Okay, okay, so this book isn’t about golf. But it’s an excellent examination of the mental side of sport, and almost all of its lessons transfer easily from tennis to golf. (For the purists, the author has since published The Inner Game of Golf, which I haven’t read, but I’m sure is plenty good.)
The Inner Game of Tennis is a book about athletic improvement. The author, Timothy Gallwey, was a tennis coach and former high-level player. He wrote The Inner Game based on his experiences as a teaching pro, having learned first-hand how ineffective “traditional” coaching is for many amateur players.
Gallwey noticed that giving advice like “raise your arm more as you follow through” would cause many players to overthink and try too hard, preventing them from improving. Over time, he developed a new, paradoxical style of coaching, which involved less professional instruction and more guiding players through a process of self-discovery. Here’s a taste of what that means.
Your two selves
Gallwey describes two selves: Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 is your conscious mind — the part of you that can strategize and plan, or think “keep your left arm straight” while you take the club away. Self 2 is your unconscious mind, and also the part of you that actually executes each shot. In the end, movement happens quickly enough in the golf swing that only muscle memory and instinct is engaged. (This dichotomy is similar to the one highlighted by Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, although he reverses 1 and 2.)
After reading this, I found myself thinking differently about strategy on the course. Self 1, who I think of as “myself”, should almost be thinking more like a caddie who picks out the right club and tells the player where to aim. But once that plan is decided, it’s Self 2 who needs to step up and execute. Self 1 shouldn’t be involved at all once you step up to the ball.
Learning how to learn
Parts of The Inner Game of Tennis remind me of some of Dan Luu’s writing about practice and improvement. Luu notes that in the video game Overwatch, even high-ranking players are constantly making simple mistakes. (Sound anything like golf?)
He goes on to list some reasons these people might make the same mistakes over and over:
- People don't want to win or don't care about winning
- People understand their mistakes but haven't put in enough time to fix them
- People are untalented
- People don't understand how to spot their mistakes and fix them
For now, let’s set aside my extensive personal experience with #3. The Inner Game of Tennis has a lot to say about the fourth item in this list: people don’t understand how to spot their mistakes and fix them.
How often have you struggled through most of a round, only to “figure something out” on the 16th or 17th hole — but then find yourself right back where you started next time you pick up a club? And how can so many golfers spend endless hours on the range hitting golf balls without really improving?
Non-judgmental observation
Gallwey preaches something called non-judgmental observation. He prescribes: hit 10 balls. Don’t worry about where they go. Just observe what’s happening in your body. How do your arms feel? Your legs? Where is your head? What happens at the top of your backswing? Even better: get in front of a mirror and watch yourself swing in different ways.
The idea is to let your mind and body learn together how to hit the ball. Through this focused observation, you can better ingrain the feeling of shallowing the club or shortening the backswing. And from repeated, non-judgmental exploration, your body will intuit how to hit good shots and how not to hit bad shots. It can even learn, purely by feel, how to hit a draw, a fade, a high shot, a low shot, and so on.
Back to Dan Luu: in a post called “Willingness to look stupid”, he describes the new insight you can gain by “deliberately playing around in the area between success and failure.” After all, if you don’t know what failure looks and feels like, how will you know how to avoid it? Here’s a story I particularly like:
When learning to drive, I wanted to set up some cones and drive so that I barely hit them, to understand where the edge of the car is. My father thought this idea was very stupid and I should just not hit things like curbs or cones.
Gallwey would love this mindset. What would it look like to set up some “cones” in your golf game and try to barely hit them, just to learn where the boundaries are? Maybe you could try to intentionally pick your head up too early, or chunk a chip, or come over the top. Observing what happens to lead to those outcomes will help you avoid them in the future. As long as you’re learning by paying attention to the body and refraining from judgment, you’re making progress.
Final thoughts
Two things have stuck with me from this book more than anything else:
First, I’ve leaned into the idea of “non-judgmental observation” as part of my warmup. When you’re on the range to get loose before a round, it’s far too late to be tinkering with your swing. Instead, I’m working on using those warmup sessions to observe what’s happening with my swing that day, without judgment, and try to prepare myself for what to expect on the course as a result.
And second is the difference between Self 1 and Self 2 on the course. As much as I might wish otherwise, Self 1 has no control over the golf swing itself. It’s totally reshaped my strategy to imagine I am caddying for someone else – somehow it’s easier to make choices without pride or ego getting in the way, and to disconnect emotionally from the outcome.
The book isn’t long, and if this review interested you, I’d recommend giving it a read. I happened to find a PDF version online, though I expect the formatting would be much better in an official copy.
But if you don’t read the book, I’d encourage you to try some non-judgmental observation next time you play. You might be surprised at what you discover!
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