Wow!

The word of choice on Sky’s coverage of the Ryder Cup last night was “Wow.”

Wow indeed. Very Wow!

The golf was amazing. The drama was amazing. The way the story unfolded before us was amazing. The result was… Wow.

But what was especially ‘Wow’ for me was to see how the quality of the players’ thinking dictated their performances and thus the result.

Apart from Rory who, apparently, was still in his PJs (maybe that’s the secret), I was pondering on what may have gone on before play commenced on Sunday – did they do the passionate speeches? Did they do some word-weaving? Tell mythical stories? Embed commands? Bring the system to rest? Fascinating.

Here’s the one that I would love to know the answer to: did anyone talk, in any way, about circumstances, choice, thought and outcomes? Hmmm.

There was a lot of material for me there to observe and code: Furyk, Poulter, Kaymer, Donald, Bubba, Lawrie, Bradley. Well – all of them really -but let’s come back to them.

I was a professional golfer for a while in the 1970s. Golf was very different then and the standards, pressure and intensity of the modern game are in a different galaxy now. I can only have only the teeniest, tiniest of an inkling of what it must be like to be in the mega-scanner of modern competitive golf when it is tuned to find the players’ fracture points and exploit them.

And the Ryder Cup is beyond that: it is the glass that focuses the light of examination on the players in a way that no other event in the sport can match. It is ruthless and all-revealing – an inspection of skill, nerve, character and mind control.

But there is a key to passing this examination.

The key is to understand the nature of thought and use that understanding to choose to think at a level of quality that lets you perform at peak levels regardless of circumstance.

It is as simple as that.

Let’s go back to the players.

Pick a winner of your choice.

What did you notice about them? What did you see in their eyes, in their body movements, in their focus? What did they do when they got a bad break, screwed up, or hit with a pile driver?

Now pick a loser of your choice.

What did you notice about them? What did you see in their eyes, in their body movements, in their focus? What did they do when they got a bad break, screwed up, or hit with a pile driver? Did you notice the moment their world changed?

When circumstances become hostile or move in another’s favour there is no cosmic law that says the quality of our thinking has to do the same. Indeed, when our circumstances head south, the way to ensure our fortune doesn’t go with it is to keep our thinking at a level that maintains our high level of performance.

That was the difference in the teams. Europe had the quality of thought required for the win. The US didn’t.