Luck Determines How You Think and Play
Luck Determines How You Think and Play
Julie Camacho
EN 111, Section 15
Professor Sarmiento
February 12, 2015
Luck Determines How You Think and Play
Golf seems like a pretty easy sport for it does not require any intense exercise of such. What most people do not know is that golf deals with concentrating and managing anxiety. A person playing golf may build anxiety from the fear of making a wrong move as the audience gazes at him or her. The golfer may react a little differently if he or she were to attain or hold a lucky charm. He or she that believes in having luck would perform better, boost their confidence, and have a different perspective.
Luck is all in the mind as people were told that things or rituals they do invites fortunate things to happen upon themselves. If a person were to do something in front of a crowd, the idea of embarrassingly slipping builds a mass of pressure among them which then affects their performance. But if they were to believe to possess luck, that releases the stress off from their shoulder, which in turn, makes them perform better. Through the Wormhole’s episode “Is Luck Real?” demonstrates how believing and obtaining such luck affects people’s performance. A study done by Sally Linkenauger (2014), a lecturer in psychology at Lancaster University, tested this hypothesis. In her experiment, she recruited golfers that played on a regular basis, had split them into two groups and asked to make ten putts. One group were fooled into believing that they were using a putter from Ben Curtis’ who was a professional golfer that won the British Open in 2003 while the other group were just informed that they were using a regular putter.
The individuals in both groups scored differently, however, the first group who played with the lucky putter performed better than the other group. The group who believed they were using Ben Curtis’ putter made about a putt and a half more than the group who thought they were using a
Julie Camacho
EN 111, Section 15
Professor Sarmiento
February 12, 2015
Luck Determines How You Think and Play
Golf seems like a pretty easy sport for it does not require any intense exercise of such. What most people do not know is that golf deals with concentrating and managing anxiety. A person playing golf may build anxiety from the fear of making a wrong move as the audience gazes at him or her. The golfer may react a little differently if he or she were to attain or hold a lucky charm. He or she that believes in having luck would perform better, boost their confidence, and have a different perspective.
Luck is all in the mind as people were told that things or rituals they do invites fortunate things to happen upon themselves. If a person were to do something in front of a crowd, the idea of embarrassingly slipping builds a mass of pressure among them which then affects their performance. But if they were to believe to possess luck, that releases the stress off from their shoulder, which in turn, makes them perform better. Through the Wormhole’s episode “Is Luck Real?” demonstrates how believing and obtaining such luck affects people’s performance. A study done by Sally Linkenauger (2014), a lecturer in psychology at Lancaster University, tested this hypothesis. In her experiment, she recruited golfers that played on a regular basis, had split them into two groups and asked to make ten putts. One group were fooled into believing that they were using a putter from Ben Curtis’ who was a professional golfer that won the British Open in 2003 while the other group were just informed that they were using a regular putter.
The individuals in both groups scored differently, however, the first group who played with the lucky putter performed better than the other group. The group who believed they were using Ben Curtis’ putter made about a putt and a half more than the group who thought they were using a
References: Sayenga, K. (Writer), & LaMattina, D. (Director). (2014). Is Luck Real? [Television series episode]. In J. Younger (Executive Producer), Through the Wormhole. USA: SCI.