THE MASTERS: A “JUST LAST WEEK” RETROSPECTIVE

By Greg Warburton

As I watched the Masters Golf Tournament this year (April 8 – 11), I found myself frustrated with the ongoing void of sports commentary about players using mental/emotional fitness skills to “get in and right back out” of the mental/emotional impact of a poor shot/poor performance on a given golf hole. Instead, now well into the 21st Century, the commentary sounds like it has for decades and sounded like this again this past weekend: At the pro level, players rarely miss a shot, but once they enter competition they try not to think about the nerves.

At one point on Friday, commentators Brian Crowell and Colt Knost (professional golfer on tour) were saying, about Rory McIlroy’s performance struggles throughout the second round, he looks lost and confused and frustrated…and paraphrasing…as he misses left and right…he needs to have the ability to find it (his swing again) in the middle of this round if he is going to make the cut. 

Regarding this dearth, the Founders at the Evolutionary Sports Collective have been, individually, working to move actual, doable mentally and emotionally integrated fitness practices into mainstream sports for 40-plus years and, now for the past decade, as an organization. Please join our ever-growing Collective to facilitate athletes at all levels receiving the news: There is indeed a superb collection of body/mind practices as one moves to the leading edge of what has, for 50 years in Sport Psychology, been commonly known as mental training. And finally, the collection of skills we are teaching also moves one out of your head and into your body. Effective mental training is NOT merely rooted in thinking and cognition! Imagine with us the marvelous possibility of the whole wide world learning skills to more constantly live in a relaxed body, calm mind state and what that would mean for Planet Earth.

Juxtaposed with my viewing the sport performance of the top golfers in the world was the poignant overarching issue of human rights challenges in Georgia where there were calls out to the PGA and the Augusta National Golf Club leadership to boycott the Masters, as writer Eamon Lynch aptly states in his beautifully reasoned article on USA Today about Georgia’s appalling voter suppression law:

“Sport and politics is a fraught intersection, where people with no peripheral vision routinely express shock at being T-boned by views that conflict with their own.”

Though as we know, there was no boycott of the Masters Golf Tournament, let us take notice of this honoring moment at the opening ceremony.

A recent Golf Digest article begins:

“Lee Elder didn’t hit a shot, but he didn’t have to. For Elder’s impact on the game of golf—and on the Masters—runs far deeper than a drive down the middle. The first Black man to play in the Masters was honored at Augusta National on Thursday morning…"

I recommend you read the full story and also view the truly poignant video moments of dignity and respect and watery eyes in honoring Lee Elder.

All of this highlights for me what we in the Evolutionary Sports Collective have known for several decades: 

There is a literal need, with a concomitant urgency, for a pervasive spread of the mentally and emotionally integrated practices that are readily available for all the peoples on Planet Earth to use and live in relaxed bodies, calm minds, resulting in the glorious resurrection of dignity, respect and civility.

The time is now.