I had the privilege to attend the MJT Mini Tour Championship at the end of August and I had the opportunity to listen to one of the best speeches of my life, delivered by an eleven-year-old with an extraordinary appreciation for the game of golf. Without explicit permission to share their identity, I will simply say that the entire room of over one hundred juniors, parents, and golf professionals was blown away by their speech.  They presented an incredible reflection and a deep appreciation for what makes golf such an incredible game.

As we take time to celebrate Thanksgiving (in Canada), I also wanted to give thanks to the game that shines a mirror on ourselves, exposes our frailties, and continues to teach us so much.  I give thanks to the game for providing opportunities to get fresh air, walk in nature, commune with friends (and make new ones).  I give thanks to the lessons I’ve learned, and the new challenges golf continues to present.  I give thanks for connecting me to the past and the future; and to all those who have ever struck a ball.

The ancient game of golf, recorded through the centuries, and whose challenges and reveries have been explored by all those who play, has been described by the legendary Bobby Jones as “a game that is played on a five-inch course – the distance between your ears.” We recognize the challenge of the game is as much mental as physical, and as opposed to other sports where you primarily compete against another opponent or team, the biggest opponent in golf is ourselves.

The unique feature of golf is that while we are trying to play our best, we are largely our own worst enemy.  Too often the stories we tell after a round of golf are negative ones, recounting when things went wrong or sharing a list of should’ves and could’ves.  Frequently our self talk on the golf course is negative and can lead us to form negative emotions and doubt our abilities.  To this end, our negative self-talk limits our ability to play to our potential.

In recent years there has been an increased focus on gratitude both from a research perspective and in actual practice.  While gratitude has been discussed in literature, especially religious texts, for hundreds of years it is still a relatively new psychological concept, mainly due to the fact that gratitude can be tricky to define as it could mean different things to different people. We inherently understand what it means in general terms, but the transitory nature of gratitude can place it as a mood, an emotion, a virtue, a behaviour, or as we’ll explore, a skill.  The important part for my definition is that gratitude is a self reflection of appreciation in reference to something external or other. 

Rooted in positive psychology, “gratitude may be associated with many benefits for individuals, including better physical and psychological health, increased happiness and life satisfaction, decreased materialism, and more” (Summer, 2018).  If we extrapolate these benefits to the golf course, who wouldn’t want to increase their satisfaction with their game, decrease their “materialism” on scores and outcomes, while bettering their physical and psychological health!

Gratitude provides the individual with a moment to remove themselves from a negative and unhelpful story (self talk) or emotion.  When practiced and used effectively, gratitude can replace these negative emotions, detrimental to performance, and provide the golfer with a new positive perspective that can help them play to their full potential.  This concept of regulating emotions is shown through research where “a positive emotion such as gratitude can build one’s coping capacity… undoing the effects of negative emotions.” (Summer, 2018).  Being grateful (or giving thanks) can lessen the attention one pays to the negative and displace negative thinking.  This is especially important for high performance athletes who often only focus on results and pay special attention to what went wrong.

The practice of gratitude requires a degree of awareness to remove the self and connect to something external/other and bigger than ourselves – see our recent post about the power of awareness. It’s equally important from an awareness standpoint to pay attention to the positives as much or more than the negatives.  If we are only paying attention to what’s “going wrong” we are effectively training our brains to look for problems. This may be beneficial to avoid predators in the jungle, but for the game of golf it takes us away from the task of hitting that little ball where we want!

It is important to note that choosing to view gratitude as a skill can be a skill in itself. This means that it takes intentional effort and practice to become aware of the negative internal thoughts and pay attention to the positive external. Like any other skill, gratitude can and will improve over time with practice. Ultimately, gratitude can become a mental tool for golfers (and everyone) to use when they determine the situation calls for it (intervention).

In their book “The Psychology of Gratitude” Emmons and McCullough share a view that gratitude is essentially a celebration, based on heightened and focused intellectual and emotional appreciation.  So, on this Thanksgiving, I encourage you to start developing your gratitude skill and reflect on the past year of golf.  Write down what  the game has provided you; be grateful for the gifts you’ve received, and celebrate this ancient game.

My follow-up challenge to you…

For those who are fortunate enough to still have access to play golf in October, I challenge you to skip tracking scores and on each hole simply write down something you are grateful for. 

References:

The Science of Gratitude, Allen Summer, A white paper prepared for the John Templeton Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, 2018.

The Psychology of Gratitude, edited by Robert A. Emmons, and Michael E. McCullough, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,