An amazing thing happened up at the prestigious Alister Mackenzie designed Century Country Club last week.
Young Matt Lowe from Farmingdale Long Island won the 62nd Annual Ike Championship there.
The fact that Lowe won this event at the age of 21 is not amazing in itself but the way he did it got my attention.
I’m a sport psychologist and an athlete and I know that finding the zone is every athletes dream.
And that is just what Matt Lowe did as he cruised to a course record 61 by birdying 10 of the last 13 holes.
Yes, 10 of the last 13 holes, at Century, in the last round of the Ike.
Matt Lowe found the zone, entered the zone and stayed there for more than three hours. This is comparable to walking on a tight rope suspended 1,000 feet high with no net and doing that for a two-mile stretch.
And I was so impressed with this feat that I decided to interview him to see just how he did it.
I tracked him down at his home club Colonial Springs Country Club and met him with his father and his younger sister Alix who by the way just qualified for the U.S. Amateur. Good genes in this family.
On my journey out to see him I was sure that I would find the answer I sought. I had found the zone only once in my life, at Forsgate Country Club when I was 19 years old.
I shot a 69 and won large dollars from the older men I was playing against.
I swung differently that day with dead hands that I held high at address. It was fun.
So why can’t I do it again? Today I was sure I would find out from Matt.
Golfing greats like Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth find the zone on a regular basis.
So let me see what Matt Lowe says about all this. We went through the final round hole by hole and I was looking for that moment when he could have turned back but did not.
He described really an average round of golf up until the sixth hole.
At this point he was 1 under par and in no way close to setting a course record 61 and not close to the lead.
But then he birdied six and then seven and then eight and then nine and now he was 5 under.
This is what Carl Jung called the liminal space or the doorway into a deeper realm.
Virtually all athletes will either unconsciously or consciously back away from that doorway.
The heat of the moment is too much, the pressure is too great and the excitement comes over you like a tsunami which breaks you down.
There are virtually thousands of stories I have heard about this process of fear and backing off when going deep. This is what they call Fear of Success.
My favorite sorry is about Mac O’Grady who was in the lead of the U.S. Open at Olympic many years ago.
He hit an iron close on the 15th hole and had a birdie putt and a chance to go even deeper.
But Mac began to dwell upon the beauty of the trees at Olympic Club. I grant you the trees there are beautiful but it’s not a great sign if you are meditating on nature while trying to win the U.S. Open.
He proceeded to bogey his way home and that was that for Mac.
But in our case with Matt Lowe he did the opposite.
He entered into the zone and proceeded to stay there for three hours, hitting shot after shot, making putt after putt until he finished with the course record and the Ike trophy.
He maintained his cool, his focus and his aggression.
He birdied 10 of the last 13 holes. How?
This is what we concluded. The best way to comprehend how he managed to withstand the pressure and remain in the zone is as follows:
1. Matt has good genes. His cousin was a two time Olympic Gold medalist in skeet shooting. Other cousins are Division I football stars. His sister is on scholarship for golf at Towson University.
2. He is a tireless worker. The assistant pro at Colonial Springs told me Matt is a kid who works on his game every day.
3. There is love in this family. I could see that his father was devoted to him and Matt told me his mom is the same way.
4. Sibling rivalry helps too. Matt grew up with his cousin who was a little older so Matt always had someone who was bigger and someone to compete with.
5. The family legacy. Matt told me that he always has in his mind that he is from a family of Olympians and that makes him feel that victory is in his blood.
6. Matt has a strong presence when you sit with him. There is something withheld and unto himself.
There is a self-containment that is needed if you want to enter the zone.
To get into the zone you must pass through a liminal space, a doorway which will introduce you into a world where there is more pressure and more to risk and more heat. It is the room of glory. To enter you will need a certain toughness of character. And that toughness comes from the things you have just read about.
It comes from genes and work and love and sibling rivalry and legacy too.
Congrats to Matt Lowe and his family. To the victor belongs the spoils.
As I drove home and thought about what I would write I realized that no matter how I tried to detail this ability it still remains largely a mystery.
And I suppose that’s the fun of it all.
