You’ve seen it a hundred times. A golfer misses a long putt by two feet, reaches out one-handed without a thought, and it finds the center of the cup. No read. No routine. No effort.
It always seems to go in.
Golfers joke about it: “I’ve made more putts one-handed than I can count.” But nobody stops to ask why. Why does the careless tap-in find the hole when the careful stroke didn’t?
Something Else Takes Over
When you don’t focus on the outcome, when there’s no time to analyze, your intuitive mind runs the show. It already knows how to read the green and roll the ball into the hole. It just rarely gets the chance.
Lee Trevino won the 1972 Open Championship at Muirfield largely on putting. Years later he admitted he didn’t even line up most of his putts that week. He just “saw the line” and made the stroke.
The Gap
Most golfers prepare analytically—then try to execute analytically. They calculate, then keep thinking through impact. Managing positions. Steering the club. The analytical mind never steps aside.
But the one-handed stroke works precisely because there’s no time for analysis. Your body just does it. That’s your intuitive mind taking over, the same mode Trevino accessed at Muirfield.
The range doesn’t force this shift. Even if you think your way through every ball in the bucket you are still just hitting balls into space. The course is different. Pressure activates the analytical mind exactly when you need it to quiet down.
The Question
You already have an intuitive golf mind. What you need to do is set it free. What would your game look like if you could access that intuition throughout your round?
Swing to Flow: A Mindful Approach to Better Golf explores how to develop and access your intuitive game.
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