By: Dr. Stephen Ginsberg
It’s a bluebird day. Standing on the first tee at Rodeo Dunes on its opening day, watching my friend tee off, I am filled with gratitude. Just one quick detail: he has never played golf before someone who has never set foot on a golf course playing his first round on one of the most coveted tracks in the world is enough to have most seasoned golfers setting their hair on fire, but for me, it was a front-row seat to a masterclass in the beginner’s mind.
After tapping in for a casual, albeit highly unlikely, bogey on the first, he turned and asked, “Is
that good?”
I simply replied, “You have no idea.”
And he didn’t. That was the beauty of it. With his gifted caddie JT as his sherpa, our blissful beginner proceeded to slice (literally) his way through the course, treat each mishit as an accident with a casual “whoops,” and immerse himself in the joy of it all — the course, the company, the complete absence of any expectation. Unknowingly, he brought the three other veteran golfers in the group back to where it all started for us, many years ago.
I still remember the uncontrollable laughter that followed my first-ever golf swing (spoiler alert: it somehow went behind me). But that lighthearted laughter, that genuine curiosity, that simple focus on improving, not proving, tends to vanish in most tenured golfers. As Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki once said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
The golf world is filled with so-called experts, misplaced expectations, and score-based identities. It’s a close-minded hubris trap, and it sinks most rounds before they begin. Watching a beginner let go of score, handicap, and the perceptions of others reminded us what this game actually feels like when you are focusing on the right things, in the right ways, at the right times.
As a clinical and sport psychologist, I teach that. From amateurs to touring professionals, I help golfers train their mind like they train their body, because mindset, or setting your mind as I call it, is a coachable skill.
Most golfers spend countless hours and dollars trying to improve their swing with little regard for the most important six inches in golf: the space between your ears. I’m Dr. Stephen Ginsberg, founder of Ginsberg Performance. If you’d like to rebuild your mindset, reach out at ginsbergpsychology.com/ginsberg-performance, read my sport and performance psychology blog, or listen to my weekly podcast, “Set Your Mind”, available on Apple and Spotify.