal expectations and marks of the ways we perceive our world.

It's time, folks. It is TIME to move on!!

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