In defence of the dark arts
and athletes looking for an edge
Nine-time Major Champion Gary Player’s book is, amusingly, titled: Don’t Choke: A Champion’s Guide to Winning Under Pressure.
The promise of that silver bullet should have been enough to make the book hot property in the dressing room of Player’s South African countrymen at the T20 World Cup Final. Perhaps Team India got to it first, though and will return it to the Proteas with Kohli’s annotations, Bumrah’s highlighting and pages dog-eared by Hardik.
In the book, Player quips that golf ought to be renamed mind and putting – a nod to the game’s most crucial elements.
That being the case, maybe Akshay Bhatia will borrow it next; his three-putt (his first of the whole tournament) on the final hole of this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, handing victory to Australian Cam Davis.
Come to think of it, maybe a book won’t be enough.
Luckily for Akshay, there is a proud tradition of elite athletes embracing alternative sources – from hypnosis to psychedelic mushroom tea – to get out of their own way and win on the biggest stage. (There's even an Australian First-Class cricketer who once saw a priest at confession in the hope of finding a way through, but that might need its own story)
It’s not psychedelic mushroom tea, but if you want to support The Boundary Rider, consider:
First among them, Akshay’s opponent down the stretch and now two-time winner on the PGA Tour, Cam Davis embraced hypnotherapy a fortnight ago.
Initially hesitant to give it a go, Davis, who found his game and life outside of it at a low ebb, has enjoyed the process and is now happy to see the results start to shift. Although he hasn’t confirmed if his hypnotherapist clicked three times as Akshay lined up on eighteen, he has vouched for the process, especially when completed alongside his usual sports psychology.
“To be honest I’ve gone from disliking the game, to getting some of that magic back,” he said post-win.
Just what kind of magic remains to be seen.
In a slightly more conventional route, three of basketball’s all-time greats credit working with mindful meditation teacher, George Mumford, for helping them achieve bountiful success.
Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal all spent time with Mumford over the course of their stellar careers, learning a range of practices centred around creating a mind/ body connection.
Mumford, who came to meditation himself following addiction to painkillers and heroin, was employed by the Chicago Bulls in the 90’s. His chance to impress upon wildly talented athletes the importance of finding something extra, players lapped it up.
He taught them how to find a flow state, how to breathe as a team and to create increased space between a stimulus and response to allow for clear decision making.
“These guys have all trained their nervous system to do it,” he explains. “So, it is just about making your conscious thinking quiet and letting your body do what it does.”
On the hockey rink, Mark Messier is one of the best in the game’s history. A six-time Stanley Cup Champion, second for all-time playoff points and third for regular season matches played, ‘The Moose’ boasts quite the record.
He’s also a staunch advocate for using psychedelic mushrooms.
Recounting what he describes as a “transformative experience” with psilocybin – the active component in magic mushrooms as a 19-year-old – Messier had his mind opened to a range of possibilities for how it could help him on and off the rink.
“I had no idea the mind was that powerful. And how eating a natural mushroom that was organically grown could create that kind of stimulus. Obviously, it turned out to be an amazing experience, but more important was the question afterwards: how can I use my mind to empower myself to be a better player, to be a better person, to have more energy, to create a better aura?”
From there, the Albertan became fascinated by Eastern philosophy, Buddhism and continued to use and endorse a range of psychedelics throughout his playing and coaching careers.
Mystic methods, dark arts or something else entirely, athletes are always looking for an edge. If it is found in a mood-lit room with burning incense, through group breathwork or even in the leaves of a psychedelic mushroom tea on a beach in Barbados, power to them.
And for those who still think it’s hokum, there's always Player’s book.