The Gift of Acceptance

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

If I could give you a single gift this season, it would the gift of acceptance.  Acceptance is the ability to react to poor shots or bad breaks objectively and without emotion.  Acceptance means executing shots focused on the present, not on the past or the future.

Acceptance is a Controllable

Great athletes focus on the things that they control and accept the things that they cannot.  True acceptance is a controllable – it is not situational.  An example of situational acceptance is when a player plays a poor first nine and then plays well on second nine because she had an “I do not care” attitude.  She focuses on the process for each shot and not on the score, and often good things happen. 

Situational acceptance also describes Rory McIlroy’s attitude on the last day of the 2022 Masters.  He started ten shots back of the leader.  He had little chance of winning, and a mediocre round would have little impact on his year.  With little to lose, he ran the table and shot 64, tying the lowest final round in Masters history. 

Great players have an attitude of acceptance that is self-driven.  These players “leave the last shot at the divot,” as Tiger says.  They quickly move from the poor result of the last shot into a problem-solving mode for the next.  They have a “next play” mentality.  They have what is called an “optimistic explanatory style.”

Explanatory Styles

The key to self-driven acceptance is how a player explains a poor shot to herself.  A player with an optimistic method of explaining results will frame those results as limited, not personal to them and controllable.  On the other hand, a player with a pessimistic explanatory style will explain bad events as pervasive, personal and uncontrollable. 

Stephen Curry approaches three-point shots with an optimistic explanatory style.  Curry had one of the worst shooting months of his career in January 2022.  In 15 games, he shot 38.5 percent from the field.  It was an extended slump the likes of which Curry had not seen.  When asked about his approach to trying to return to form, Curry responded that the game is “infinite” and that “not every dip will last forever.”  He never asks, “am I ‘past it.’”  He said, “I just keep shooting because you never know what's going to happen.”

Rory McIlroy provides a great example of an optimistic approach with his play in the 2022 Tour Championship at East Lake.  He double-crossed his first tee shot out of bounds.  He reacted optimistically, and as a result, he won the golf tournament.  After that bad swing, he told himself that he likely would make 6 or 7 on the hole (he made 7), but it was a no-cut event, and he had 71 holes to go.  He recalled that Tom Kim had won at Greensboro a few weeks earlier after double-bogeying the first.  And he told himself that he had been playing well, that the course was soft and gettable, and he likely would get a lot of good looks at birdie.  Not surprisingly, he made 8 birdies and an eagle following that triple.

A player with a pessimistic explanatory style would have responded to the ball out of bounds very differently.  His “inner caddie” (that inner voice that represents our self-talk) would have said: “You are going to drive the ball like crap all day.  You won’t make better than seven here.  You will shoot 80.  You are headed back to the driving slump you had last year.  You will lose your card and have to go back to Q school.”  And on, and on. 

Martin Seligman, the founder of the theory of Positive Psychology, observed that “When we fail at something, we become helpless and depressed, at least momentarily.”  He said, “Optimists recover from their helplessness immediately.  Very soon after failing, they pick themselves up, shrug and start trying again.  For them, defeat is a challenge, a mere setback on the road to inevitable victory.  They see defeat as temporary.  Pessimists wallow in defeat, which they see as permanent and pervasive.”

What type of player are you?  Are you an optimist or a pessimist?  Does a bad shot cause you to head into a spiral of doom, or are you able to move on, focus on the next play, and limit the damage?  Great performers are optimists.  They shoot lower scores.  They are more resilient.  They are happier.

How to Change Your Explanatory Style

First, be aware of your responses to bad results on the course.  Listen to the voice of your inner caddie.  What does he say after that missed 3-footer.

Second, use journaling to increase your awareness of your explanatory style.  If you do not keep one, start a golf journal.  After every round, record situations where you followed one bad shot with another one or followed a bad hole with another one.  Write down specifically what you were feeling and thinking after the poor shot or round.  Examine whether you responded with pessimistic or optimistic self-talk.

Third, use positive affirmations to reframe those negative responses.  Psychologists have long recognized that affirmations and positive self-talk improve sports performance.  To be most effective, affirmations should be personal and real to you, stated in positive language, and written in present terms.    

Here are affirmations that my players have used to create and maintain an optimistic explanatory approach:  1. “The only shot that matters is the next shot.”  2. “I have come back before, and I can do it again.”  3. “I won two events last year and am a good player.”  4. “I have control over my process, and I will use my process to stay present.”   One I particularly like when you have a difficult up and down is, “I can solve this puzzle.”

To ensure that you put these affirmations to use, record them in your journal and put a note card in your yardage book with the affirmations for your next round.

Summary

Great players play with self-driven acceptance.  Acceptance comes from how you explain poor results to yourself.  Players that use an optimistic explanatory style achieve acceptance and rebound from bad shots more quickly.  To improve your acceptance, keep a journal of your responses to bad shots and bad holes.  And create a set of affirmations that you can use to trigger your own optimistic approach.

Play well (when it warms up)!