Golf is wonderful, the more I practice it, the more I love it. I’m sorry that for a long time in Italy it’s been associated with a sport for the rich, for snobs. I understand the prejudice. But if we look at Scotland, the USA, golf’s history tells something else. Yes, there’s an economic component, no point denying it. But golf is first of all something else. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.
The swing: harmony of mind and body
The movement with which the club hits the ball is called the swing. The swing is a stroke that doesn’t live in force, nor in mere technique, but in the harmony of every single part. And it finds its cornerstone in the mind.
If we execute the swing one second slower, if we activate, or worse don’t turn off our thoughts, we can use the best technique, imprint immense forces but… The shot won’t go.
Golf is this. Golf draws its strength from the balance of mind and body. If you happen to try it, see competitions, or even read stories of great figures, you’ll notice precisely these characteristics, especially in champions, in legends.
The teacher who verticalizes
Why has it given me so much? I’ve loved it since I was a child, but only now, after so long and thanks to my wife’s initial push, have I managed to start practicing it. And time after time, the dopamine it released in me was something magnificent.
My teacher works a lot on the person, using a term that’s recent on this blog, he verticalizes on the individual’s characteristics. His lessons evolve time after time, he offers insights that seen today might seem wrong but at the time were key to learning part of the swing and arriving at my current swing today. And there’s still road ahead…
At the beginning I didn’t realize the true potential, but it was also a different period. But metacognition first and the rest of my journey after has expanded and further brought out the potential of golf’s swing.
My three key activities
And here I understood something about myself. There are three activities that, if done with purity and not force, completely recharge me. Even in brief windows of time.
Reading. Novels, essays.
Video games. Not all: structured ones like Crusader Kings, Victoria, Cities Skylines.
Golf.
Three different activities. Same result: energy for long days. But only if approached well. And golf, on this, admits no exceptions.
When the mind must empty
Before I would go to golf, I’d effectively relax, but I didn’t fully benefit from it, and indeed sometimes I’d even frustrate myself with how it went, how I wasn’t learning. As long as I managed to do lessons I’d learn something, after all metacognition was part of me though not yet known. But… There was that but.
When I went to golf without disconnecting my mind, when I told myself “You have this hour, use it,” the shots were clumsy. Sometimes with technically valid swing, but terrible shot.
Why? Because golf demands empty mind. Free mind.
Feel every part of the body. Head still. Shoulders rotating. Arms with the club going up. The club falling, using gravity. The shoulders give the whip. The body turns: shoulders, leg, head. The club extends, crushes the ball to the ground, makes it fly.
It sounds like poetry. But the real swing is this. Slow, fast movement. A few seconds.
The paradox of the reticular mind
And here’s the paradox: a mind like mine, reticular and metacognitive, always active, can make a good swing. In fact, it’s essential.
Why? Because metacognition allows me to access emptiness consciously. Not forcing it, like when they tell you “sit on the grass and empty your mind.” That type of meditation feels forced to me. In my case I want that background noise, but the productive kind, ready to give me ideas and serenity.
Golf, however, with its swing, offers that moment when the mind truly empties. For a short time, yes, but short physical time, not perceptual.
Physical time vs perceptual time
Perceptual is much. And we see it in the after. In happiness, in well-being, in strength and in ideas.
During the swing, for those few seconds, the mind zeros out. It doesn’t think. It feels. And that emptiness, even brief in physical time, is immense in perceptual time.
And think about it. Golf, by force if you think about it, takes us into nature, in contact with that green color capable of calming. With the sound of wind through the trees of the course. I sound poetic, and as much as I love golf that’s fair, but think about it for a moment…
The swing of life
And think about it: this happens elsewhere too.
When you play with your children, naturally, without thinking about “what to play.” When you let go and look like complete goofballs, excuse the term. We act silly with them, it seems like nonsense.
But them? Happy. You? Happy.
Because for a moment, a physical moment, the mind emptied. And that perceptual moment is immense. Like in golf’s swing. Like in life.
Empty mind. Full joy.
Find your swing
Golf taught me this: you don’t need to force the emptiness. You need to find YOUR swing. YOUR activity where the mind naturally zeros out.
For me it’s golf, reading, strategic video games. For you it could be something else. It could be running, painting, cooking, building something with your hands.
But when you find it, that moment where everything aligns, body and mind in harmony, you understand. You don’t need forced meditation. You need YOUR way of emptying.
And then yes, the mind frees itself. And life flies. Like the ball after a good swing.