W.I.N. — What’s important now.
A year ago, this would have just been another arbitrary acronym — one that Texas women’s golf head coach Laura Ianello may have told her players after an otherwise unexceptional practice. Now, it stands as a foundation.
After a lackluster fall season that saw Texas fail to capture a single trophy, Ianello began searching for solutions outside of swings or scorecards. She found that in moments of crisis, her players rarely fought an external enemy, but almost always themselves.
This led her to mental performance coach Brian Cain. Having seen previous success with Texas baseball under head coach Jim Schlossnagle, Ianello took a swing with Cain, hoping he would elevate a team she believed was underperforming.
“They felt they were missing something mentally,” Ianello said. “So I said, ‘You know what? Let’s give it a shot.’ (I) had a couple meetings with Brian, and I bought all in.”
What followed wasn’t a dramatic overhaul, but rather a slight shift in approach — one built on small, repeatable habits. For Cain, the focus lies in developing what he calls, “the 10 mental performance skills that make mental toughness.”
Cain’s “skills” — ranging from mindset and motivation to focus, discipline and leadership — are all designed to move players away from focus outcomes and toward process. The emphasis isn’t on perfection but on building persistence under pressure.
“If we create those 10 skills, we’re going to have the mental toughness that we need to compete for national championships,” Cain said.
In Texas’ first tournament back from its off-season cognitive conditioning, the Longhorns found themselves on the podium for the first time in nearly a year. Junior Farah O’Keefe, who took home the individual trophy on a perfectly executed chip-shot, saw the win as proof of progress.
“It felt good to see it all come to fruition like that,” O’Keefe said. “I feel like that was one of the first moments … where I feel I can flip the switch, … (and) where I’m getting into this place mentally. Where I’m thinking less about what I’m physically doing and more just about the execution of the shot.”
Since then, the Longhorns have gone on to win two tournament trophies in South Carolina and Austin, with O’Keefe capturing the individual title in both.
But the impact stretches beyond the score sheets. For Ianello and Cain, mental mastery extends into culture — how players help each other during the in-between moments. Cain frames it simply: be a fountain, and not a drain.
The idea is straightforward. A fountain provides energy, always steady and consistent, whereas a drain pulls that energy away through frustration, negativity and lingering mistakes, which can impact or transcend any individual player.
In a unique sport like collegiate golf, where individual performances carry just as much weight as the team’s, that change in culture can be monumental.
“Sometimes, you don’t want to be there,” O’Keefe said. “Sometimes you really just don’t want to go to practice, but your friends are there, your teammates are there, your coaches are there. They’re all going to be happy to see you. And I think that’s a huge difference (from) how it has been in the past.”
For Ianello, that shift was what “W.I.N.” was always meant to capture. Not a slogan, but a standard — one that asks players to stay present, control what you can and be there for one another. And when pressure builds, the message will never change.
What’s important now.