By Brian Sommer
There are few moments in life that one can honestly identify and say, without embellishment or nostalgia, this changed the trajectory of my life. For me, one such moment occurred not on a championship tee, nor under the tyranny of scorecard arithmetic, but on a modest putting green behind the driving range at Carmel Valley Ranch in Carmel, California, sometime around 2006.
It was there quite unexpectedly that I experienced “Presence.”
Not concentration. Not focus. Presence. The unadorned state of actually being where I was, with what I was doing, without the usual interference of judgment, ambition, or correction. It might have been the first time I noticed such a state at all – in golf or in life. More importantly, it opened a doorway one that has remained open for more than 20 years of inquiry, exploration, and practice.
What follows is not theory. It is what that doorway has revealed.
The Most Persistent Misunderstanding in Golf
One of the individuals I shared that Carmel Valley Ranch putting green with so many years ago with has often stated, much to the irritation of traditionalists, that the purpose of practice is not to hit the golf ball well. Nor, for that matter, is the purpose of playing golf to hit the ball well or to shoot low scores.
This statement is frequently misunderstood as mystical, contrarian, or willfully obtuse. It is none of those. It is, in fact, precise.
Hitting the ball well is a byproduct. It is an effect, not a cause. When it becomes the objective, it undermines the very conditions that make it possible.
Golf, properly understood, is neither a mental act nor a physical one. Those categories, convenient as they may be, are inadequate. The swing is not sabotaged by faulty mechanics alone, nor rescued by correct thoughts. And this is why I do not become upset with missed shots: I know they are not caused by “swing flaws” in the way the instruction industry would have us believe.
They are informational. Nothing more.
Practice Without Illusion
To be clear, I am not anti-practice. I am anti the typical approach to practicing golf.
The prevailing belief is that improvement is a function of time and effort that more balls struck, more hours logged, more rounds played will somehow yield progress through sheer accumulation. Yet most golfers do not actually experience their swings. They rehearse ideas about them. They chase positions they have seen on screens. They apply tips and keys handed down like folk remedies.
Under such conditions, improvement is not merely unlikely, it is irrational.
You cannot change what you cannot see. And you cannot see what you do not experience.
The purpose of practice, then, is not to manufacture results but to grow one’s capacity for awareness of the variables that actually matter. Awareness of balance. Of rhythm. Of face orientation. Of how the body relates to the target and for how long. Most golfers cannot remain with a single target for the duration of a swing, and worse still, they are not even aware of the moment their attention departs.
This blindness is the real handicap.
Practicing as Exploration
I love practice. I will hit golf balls for hours not in pursuit of correction, but out of curiosity. I swing slower. Smaller. Sometimes deliberately incomplete. At full speed, experience collapses into blur. At reduced speed, perception opens.
What are my hands doing?
What is the clubface doing through impact?
Where is my attention on the target, the ball, or myself?
These are not questions to be answered verbally. They are questions to be lived.
I am not a subscriber to methods. Nor to tips, keys, or packaged insights. They do not work, not because they are wrong, but because they distract. They pull attention away from direct experience and replace it with abstraction. They ask the golfer to remember rather than to notice.
And nothing meaningful is learned that way.
The Real Aim of Golf
Golf is not a test of willpower. It is not a contest of technique. It is an arena in which one’s relationship to experience is laid bare.
The purpose of practice and of the game itself is to cultivate the capacity to be present with what is actually occurring. When that capacity grows, trust follows. When trust is present, letting go becomes possible. And when letting go occurs, performance takes care of itself.
This is not philosophy. It is observable fact.
The score, like the strike, arrives as a consequence not a demand.
What began on a quiet putting green nearly two decades ago has since informed not only my golf, but how I approach learning, effort, and life itself. The curiosity remains intact. The practice continues. And the doorway, once opened, never closes.
Brian Sommer holds a Ph.D. in Leadership from Concordia University Chicago, where his dissertation, “A Paradigm Shift in Teaching and Learning Golf”, reflected his commitment to presence-based learning. His academic background also includes degrees in History, Political Science, Business Administration, and Finance (Cornell University, University of Miami, and Lynn University).
As a Partner at CDI Global, Brian has advised clients across the aerospace, defense, construction, technology, and energy sectors, supporting transformational growth in companies ranging from startups to multinationals.
In each of his roles – coach, professor, strategist, and partner – Sommer brings people back to the ground of being. He invites them to look beyond technique, narrative, or image, and return to the source of authentic performance.
