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Phil Mickelson’s Meltdown

Human beings, under stress, revert to unilateral functioning. What does that mean? Let me see if I can explain. Our brains have two hemispheres (left and right). The left hemisphere contains, among other things, our analytical abilities. Our right hemispheres are home to our response to emotion. Almost all humans have a dominant hemisphere. In Phil’s case, I believe it is his right hemisphere. That’s where his Riverboat Gambler lives.

On the eighteenth hole of the 2006 US Open, Phil was under stress (who wouldn’t be?) He hadn’t been striking the ball that well on the back nine and here he was with the US Open on the line. What does he do? His Riverboat Gambler decides to play boldly. He reverts to his dominant hemisphere without getting much help from his analytical side which might have said “Hey pal. I admire your style, but you’re not hitting it that well. Maybe you ought to play this a little more cautiously.” Now if his metabolic rate hadn’t been so high (he was nervous) he might have been able to pull off this approach, but as we all know, he hit the tent. His coordination was affected by stress.

Now I happen to be a big fan of Phil’s. I like his style. What could he have done differently? Well, he could have taken a more conservative approach but I’ve seen players botch things even more by being conservative. He needed to do something that would integrate hemispheric activity, lower his metabolic rate and promote cross lateral movement (allow coordination). And what might that be, you ask? Brain Gyms. These are 26 little exercises that take care of things like this and you don’t have to do all of them at once. When the heat is on you may only have to do one or two of them if you have been practicing them when the heat isn’t on. You may only need to practice the five of them that comprise the core of Brain Gyms. These are known as PACE. It only takes a few minutes to do all five of them. If you’re interested you can check out this website www.braingym.org

Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss Brain Gyms or if you have any of your own ideas on the subject.