Fitzpatrick at the Valspar
The Valspar Championship is not usually considered one of the premier tournaments on the PGA Tour. It comes directly after the flagship event at TPC Sawgrass and the field often suffers as a result, with the bigger names choosing to sit out as the major season looms large. However, this year’s championship provided Mental Performance enthusiasts with much to talk about, not least the strong bounce back of Matt Fitzpatrick following his crushing disappointment at the Players.
I believe that philosophy is a wonderful vehicle from which to explore mentality in the game of golf. The Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, believed that the cause of unhappiness or discontent can be directly traced to the idea of trying to control the uncontrollables; put simply, directing your energy into things that are not up to you. This, I think, is what Fitzpatrick seemed to avoid during the week of the Valspar. It would have been easy for him to dwell on his club choice off the 18th tee, or view his loss as a personal disaster that he could have avoided.
From the outside, Fitzpatrick seemed to excel in two distinct areas of Mental Performance. Firstly, he practiced Strict Acceptance after the Players’ Championship; he could not control the outcome of the week, but he absolutely could control his internal judgement of it. The Stoics would say that the result is completely irrelevant to your moral character, which is far more important. The loss did not affect his ability to be kind, or brave, or honest - it had absolutely no impact upon him as a human being. It did, however, afford him the confirmation that he was playing great golf and doing all the right things, and this is what he took into the next week.
Existentialism would look at Fitzpatrick’s week another way. It would split the performance into three distinct parts:
Factity - The hard truths. He did not win the Players. This cannot be changed.
Transcendence - He had the ability to project himself into the future despite the factity. He ‘took the positives’ (overused phrase) and brought them to his next tournament.
The Bounce Back - Last week’s disappointment was his moment of freedom. The old path disappeared, and he took this as freedom to forge a new one.
Fitzpatrick’s win was very impressive from a mental perspective. The disappointment of not getting it over the line was obviously palpable, but he made this work for him and not against him. The ability to accept what has gone without question and take learnings forward is rare in golf, and something that takes years to build. Perhaps this is the year of the Yorkshireman?
