My story
The Early Years
My interest in the mental side of sport started at a young age. Growing up, my parents introduced me to many sports including basketball, soccer, and baseball, but ultimately it was golf that I focused on and excelled at. When I was about 11 years old, Tim Gallwey’s book The Inner Game of Tennis somehow appeared in my house. I recall avidly reading it and translating Gallwey’s suggestions from the context of tennis to golf. I enjoyed significant success early on in golf. In my first serious summer of competition at age nine, I won 11 of the 12 events I played and by the time I was 14, I’d won 4 state titles in 5 years. Looking back, I attribute much of my success to an appreciation for the mental game that I was developing. The rest of my junior golf career was successful enough that I was recruited to play college golf. I accepted a scholarship offer to play at Stanford University, where I was a 4-year letterman and two-time Academic All-American for the Cardinal.
After College
Upon graduating, I decided that a career as a professional golfer wasn’t for me, but I was interested in seeing if there was some way that I could still be involved with athletics. Given how important the mental game was for my own success, I decided to continue my education and studying sport psychology in graduate school. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the adult clinical psychology program at the University of Washington and my mentors, Professors Ron Smith and Frank Smoll, were both highly regarded sport psychologists. Shortly after my arrival, we created a mental training program for the athletic department called Husky Sport Psychology Services and I was one of the first two people to staff this program. For three years, I had the fantastic opportunity of working with Husky teams, coaches, and individual athletes. Much of what I cover with athletes today was introduced to me during this important formative period in my training. In addition to working with athletes, I also conducted research examining the association between mental factors and performance with minor league baseball players in the Houston Astros organization and college golfers in what was the time the Pac-10 Athletic Conference. The results of these studies were eventually published in academic journals. After completing my doctoral work, I was briefly the sport psychologist for the NBA Seattle Supersonics. Unfortunately, this relationship ended when the franchise changed ownership and moved to Oklahoma City.
Today
Since 2000, my primary work has been as a professor at Shoreline Community College, where I teach several introductory psychology courses. However, throughout that time, I have provided performance coaching to athletes who find me. As interest in this field has increased, I am developing this website to see if I can more effectively pass along the inner game insights that I have personally discovered and that have been generously shared with me by top performers and researchers.
Golf Highlights
- Four-time WJGA State Champion (1978, 1980, 1981, & 1982)
- Three-Time America's Cup Team Member (1983-1985)
- PNGA Junior Boys Champion (1985) & Runner Up (1984)
- T3 Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines (1983)
- USGA Junior Amateur Quarterfinalist (1984)
- T11 PGA Junior Championship (1985) at PGA National Resort
- Al Mengert Inspirational Award Recipient (1983)
- Academic All-American (1989-1990)
Education
- Bachelor of Arts: Psychology (with honors) Stanford University, Stanford California, 1990
- Master of Science: Adult Clinical Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1995
- Doctor of Philosophy, Adult Clinical Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 2000