“Make the implicit explicit.”
Those are the words that Michael Murphy—founder of the Esalen Institute, author of Golf in the Kingdom, and now a treasured friend—said to us in 2001 when he joined us at one of our coaching seminars.
Michael has long believed, as have we, that golfers will never achieve their best performances by practicing technique alone. He also believes that most people use only a fraction of their human capacities, and he challenged us to create an environment where golfers could learn about—and access—their full human potential. In challenging us to make the implicit skills of the great champions, and of peak performance, explicit, Michael gave us our most ambitious assignment.
In Be a Player, we’ve made the “human skills” we believe are necessary for great golf explicit. So our first acknowledgment, and profound thanks, go to Michael Murphy.
We want to thank our small but powerful VISION54 team in Scottsdale, Arizona. We wouldn’t be able to do this work as effectively without Kristine Reese, Tiffany Yager, Zach Theut, and Lisa Elliott, who are passionately motivated every day to support golfers of all levels to improve their performance on the course and to enjoy the game more.
We want to thank the hundreds of players who have sailed into our VISION54 harbor over the years, as well as all the golf teachers who have attended our 54COACH trainings. Whatever level of golfer, you continue to teach us, motivate us, and inspire us each and every day.
Be a Player started as a series of conversations with veteran golf writer and Sports Illustrated contributor John Garrity, who helped us tease the explicit out of the implicit. Our cowriter, Susan Reed, continued those conversations and created this book with us. We first met Susan in 2002 when she was editor of Golf for Women magazine. Ever since, through our many talks about life and the game, Susan has been an integral part of our VISION54 journey. We are beyond grateful for Susan’s friendship, humor, work ethic, and creativity. She always asks the right questions at the right time and challenges us to think more deeply and clearly.
This is our first book with Atria Books, part of Simon & Schuster. We want to thank Atria’s visionary publisher, Judith Curr (also a golfer), for saying yes to this project, for understanding our mission, and for believing in it. Our brilliant editor, Rakesh Satyal, was incisive, steady, and drew out the best in us—and in this book. The Atria team was first-rate: copyeditor Stephen Hennessey, Deputy Director of Publicity David Brown, Editorial Assistant Loan Le, and designer Tim Oliver each contributed their incredible talents.
Thank you to our longtime agent, David McCormick, who has been with us for our last two books. That you are holding Be a Player in your hands is a tribute to his experience and professionalism.
We want to acknowledge the love of our friends and role models who were not explicitly part of this book. Many are like a second family: Annette Thompson, Pam Barnett, and Manuel de la Torre in particular have profoundly shaped our view of the game and taught us foundational life skills. Your professionalism and generosity live forever in our hearts.
We acknowledge (and are grateful for) the frustration that Pia felt as a young professional on the LPGA Tour when her skills didn’t fully show up in competition. This conundrum and challenge was her greatest inspiration in exploring new ways of coaching and practicing.
We are thankful for the confusion Lynn felt as a relatively new golf teacher when her students came back to her with improved technique but asked, “Why aren’t my scores going down?” or “Why am I playing worse?” This problem motivated Lynn to search out resources that would help her teach from a different paradigm.
We humbly acknowledge the courage it has required for us to take time away from teaching every year and commit to undisturbed “recharge time” in Torekov, Sweden. It has been invaluable for us to be in a place where we can be creative, think outside the box, and have time to listen to what our brains, hearts, and guts want to tell us. Torekov Golf Club is where we tested and tweaked many of the questions and explorations in the book.
Finally, we want to acknowledge each other—and our twenty-year creative partnership and collaboration. Synergy means 1+1 equals much more than 2. We started this journey believing in each other and our shared vision to influence the game for the better. We want to help golfers improve on the course and to enjoy the game more. We continue that pursuit every day with curiosity and an authentic commitment to the potential of the human spirit.
To our families in heaven and on this earth, thank you for your unconditional love and support.