My phone rang, and Kailer Stone was on the other end, driving home, moments after winning the 115th California Amateur Championship.
The win was still fresh. He was on the road, still coming down from it. And I asked him the question I ask every player after a round with many life lessons…
“What gave you the belief and the calm that you could pull it off?”
Kailer was down three in the championship match with seven holes to play. And prior to this match, he had a streak from winning from behind.
What He Did Not Do
Kailer told me, “I really didn’t focus on it.”
Then he said the part I keep replaying. “Normally, I would push, get more aggressive, and force things to happen. But I told myself, I got a lot of golf to play. And I simply focused on what I needed to do in the moment and just get it done.”
Read that again.
He did not chase the deficit. He did not force it. He did not tighten his grip and try to will three holes back at once.
He shrank his whole world down to one shot. The one in front of him. And then the next one after that... And the next.
I have watched grown men lose championships from three shots up. I have watched juniors melt from three shots down. The score was never the enemy. The response to the score was.
And Kailer’s response never changed.
I Flipped the Script
Here is where it got good in our debrief.
I wanted to test him. So I flipped his own story back on him.
I said, what if you were leading? Three up with seven to play. Same championship. Same pressure. What changes?
His answer was gold.
He said it would not change a bit. “I would get it done and advance step by step and get one more.”
Most players own two completely different minds. There is the chaser mind, loose and free, nothing to lose. And there is the protector mind, tight and scared, everything to lose. The chaser attacks. The protector defends.
Kailer only had one mind.
Down three, he competed against himself. Up three, he competed against himself. The scoreboard changed. But he did not.
The Upper Limit He Never Hit
There is a pattern I see in talented juniors, and it has a name to it. Your kid has lived it or probably experienced it too.
We call it the upper limit problem.
A player starts winning. Starts leading. Starts performing above what they thought they deserved. And something inside them flinches. They get uncomfortable with the success. So they self-correct back down to where they feel safe.
They stop attacking. They start protecting. They protect the lead, the result, the goal, the ranking, the story they were about to write. And protection is a threat state wearing a helpful mask.
When your body reads a lead as something to defend, it does the same thing it does under attack. Muscles tighten. Vision narrows. Breathing goes shallow. Decisions get small and safe. The very things that built the lead disappear.
Kailer never flinched at his own success. He never treated the lead as fragile or the deficit as fatal. He kept pushing forward, past the ceiling most players quietly install in themselves.
He broke the success threshold because he refused to protect it.
The Spiritual Layer
I keep coming back to a quiet truth here.
Belief is not the same as certainty. Kailer did not know he would win. He had no guarantee. What he had was a settledness that did not depend on the outcome.
Scripture tells us to run the race set before us. Not the race behind us. Not the race we wish we had. The one in front of us, right now, one step at a time.
There is peace available to a person who stops carrying the whole scoreboard and only carries the next shot. That peace is not passive. It is the most competitive state a human can play from.
In the final few holes of the championship match, Kailer was calm because he trusted the process more than he feared the result.
What This Means For Your Junior
Let me get practical, because this is why you probably read our newsletter.
Watch how your child talks about a lead. If they say “I just have to not mess up,” they have already switched into protection. Your job is not to fix the swing. It is to catch the language. Help them turn “don’t lose it” back into “go get the next one.”
Praise the response, not the result. When your kid comes back from down three, do not only celebrate the comeback. Ask them what they told themselves on the tee. The comeback fades. The internal script stays with them for life.
Normalize being ahead. Many juniors have practiced being behind far more than being ahead. If they only feel comfortable as the underdog, they will unconsciously give leads away to get back to comfort. Talk about leading. Rehearse it. Make winning feel as familiar as chasing.
Teach one shot at a time as a skill, not a slogan. Everyone says it. Few train it. Have your child name out loud the one thing they need to do on this shot, then let the last shot and the next hole disappear. That narrowing is the muscle Kailer flexed under the brightest lights of his life.
The Confession
In writing this, I came to my own realization. If I am honest with myself, I have coached from a protector mind. I have held a lead in my own life, my work, my walk, and squeezed it so tight I nearly strangled it. I have flinched at my own success and quietly pulled myself back to where I felt I belonged.
On the phone with Kailer, I did not only hear a champion. I heard a teacher. A teenager driving home from the biggest win of his life, reminding a sport psychologist that belief is a decision you make before you know the ending.
He competed against himself the whole way. And that is the whole thing.
Here is your reflection for the week.
Where in your child’s game, and maybe in your own life, are you protecting a lead instead of competing for the next one?
See you next Wednesday.
Your Mental Coach,
Dr. Mat
mpgagolf.com Author of ONE: A Spiritual Playbook for the Mental Game of Golf