I am a big fan of using intuition in your daily life. That’s why we have it, right? So, we can navigate our way through life a little easier. Recently there was an awesome example of a professional athlete who used his intuition to correct a problem immediately.
Here is what happened…
One of the major golf tournaments for professional golfers takes place at Augusta National Golf Club every year. The tournament known as the Masters was held this past weekend. This major draws professional golfers from all over the world. If you are a golf fan, it is a huge exciting event.
Leading up to the tournament they have a fun Par-3 contest on the Wednesday before the official start. Current professional golfers and golf legends are invited to play in this light hearted fun contest. Many of the golfers bring their children on to the course for the day and have friends or family volunteer to carry their golf bags.
Tony Finau, who is playing in the Masters for the first time, was invited to play in the Par-3 contest. On the seventh hole Tony made a hole-in-one. A pretty fantastic thing to happen in front of family, friends, golf fans, and tv viewers! Tony was so excited that he started running down the fairway cheering. While he celebrated Tony twisted his ankle out of joint and it literally brought him to his knees right in the middle of fairway. Without much of a pause Tony stood up, bent down and popped his ankle back into place and then slowly walked back to the tee box. As a tv viewer it was painful to watch, but it looked like Tony knew what he was doing.
Tony went on to play the next day in the tournament. When he came off the course after his first round an interviewer asked him about his ankle. Tony let him know that he had an MRI that morning and the ankle was fine. Sore, but no damage. The interviewer said to Tony, It looked like you knew what to do. Has that happened before? Tony quietly shook his head and said no. He had not rolled that ankle before nor did he stop to think about how to fix it. He just did it.
What? He just popped the dislocated ankle back into place? In front of everyone? Without thinking about it?
Call it instinct. Call it reacting without thinking. Call it whatever you want. I will call it inspiration. Inspiration from his Soul-self to fix the ankle. His Soul-self knew what to do even though Tony didn’t. His Soul-self knew how much he wanted to play in his first Masters, his Soul-self could immediately access the physical damage and how to repair it, and his Soul-self knew to do it quickly.
What did Tony do? He listened and acted.
That’s all any of us have to do. Listen for the inspiration and act.