How Ko used her mind to conquer the golfing world

In this edited extract from his new book, Michael Donaldson explains what makes Lydia Ko great.

FOR a professional golfer to execute a shot under pressure she needs to separate herself from everything going on around her – the crowd, the money at stake, the mistake she made on the last hole, the state of the contest – as well as closing down the constant stream of chatter the average mind generates, from nonsense such as what’s for dinner to greater questions of self-doubt or guilt.

Controlling her mind is one of Lydia Ko’s great strengths.

Her mind-conditioning coach, David Niethe, says she has the mental make-up of all top athletes.

‘‘What we find with great athletes is that balance between the creative mind and the intellectual ability – Lydia has got that in abundance. She is very analytical, very intelligent, but she’s got this creative side. When you can blend that together it’s something special; she has an incredible mind.’’

Niethe helped hone Lydia’s mind from a young age to a razor sharpness which matched her wedge play. The key areas Niethe worked on can be summarised as visualisation, perception and the physiology of excellence. Like her lessons with Guy Wilson, fun featured highly.

‘‘The first fifteen minutes of any session with Lydia was her saying hello to the cats and the dogs. And if you were sitting outside listening to us you’d be wondering if we were doing any work because we’d be cracking up laughing.

‘‘That’s how she liked to learn – her learning state was fun. If you made it fun she’d take it all on board. The moment you started getting serious she would actually manipulate it back to fun. She’s highly intelligent in that way, in understanding what works for her – she had a level of self-awareness from a very young age. She definitely had a certain level of wisdom and was smart enough to filter out the bullshit.’’

Evidence of her desire – and ability – to have fun came at an early age when she could be seen skipping down fairways and picking flowers. In her younger days she copped a bit of flak from other kids and from older members at the Pupuke Golf Club for her joyous romps.

The scowls and sniggers upset the young Lydia but, says Niethe, she was ‘congruent’ with having fun. In other words, Lydia expressed to the world who she truly was. Unfazed by what others thought of her, Lydia kept playing golf in a cocoon of fun. For her, enjoyment was the main priority, rather than placing demands on herself to perform.

‘‘She was ultimately at peace with herself and the world around. There was no conflict.’’

In terms of visualisation, Niethe worked with Lydia on a number of levels. Just as Muhammad Ali once quipped, ‘‘I am the greatest. I said that even before I was’’, so Niethe had Lydia visualising herself as the world No1. In his words it was ‘‘giving herself permission’’ to be the best and then acting as if that was going to play out as she envisaged.

On a more mundane level, he also taught her to visualise golf shots; to create in her mind’s eye the type of shot she wanted to play, or to imagine a creative solution to a tricky chip shot or convoluted putt. It relates to his mantra: ‘‘what you think is what you get’’.

But there was also a third way of thinking: Lydia’s mind examining the outcomes of shots.

Here Niethe and Lydia talked about ‘perceptional positioning’, a neurolinguistic programming (NLP) term which relates to how we see the world – from our own position, from someone else’s position (the old ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’) and from the position of a neutral observer. It’s in this third position where we can analyse a situation without any emotion; in Lydia’s case, the examination of her golf shot without blaming herself.

Regular golf watchers – and players – will frequently see the opposite of this: players yelling at themselves, calling themselves names, shaking their heads, throwing clubs, blaming caddies. That’s the norm, so for Lydia to be able assess a situation without any anger or remorse takes a huge amount of mental skill.

Edited extract taken from Lydia Ko: Portrait of a teen golfing sensation, which goes on sale