The one thing Rory McIlroy and an astronaut have in common

Rory McIlroy said he often feels nerves on the first tee of tournaments. David PaulMorris / Augusta National / Getty Images Share full articlePeak newsletter | A version of this story first appeared in The Athletic’s weekly newsletter covering the mental side of sports. Sign up here to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox. On the first tee of the final day of the Masters Tournament last year, Rory McIlroy experienced all the nerves. A knot in his stomach. His legs turned to jelly. A total loss of appetite. By any measure, McIlroy is one of the best golfers in the world, and he was even before last year’s Masters. The 36-year-old had won 28 times on the PGA Tour, including four majors. He drives the ball a mile and hits it to the moon with his irons. He’s a natural. But McIlroy had never won the Masters in his previous 16 attempts, and it had become his white whale. In that sense, it was natural he felt nervous with a two-shot lead; he was, after all, trying to become just the seventh golfer to win all four majors and complete the career Grand Slam. It felt like it was all anyone in golf was talking about. What interested me about McIlroy’s nerves on the first tee wasn’t so much that he experienced them. It was the unusual way he had learned to combat those nerves. McIlroy said on a podcast that he would say to himself: Well, what’s the worst that could happen? Then he would imagine that worst-case scenario on the first tee: You hit it in the trees. Finally, he would visualize what he would do if that actually happened: You go up there, and you figure it out. You’re skillful enough to hit a punch shot out of the trees and get it out of the trees and get it up to the green and get it up and down and make a par and move on. I want to be clear: When McIlroy stands over the ball with a club in his hands, he visualizes success, just like most athletes. A beautiful drive down the fairway. The proper swing. All that stuff. Still, he found that prepping for the worst-case scenario before he ever got to the first tee gave him a level of comfort and decreased his anxiety. It made him realize that no matter the bad situation, he could deal with it. As it turns out, this is exactly the way astronauts build confidence. One of the things I love about this job is that it’s like solving a puzzle. Peak’s Elise Devlin introduced me to the McIlroy podcast interview earlier in the week. (She did a video about it here). I thought it was interesting and unique, but I didn’t know if there was anything more to say. A few days later, my coworker, Eliana Brown, messaged me about Artemis II, the NASA flight around the moon. She said she was obsessed with it and had just listened to a podcast in which some of the people involved in the mission talked about how they built culture among the crew. I have to admit I wasn’t particularly interested in Artemis II, but I was interested in what Eliana told me. So I started to poke around and read. (Again, that’s the part I love). I eventually stumbled into a book by astronaut Chris Hadfield called “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything.” Hadfield has a whole chapter called “The Power of Negative Thinking.” In it, he explains that astronauts spend years preparing for worst-case scenarios. They’re put through just about every bad situation that could go wrong on a mission. Their doomsday prep is so thorough that they even go over “death sims” — methodically walking through what would happen if an astronaut died. Astronauts are not fundamentally wired differently from the rest of us. A funny case-in-point: Hadfield is afraid of heights, but he said astronauts handle pressure so calmly because they’ve trained so rigorously for it. They’ve learned to override their fight-or-flight instincts and can solve a problem with a clear mind. “People tend to think astronauts have the courage of a superhero – or maybe the emotional range of a robot,” Hadfield wrote. “But in order to stay calm in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, all you really need is knowledge. Sure, you might still feel a little nervous or hyper-alert. But what you won’t feel is terrified.” Hadfield had three key points I wanted to highlight because they tie in perfectly to what McIlroy talked about. Hadfield: “Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on — to study it, dissect it, tease apart all its components and consequences — really works. After a few years of doing that pretty much daily, you’ve forged the strongest possible armor to defend against fear: hard-won competence.” Hadfield: “My optimism and confidence come from not feeling I’m luckier than other mortals, and they sure don’t come from visualizing victory. They’re the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it.” Hadfield: “It’s puzzling to me that so many self-help gurus urge people to visualize victory and stop there. Some even insist that if you wish for good things long enough and hard enough, you’ll get them — and, conversely, that if you focus on the negative, you actually invite bad things to happen. … Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: it’s productive. The idea with all this isn’t to be defeatist; it’s not to give in to pessimism and negativity. McIlroy actually talked about how important it is during a round of golf to fight back those thoughts. The point is that real confidence can be gained from knowing that even if the worst-case scenario happens, you have the tools to deal with it. It won’t overwhelm you. If you remember, McIlroy famously wobbled down the stretch of last year’s Masters. His two-shot lead evaporated, and he missed a putt on the 18th hole that would have locked it up then and there. He finally won his elusive green jacket in a playoff with Justin Rose, cementing his place as one of the game’s all-time greats. McIlroy admitted later that his challenge that final day was all mental: “My battle today was with my mind and staying in the present.” That’s the goal during the actual tournament, when the action is live and every shot can swing not only the leaderboard but a legacy. It was a struggle. McIlroy said as much. Still, over the years, he had thought enough about what could go wrong to know that no matter what did go wrong, he could handle it. He could solve the problem. Sign up here to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jayson Jenks is a features writer for The Athletic based in Kansas City. Before joining The Athletic, he covered the Seattle Seahawks for The Seattle Times. Follow Jayson on Twitter @JaysonJenks