Rob Rashell Golf

Notes

Hamilton said he approached his gold - medal performance in Sarajevo with “refined indifference.” He had trained for years to prepare for that moment. When the spotlight came on and the music began, he let fate carry him through. The hard work was over. Now he told himself, go out and enjoy.

The hallmark of mentally tough athletes is the ability to maintain poise, concentration, and emotional control under the greatest pressure and the most challenging situations.

You can’t control your performance until you are in control of yourself. What you’re thinking. How you’re feeling. Most importantly, your physiology. Know your numbers and your early warning signs.

Sports psychology doesn’t create talent. It only can help release it. Sharing the story is my way of being responsible, our topic in this section. In sports, as in life, your future and success depend upon many things, but mostly they depend upon you. You have the responsibility to shape your life. You are the person who pushes yourself forward or holds yourself back. The power to succeed or fail is yours alone.

Maddux knows the only things he can control during a game are himself and his pitches. Tim Salmon, a former American League rookie of the year, said, “I can’t control the pitcher, the ball, the fielders, or the crowd, so I must be in control of myself.”

While you can’t always control what happens, you always can control how you respond to it. It’s not the situation but how you respond to it that makes the difference.

Some athletes simply lack the drive to become the best they can be. You can’t buy motivation. You can’t obtain it from someone else.

Japanese players focus on the process of knowing themselves and improving their weaknesses. Americans seem more focused on outcome.

Let’s look at some basic principles of goal setting. First, you should develop performance goals as well as outcome goals. A performance goal, or action goal, is something you can control.

Tennis great Billie Jean King made a profound statement about failure. She said athletes should look at failure as feedback.

Look at fear as a natural part of growing and learning. People who succeed aren’t afraid to fail. Failure can be a better teacher than winning.

There is a psychological principle called cognitive dissonance. It can be defined as the uncomfortable psychological state that arises when how you see yourself and what is really happening come into conflict. Many athletes who experience this conflict revert to their comfort zone.

Limits begin where vision ends. You have to see yourself as a no-limits person.

When you’re riding the pines, make a list of things you can do. Maybe that means watching videos, studying the opponent, exercising in the weight room, or cheering your teammates on.

If you don’t fail, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.

Cus D’Amato, who trained Mike Tyson, said emotions, particularly anger, are like fire. They can cook your food and keep you warm, or they can burn your house down.

Oxygen is energy — it’s juice. Oxygen helps relax muscles and clear the mind.

“Bat Mack, ” Rodriguez said, addressing me by my baseball nickname, “my only goal is to learn how to play one entire game in the present.”

“The First Rule of Holes” and it read, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging.”

Sports is a roller - coaster. It’s a series of performance peaks and valleys, ups and downs, twists and turns. If an athlete’s best day is a “zone” experience then the worst day is one in which he or she is muddled in a slump — a natural cycle in sports.

That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of morning, you’re getting found out now, under the bright lights.”

“You can rise above almost any obstacle if you’re willing to work hard and believe that you can do it,” he said. “I want everyone to remember that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

“As long as I can look in the mirror and know I’ve done everything I could,” he said, “that’s all I care about.”