What is a golfer’s palette?

It does not matter whether we are talking about golf or life, we each have an inner artist waiting to be uncovered and unleashed to create either a desired golf shot, a minuet, a painting or a facet of life we dream to experience. A golfer’s palette is symbolic of the mental and technical skills and talents we golfers choose to practice and make available for use when putting the inner artist to work to create a golf shot or a putt. As a painter needs an easel, a canvas, brushes and dabs of paint on his-her palette, a golfer needs equipment, club and body mechanics and body-mind mastery “tools” to create as master at golf. It is no secret that playing winning golf implies focusing on saving putts, hitting fairways, hitting greens in regulation and consistently making ups and downs. As outlined in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, the palette of skills and talents can include:
1) Self-awareness and understanding.
2) Preventive healthcare: body and mind.
3) The game: history, etiquette, Rules of Golf and pace-of-play.
4) Technical skills: logistical factors, ball flight laws, swing principles, equipment, games within the game and club and body mechanics.
5) Exploring how we learn and how we need to practice to best program our human system to perform.
6) On-the-course play, strategy, coaching, exploration and experimentation.
7) Meditation that facilitates body-mind mastery for golf and life: as Goldstein & Kornfield offer, “Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind and body is the basis for all types of meditation and is in truth a basic skill for any endeavor, for art or athletics, computer programming or self- knowledge.”
In golf and life, it takes preparation today to have success tomorrow. Coupled with modeling the way as a person, in relationships and when enabling others, the journey of equipping the golf “toolbox” can be challenging, exciting and fun. And this process demands discipline and patience, too!