In 1991, PGA Tour officials phoned a young golfer from Dardanelle,
Arkansas, asking if he could be the ninth alternate at Crooked Stick Golf
Club in Carmel, Indiana, for the PGA championship. Unfortunately, the
young golfer was unlikely to play.The day before the first round, he set his
cruise control to seventy and drove the 670 miles to Carmel, arriving at 2
a.m. But destiny arrived when tour officials informed him on the way to the
tournament that in fact he would play.His tee time was only hours after his
arrival.
Nobody expected this loud, brash, unsophisticated, player who hit 350
yard tee shots to win. But John Daly won the tournament three strokes
ahead of Bruce Lietzke. (You could say that lightning, figuratively speaking,
struck Daly. But lightning literally struck spectator Thomas Weaver, who
was killed from a lightning strike on the first day.) Media and pros alike had
never seen a swing like Daly's.
As soon as he could read, Daly had been given a golf instructional guide
written by Jack Nicklaus. John modeled his swing after his hero's. Nicklaus
coincidentally said, "Daly's stroke isn't like mine. It is unlike anything I've
ever seen."
But John Daly had a mindset.He had a belief in himself and way of
thinking that was different. That unique pattern of thoughts would create a
champion. John Daly simply said, "I only think about one thing when I
swing. I grip it and rip it." Daly's attitude was to always swing hard. If he
won, he won big. If he lost, he lost big. His only other major golf tournament
win was the British Open in 1995, when he defeated Costantino Rocca in a
playoff. But what helped him win was a winning mindset–a thought
pattern that helped him get results. It helped him win twenty-two
professional tournaments.
Mindset is a mental inclination: a frame of mind. Your mindset filters
how you see the world.It's how you make sense of everything that affects
you. It also enables you to evaluate people, concepts, objects, and events