PATIENCE MAKES PERFECT

You know about patience.

Patience is a virtue.
Patience makes perfect.
Patience: Use it or lose it.
It's the old, I want it and I want it NOW!, joke.

Tour players will tell you that having it can be like being with a best friend, while lack of it can mean playing with your worst enemy. Jim Furyk, who said that patience is a key to success in the game of golf, was joined by Fuzzy Zoeller, and Lee Janzen, who literally extolled the virtues of developing this quality.

When asked what it was like for him to have "burned the rim" with so many putts during his third round at last month's Phoenix Open, Furyk replied,"Patience is the most important (mental) thing out there." Then the winner of the last year's Las Vegas Invitational, and holder of second place on the PGA money list, continued, "The hardest part is being patient, just letting it happen. A lot of times you try too hard and get in your own way. You want to force the ball in the hole and you make more mistakes than if you just ride it out and wait for the momentum to go the other way. It's hard to just let things happen."

Patience, then, is about letting things happen, rather than trying to force things to happen.

Fuzzy Zoeller, a crowd favorite who has 10 tour victories, echoed the sentiments when he said, "The main thing out here is not to lose patience. I mean, you're not going to play well every week, there's going to be weeks out here when you can't hit the old cow with a bass fiddle. Patience, to me, is hard to learn but it's the one thing that's helped me a lot."

Patience, Janzen style; "No matter how I'm playing, I know that if I'm patient anything can happen, and certainly it only takes one good shot to get you going. You need to create an attitude before you go out, and maybe make up a set of (personal) rules or beliefs. I just realize that all the bad shots I've hit out there hasn't ruined my life, so if I hit more bad shots I'll get over them. The more good experience you have the better. You have to have a short memory in some instances (for the poor shots), and a long memory in others."

Furyk and Zoeller also point to experience as the best teacher of patience.

"It's hard to be patient and let yourself work out of it by yourself," said Furyk. "It's hard for everyone. The older I've gotten the more patient I've become. It's a game of experience. That's why the average rookie is over 30 (years of age)."

I think it's (patience) more experience than anything, said Zoeller. "You go out and boogie one, or the first couple of holes and most amateur golfers, their day would be ruined. With the pros, it's just two out of 18 because we have the ability to go out and catch a break, to make 3 or 4 birdies in a row. It's all self-confidence, it all comes down to that."

Okay, so you are not born with patience, it is something that you can learn, or create, or develop over time, with experience. And yet, what is it that the experience provides that actually leads a person to possess patience?

I believe that experience is the vehicle for using the four basic mental skills of self-awareness, beliefs, focus, and imagination, to develop greater patience. Even if you're the "grip it and rip it" type you can develop greater patience. Just look at John Daly, this is exactly what he has been learning for the past several years.

What is patience? It is being in the present moment, accepting that moment as perfect, just as it is, and fully trusting yourself to be capable of creatively handling whatever may come your way in the next moment, while acknowledging that no moment is under your full control.

Furyk, Janzen and Zoeller, along with most professional golfers, male or female, use their experience as a way to get to know themselves and to discover what works for them, to honor their personal uniqueness, and to trust it explicitly.

With experience, they know how and what to tell themselves in a given situation that will move them toward their goal rather than away from it, they choose beliefs that support their personal goals.

Through experience they have practiced actively choosing where they want to put their attention, putting it there and keeping it there; through choice and practice until it becomes an unconscious habit that they can trust.

And finally, experience has taught them to rely on their imagination to creatively and effectively respond to an endless variety of situations. To trust that they will, more often than not, come up with a solution for even the trickiest of situations, or shots. It all adds up to patience.

Self-awareness
+ Beliefs
+ Focus
+ Imagination
x Experience = PATIENCE

Want more patience? Fill in the above equation with YOU, and let experience move you toward greater patience. And watch your scores drop in the process.

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Dr. Paula King, Golf's "Head" Coach®, is a licensed sports psychologist in private practice in Phoenix. Specializing in work with golfers her clients include tour pros, juniors and amateurs. Comments or Questions?