Golf can be more than scorecards, technique, and competition—it can also be a form of meditation. In this video, feeling exhausted, I head to Belle Isle Golf Detroit’s driving range to reset, recharge, and re-balance my energy through mindful practice.
I share some backstory on how I use golf as moving meditation, then walk you through a session while hitting shots. Finally, you’ll simply watch the flow of swings—golf as meditation in action.
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Have you ever hit golf balls as a meditation? That’s what I’m going to be doing today here at Bell Golf Detroit. Let me give you a little backstory, a little context, and then we’ll go hit some golf balls and I’ll show you this meditation that I’m going to do. [Music] So, a little bit of the backstory. As many of you may know, I’ve been kind of rebranding this year from professional golfer and coach and trainer to professional golfer and explorer. So, I’m going through the little bit of the stress of career transition, a career tweaking. Old things are falling away and the new things haven’t really grabbed yet and there’s uncertainty of whether or not those things are going to grab. So, there’s there’s just the general challenge of that this year. But then also just recently I feel like I’ve been weathering a bit of a storm in a way or I’ve been caught in a storm. So the other day I was filming out here and my GoPro needed a factory reset. I filmed a whole thing and then it turns out one of my camera feeds went bad so I lost a whole day. My Instagram account got locked mistakenly and then my laptop went down yesterday. My web server got broken into and half a million spam files got dumped onto it. So there’s just I feel like I’ve just been getting hit in a lot of different ways in addition to the the stresses of going through a a career change, career tweak I guess. So I’m feeling a little bit long and short of it is I’m feeling a little bit tired, a little bit worn out, just burning both ends of the candle. So one of the things that I’ll do sometimes to re-energize is but then also to work on my golf game is to hit balls and use that as a meditation. So what do I mean by that? So many of you that have been following me throughout the years may know me more for my golf things in the world of professional golf, but interestingly, one of the things that I haven’t revealed and then I’m kind of like starting to reveal a little bit more this year is that I’m every bit as much knowledgeable and researched in various aspects of spirituality. So astrology, human design, tarot readings, gan keys, numerology, funue, like all these different kinds of things uh I think are to me are really interesting and fascinating and just as much to me as golf. So I’m kind of like a golf spiritualist in a way although I I haven’t people won’t really know me as that. So anyway, just from an astrologic one expl one perspective on this, if you from an astrologic standpoint, if you do a look at my birth chart, astrological birth chart, there’s four elements in astrology, there’s the air, there’s fire, there’s water, and then there’s earth. So on my chart, I’m very very heavy air. And you can kind of see, so air is are things of like uh people that are heavy in air are good at communication. They’re they might be a little bit of dreamers or idealist but then on the downside of that is maybe they get caught in the head so much and then they overanalyze and get paralyzed from that. So that’s all those things are definitely me for sure. And then fire is like say the sun is associated with passion, water is more associated uh with emotions and then the earth is like your your groundedness, your practicality, that kind of thing. So in my chart, I’m super super heavy, super super strong in air. And that even shows up for me in more recent years as Clare audience. Like I’m just had this thing kind of turned on or revealed or maybe I just accessed of being able to hear things. And then my fire is in my chart is very balanced. So I have a very balanced amount of passion. I don’t need a lot. I can self-start on my own, but then also I don’t run hot. And then my emotions, my water is is a little bit on the low side. So that comes across for me is like when I speak naturally like this and I’m not trying to speak faster and amp up amp up my energy and like do those kinds of things. My natural cadence, I have a little bit of a I’m a little bit emotionally flat. So sometimes people I think have confused my emotionally flatness to not having passion. But it’s actually like I have a balanced amount of passion. I have plenty of like gopower. Um, but I just just kind of have a a calm flat disposition, I guess. And then with earth in my uh birth chart, I have a very low I’m very low on earth elements. So, for me, like I’m not always it’s it’s like the opposite of uh the air. So, like I’m always dreaming and I maybe lose a little bit of groundedness, a little bit of practicality, and I’m just I I I see how things could be. So, I’m a little bit out of out of balance in that sense. So, one of the things that I’ll do here with hitting balls is Bell Isle is literally on an island in the Detroit River. So, for me with being in nature here and being right next to water, I’m standing on the ground. I’m literally surrounded by water. So, just the fact of being here, I think, really helps balance me. And indeed, that’s one of the things that I one of the reasons why I like golf. And even if golf didn’t exist, I I really enjoy like nature hikes and just being outside and I have like a physically strong athletic body. So I like just and I’m gifted in that sense. So I like using those things and golf gives me a chance to do that. It it allows me to use my gifts and then it being out here on the course, being out here practicing. Um I get to engage with my gifts and it also helps balance out my energy. So just the fact of being out practicing helps me. That’s one of the reasons why I really love golf. It’s like a nature walk for me. And then a energetic balancing so to speak. So, one of the things that I’ll do when I’m when I come out and I’m feeling a little bit tired and fried like I am right now and I just and I’ve just been in my head and just been grinding, grinding, grinding, and I just need to like re-energize a little bit. I’ll come out and I’ll hit balls, but I’ll not just hit balls. I’ll do like a little bit of a a meditation or visualization, I guess. And I think there’s astrologic um components that are at play here. But um even if you don’t think that, maybe it’s just the the breath work that I’m doing. I’m breathing in a lot of oxygen and a lot of good oxygen from all the plants and grass and stuff around. So maybe I’m getting a little bit of a a brain high from all the deep breathing and stuff. And then part of the meditation as well is is just the visualization. And there maybe there could be a placebo effect and just that I I I think that I’m doing it. I think that it’s helping me. So, it does help me just because I think that it’s helping me. So, there’s that. Maybe what we’ll do now is we’ll go up to the driving range over there and I’ll walk you through what I’m doing. So, again, it’s important for to remember that my goal here, I’m in my head. I feel out of balance. So, the goal is to try and connect with the nature, connect with the land, connect with the water, and to get myself out of my head. I don’t really need to do anything with the fire, the passion so much. That’s just a naturally balanced thing, but it’s the other to rebalance these other things. So, what I’ll do, and we’ll go up there on the range, and I’ll show you this in a second, but so I’ll start I’ll use this as a combo of working on my routine, working on hitting balls, but then also being mindful and focusing on my energy. So, this is more about energy work than it is about performance. Although, I’m trying to work on performance, trying to work on technique a little bit at the same time. So, what I’ll do is when I’m standing behind the ball, I’ll start by bringing my awareness to the the earth and that I’m standing on the earth. And then I’ll focus my attention on the energy of the earth. And then I’ll imagine roots growing through my feet down into the ground. And then I’ll visualize breathing the energy of the earth up through my feet into my legs, into my torso, up into my head. And I’ll even extend this. So there’s like a aura around us like an energy field. And perhaps you felt this before when you like someone comes into your personal space once they get so once they get in your energy space. You can you can sense that. You can feel that. or even if someone’s standing behind you, if they come up so close to you, you can sometimes tell that they’re there. You can kind of read that they’re there. So, I’m I’m picturing the energy of the earth, having it come up through roots in my feet, come up to my legs, my torso, my head, and then even to in just filling up my energetic uh space here. And I’ll breathe in. So, I’m like taking in the energy of the earth. And then when I breathe out, I’ll imagine the earth and just gravity kind of like pushing all the energy down through my head back the other way and down into the earth. And then it just kind of disperses into the earth and disperses into the nothing. And this also gets into a little bit maybe I need to do another video about this about the multi-dimensionality uh the multi-dimensional space that we’re this is a little bit of quantum physics um that kind of thing. So maybe I’ll touch on that briefly. So, we’re in a multi-dimensional electromagnetic field. So, there’s you remember maybe the electromagnetic spectrum from your uh science uh courses when you were like growing up or in high school or college if you went to college. But there’s electromagnetic field, there’s light waves, there’s sound waves, there’s all these things like going on that we know are there and we can we can detect are there, but maybe we can’t like we can’t see sound waves or at least we don’t know how to do that yet. There’s onedimensional space. If you think of it like geometry is just X. There’s onedimensional space. There’s a good video about this on YouTube. Um it’s from the 1970. I’ll have to like look it up and and share it in the comment or in the link description or something. But if you start out say 10 ft above someone and then you zoom in to 1 ft and then you zoom in to 1 inch and then you zoom in to one centimeter, 1 millimeter and then you like go into the cells and just go deeper deeper deeper. Eventually you just get to like this electromagnetic field and then if you like zoom out zoom out zoom out zoom out to the earth zoom out to the solar system keep going out out you arrive at the same thing this electromagnetic field. So we’re just in this electromagnetic field of possibility and when we are when we pop into our bodies and then our human senses turn the space into an experience. So like when you open your eyes, it turns the like this nothing into like something that you can see. So when you have your eyes closed, there’s you can’t see or detect. And if you are in a sensory deprivation tank or something like that where you remove all your senses, you’re experiencing a little bit more of the X, the oneness that that you’re connected to and that you’re part of. And then you can layer in XY like AB. Um time is two-dimensional. Um and then he can bring in three-dimensional space XYZ and that gives like depth to things. So XY is more like looking at a painting or like looking at this video but XYZ is like there’s there’s a depth perception. So also as part of this meditation, I’m trying to while I’m doing this breathing and trying to bring my energy out of my head and ground it into the earth. And then when I disperse it, I’m trying to also blur my vision in a way I guess. So if you close your eyes and you’re in a dark room and you remove light pos like potentially remove all the light and then you like gradually introduce light and then you kind of gradually open your eyes there’s like a a little bit of the the the 3D is like a little bit of a hologram in a way. So what I’m trying to do also there is focus on the one-dimensional spaceness of it and getting a sense of my body energy and the the the oneness of it all is all all the same. This is uh this space is a space of abundance the spaces of of health. So when I kind of like bring my attention and detect that energy field of the oneness and and I try and tune into that and then I compare it in a way to the space that my my aura and my own energy field is taking up in that and I can sometimes tell that like oh like I can really feel that like I’m up in my head. So, I I I’m trying to bring my awareness to this one-dimensional space, compare it to the I don’t know, two and three-dimensional space that I’m in, and then blur it together a little bit and disperse the stuck energies in my head and that kind of thing. So, I’m really trying to it’s it’s like an energy balancing exercise. Kind of a weird thing to talk about, kind of weird thing to do maybe, and if you’re just like in the golf world, but I’m going to talk about it. These kinds of things I think need to be shared. So, let me go up. Let me shut this off here and then I’m going to go up onto the driving range over there and then we’ll start hitting balls and we’ll hit balls for a few minutes and then I’ll take you through I’ll take you through the first few shots of what I’m doing and what I’m trying to focus on, what I’m trying to experience and then I’ll just do a few shots also where I’m you’ll know what I’m doing, but I’m maybe not talking about it and then hopefully by the end of it I’ll be feeling a lot better. I can tell you like right now that just standing on the earth here or standing on the ground here and being next to this water, I’m already feeling a lot better and feeling more balanced then. So I don’t even need golf to do that. Just being out in nature can do that and and that can help regardless of whatever is in your chart. Like I’m heavy air or gifted in air and lower in earth and water, but other people may be other things. But that’s one of the nice things about being outside and being in in nature or being sitting on on a beach is there’s a big sky here right now. So if you need air, there’s air. There’s the sun is here. So if you need passion and fire, that’s there. If you need earth, if you need water. So like I think that’s one part of one of the reasons why being out in nature feels so good for everyone is that you can be around those kinds of things. So anyway, let me shut this off and then I’m going to go up to the driving range and we’ll uh start hitting some balls. All right. So, we’re over here at the driving range. Uh, let’s hit some balls uh going through what we were just talking about. So, what I’m going to do here is I got the I’m just going to hit balls in line with the mat. So, if I hit a straight ball, it should go a little bit to the right of the red flag there between the red and yellow flag. Although, today, interestingly, I got some runners on and these shoes have me sit up a little bit higher than my normal golf shoes. So, usually I hit straight or a little bit of a draw. So, sometimes when I wear these shoes, it brings me up a little bit and then that makes the lie angle effectively be a little bit flat. So, sometimes when I’m hitting uh in these shoes, like I’ll actually hit uh a little bit straight to a cut instead of a straight to a draw. So, something to be aware of there, I guess. And then maybe good for you to be aware of in that what shoes you’re wearing could affect like your ball flight. So, one of the things that I’ll do here also to work on my actual golf game is sometimes I tend to hit the ball on the on the heel a little bit. So, sometimes I’ll uh line myself up right next to the mat here or right next to this the the tee so that if I do catch it on the heel a little bit, I’ll I’ll strike the rubber rubber tea just a touch. So, it’s like a little bit of a feedback mechanism. Sometimes you see tour players put water bottles or foam noodles or just So this is a way of just putting an object there. And the goal is to just avoid the object. And if I do that, then I should I don’t really tend to miss on the toe of the club. So I don’t tend to miss this way. I tend to miss more this way. So as long as I miss that tee, then my strike should be pretty pretty centered there. So that’s one of the things I’m going to be working on here technically. But again, this is more just about energy. So let’s let’s kind of get started with that. What I’ll do is I’ll go through my whole routine. So, I’ll stand behind the ball here. I got the this a little bit in the way, but I’m basically drawing a line in my mind from where the target is down to the ball. And then I’m there’s different ways to line up, but this particular time I’m going to be picking a spot right here that’s on the line of the ball and where my target is. So, I’m just practicing the mental routine of it also and lining up the the club to that, lining up my body, and then just going ahead and swinging. So to start with this first one here, I’ll start back here. And now it’s like the beginning of the grounding of the energy. So I’ll start by taking a deep breath as I’m behind here. And again, I’m imagining the energy of the earth coming up through roots in my feet up into my head, maybe a little bit higher. So I get all of my oric uh space. And then I’ll as I breathe out, I’ll bring that energy from my head out down through my feet and into the earth and kind of like dispers visualize dispersing it. And then there’s also something I’ll incorporate. It’s called the educational kinesiology. It’s like where you put different motions that you can make like if you do this or or this. There’s induces certain hormones and things to happen inside your body basically. So sometimes I’ll also to help I’ll put my hand here on my stomach and that also helps me give me something to focus on to bring my energy out of my head. So that’s you won’t be able to see that when I’m turned the other way but that’s kind of one of the things that I’m doing. So, if you ever see me doing that on the course and I got my hand here, that’s that’s like something that I’m actually doing there. So, we’ll start back here. I’ll just focus for a second. Think about the earth here. Think about breathing the energy up in. I have my hand on my stomach here. So, I’ll I’ll do that. And then when I have my energy in a good space, I’ll walk in a balanced way. towards the ball and not be head forward like I tend to be. So if I were in my head, I might be kind of like going in like going in like this. So, so I’ll breathe in here disperse the energy and then walk paying attention to the balance of the whole environment here of the earth, the water that we’re surrounded by on the island, the air and the sun that’s behind the camera here. And I’ll keep my energy in the balance of the energy and the environment. walk in, wind my club up to the spot while still paying attention to my energy here. And then I can already tell I’ve got some stiffness in my butt, so I’m trying to relax that a little bit. My grip is a little bit tight, so let me soften that. Quads are a little bit tight, so I’m just kind of getting rid of the tension here. And then now I’ll just kind of go ahead and go. And I feel a little bit of tension in my torso. Trying to stay relaxed. Trying to stay relaxed. Trying to stay relaxed and in balance. So that was a the shot itself ended up right. That was a perfectly straight shot with where I aimed or where I think I’m where I’m intending to aim. I did notice that I caught the tee there a little bit. So, I probably healed that a little bit. So, now now I go back and do it again. Get a ball set up here. So, if I were to, so I’m working on a little bit of my golf game, but then also working on my energy, which is the main focus of this today, just to kind of get my energy sorted and just to feel be feeling better again. So, that’s the more important thing for today. So, go back again. I’ll talk through a couple of these and then I’ll just do a couple where I really try and focus and I’m not talking so much and you can just observe. So, here I am back here again. Hand on my stomach, right hand on my stomach. Picture the ball going up, down, landing to the right of the flag, red flag there. Do the little breath exercise. Breathe in. Breathe out. Pull the energy out down through roots of my feet into the earth and kind of disperse it. So now I’m already feeling a little bit more relaxed. Now I walk in in balance, en energetic balance and physical balance. Go ahead and get myself lined up here. Paying attention to my body for things that are tight and tense because the energy field is not tight and tense. The energy field just the energy field. So uh so we’ll let me go back here and start over again. Hand on stomach. Breathe in. Breathe out. Walk in. Being mindful of my energy. Staying calm and relaxed. Working out tension in my butt and hips. Watching my grip. Watching my jaw. Ready? Watching the ball land. Okay, that I caught the that felt like reasonable contact. It floated a little bit to the right there. I think that’s because I’m in the my higher shoes here. So, I’m my club ends up being a little bit flat. Um, so really I should have worn my golf shoes today. one one note I just didn’t feel like it wearing today. So, but just to be uh it’s good to still know that that’s why those are happening is because I’m in like higher shoes. Contact was pretty good there. I don’t know how the swing looks. I’m not really working working on that so much. I did notice that when I was wrapped around a little bit, my torso I felt a little bit tight. So, even when I get to my finish, I’m really trying to like make sure I’m in balance. So, I’m not like flying my feet around everywhere. Uh, I’m finishing in a nice position, coming back calmly, not just really really watching the tension and really watching the uh balance really. So, if if I’m working on if I’m getting energetic balance, I should that should help translate to physical balance. So, get my ball set up there for good contact right next to the tea. And we got some Canadian geese flying by. I’m going to wait for them to Oh, they’re going to land on the driving range. Cool. Well, they’re okay. I’m going to hit over them. All right. Hand on stomach. We’ll do our little breath exercise. All right. I’m feeling pretty relaxed. Walking in a balanced way. energetically balanced way. Get set, lined up here. Pay attention to my different parts of my body. Make sure I’m like smooth and relaxed and tension free here. Balanced on my feet. Not on my heels or toes, but just balanced. Okay, ready to go. So there it’s just a little cut finished just to the right of the yellow flag there. So that was probably a straight shot. I am noticing that I felt my in my finish position. I I I felt a little bit of clench in my teeth and in my jaw and in my throat. It was like I was kind of like holding my breath a little bit. So this time I’m going to focus a little bit more on releasing that tension uh when I get to the finish position. So I think that’s So I’ll go through the whole process here again, but the the focus is is really going to be on that on watching my jaw all the way through uh and the tightness of my jaw and tightness of my neck and upper torso there. When I especially when I get to the finish, I need a ball. Helps to have a ball there. Okay, ball is set. Hand on stomach again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Walk in and balance. Energetic and physical balance. Get set here. Now I really got to I got some tension in my hips. Trying to relax that. So now I’m pretty well set here. So, I’m going to really watch my jaw and my throat and my upper kind of chest or where my lungs are to make sure that I’m finishing relaxed as well. So, that’s going to be the focus of the swing here now that I’m feeling pretty set. All right. So, that was much better with what I was intending. I didn’t make the best contact there. Uh I don’t know what where I hit that on the club, but it floated out to the right there a little bit. Not the best contact, but again, we’re doing a little bit of physical p physical golf practice here. But again, the the focus of this session is more on my energy management, energy balance, trying to just balance my energy using this as a meditation. Um, and then uh that’s that’s the main point of this practice session, so to speak. So, let’s do another one. Stand back here, hand on stomach. Focus on on visualizing the earth. Breathing in. Breathing out. And all righty. I can tell you like from the beginning of when I was first arrived here at the range, I was I’m feeling much better than I was when I first arrived. So that’s good. So getting feel like I’ve got a lot of tension in my hips and butt today. And really got to watch that. So now I’m also going to watch the as I swing through, watch the tension in my jaw. Not really gritting my jaw and teeth, watching my throat and kind of my lungs area. I noticed I was tense there on the finish. So let’s let’s try and do that. Floated it out. cut it out to the white flag there. I did uh catch the tea there. So, I know that I healed that a little bit. Um so, that was part of the reason why it floated to the right. Um and then I did notice that I lost my focus and attention and awareness on my when I went to the finish there. I did kind of feel a lot of tension right in here. So, I’m going to go just go back to that. Get back on the horse. Try again. So, breathe in. Visualize Earth. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now that I got it, try and walk in relaxed. Kind of know what I’m looking for now that I’ve done this a few times. We got little tension. All right. So, really pay attention to that jaw and throat and upper torso there. That was better. That was dead straight. Or at least it landed where my target was. I felt a lot better there up in here. So now I’m gonna do let me do one two let me do two more and these two I’m not going to talk but now that I have been talking through it it’s a little bit hard to talk about it and because my focus is on talking and it’s f my focus is split a little bit. So let me just stop talking for a couple swings here. Now you kind of know what to look for, what I’m doing, and then we’ll just do the couple swings and then really maybe talk about it after. floated that one out way to the right there. But again, this is more about the energy work than it is about the actual what the ball’s doing. Let me do one more here. I said I was going to do two. Let me do three. All right. Floated it out. A little cut to the yellow. Again, usually I’m a straight to a draw player. And my shoe height here is lifting me up a little bit. So, it’s changed my line angle a little bit to make it a little bit flatter when it’s coming into impact. is causing these straight to leak leaks a little bit. I did think of one other thing there while I was uh going through this. Sometimes I I haven’t done this for a little bit, so it’s just kind of it’s bringing back some memories here of what what I have done when I have done this. And sometimes when I’m back here and I’m focusing on visualizing the earth being surrounded that we’re on an island being surrounded by the water of the Detroit River. I’ll breathe in and as I am breathing in, I’ll even say to myself out loud if no one’s around. Like there’s some people here at the range but they’re further down. So I can talk out loud and no one’s really going to hear me. But even if people did hear me, whatever. Or I could just say this in my head. So I’ll breathe in and then I’ll have I’ll say literally out loud, I have a perfectly balanced amount of earth, water, air, and then fire, the sun behind me. So I’ll kind of bring my awareness to all four of those things and all four of those things being in balance in the one-dimensional space. And then as I get aware of that then I try and match merge blend in my own personal energy oric space with that energy. I’ll breathe in breathe out and I’ll say I’m grounded or I’ll focus on the water if I need like a little bit of emotional balance and I’ll focus on sorry you’re looking at the back of me there too. I’ll focus on or I’ll say out loud I have the wii the the spiritually the water carries the wisdom of the world within it. So I’ll sometimes I’ll focus on or I’ll say that out loud and focus my attention on the water and absorbing the wisdom of the water and absorbing the emotional balance bring wisdom to me. bringing emotional imbalance to me sometimes. Also, interestingly, if I’m having a little bit of trouble with perspective or vision, um I’m like down in it too much. Uh there are some eagles, bald eagles that live here and they fly around and sometimes I’ve uh been able to get up uh really close to them. So, I’ll picture myself being an eagle and looking through the eye of an eagle and having that sharp vision and higher level perspective. So there’s a lot of different meditative visualization kinds of things that you can do or that I do marrying a bit of the spirituality in the golf together. Let me do one more here and then we’ll this video is probably getting pretty long here so we’ll we’ll call it a day here with this. And interestingly, I just noticed that the by blurring the one-dimensional space that you can kind of see in the darkness with the hologram of what your eyes turn start to turn the one-dimensional space into like a visual experience, threedimensional experience. The sky is uh sparkling a little bit. And it could also be that I’ve just been breathing in a lot of fresh oxygen here. So my brain’s a little high or something. I don’t know. But like I noticed a little sparkle in the sky. And now I know like I’m I’m really starting to feel I can tell you regardless of any of this stuff, I’m actually feeling quite a bit better than when I arrived here at the range. So mission accomplished, I guess, in that sense. One more here. It’s fun to see the sky sparkle now. And even a little bit of the grass there. A little bit of tension in my torso again. And I clenched my jaw just a touch there. So, so I’m going to cut it off there. That hopefully that kind of gave you a little bit of a sense or maybe got you to think a little bit about how you can merge different kinds of, you don’t have to do the type of meditative stuff that I was doing here. This is one of the things, one of the many things that I’ll dabble with. Uh, one of the reasons why I like golf. Uh, one of the ways that I can kind of practice both things here. So, I’m going to shut this off. Uh, feel free to if you have questions or something, you know, want to leave some comments. Um, I do try and read those. I do try and respond to them as best as I can. Um, feel free to do that. I’m going to shut this off and then I’m actually going to focus focus on this and do this for a little bit and just kind of get myself into maybe hit 20 or so of these, get myself into a little bit of a nice euphoric state, and then uh be off, head home, and like all those kinds of things. Anyway, thanks for watching. Um, appreciate you being here.
