{"id":28709,"date":"2023-03-16T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.cancerresearchuk.org\/?p=25420"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:12:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:12:50","slug":"lessons-from-the-green-how-sports-psychology-helped-a-top-golf-pro-cope-with-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/lessons-from-the-green-how-sports-psychology-helped-a-top-golf-pro-cope-with-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the green: How sports psychology helped a top golf pro cope with cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lysa<\/div>\n

<\/h4>\n

As a golf coach and pro, Lysa Jones is used to competing at the highest level and drawing on the mental resilience that she\u2019s gained through years of rigorous sports training.<\/p>\n

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, Lysa, 51, found that she could deploy the same resilience to help her cope with the illness and her treatment.<\/p>\n

Being able to focus on the here and now was key and it\u2019s a skill that Lysa aims to pass on to her clients.<\/p>\n

She is part of Graham Walker\u2019s Golf Academy Professional team at The Oaks Golf Club and Spa at Aughton, near York and her elite work includes coaching England under 18 boys and Yorkshire Ladies.<\/p>\n

At first, Lysa said the diagnosis knocked her sideways: \u201cWhen you receive the news that you have cancer it\u2019s human nature to fear the worst. You have to try to digest all the information and plan out the next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentally it\u2019s draining but you have to realise it\u2019s ok to feel low.\u201d<\/p>\n

A marathon, not a sprint<\/h2>\n

After the initial shock, Lysa was able to call on her sports background: \u201cBeing a golf professional and playing at the highest level, I know it takes time to build the technique required to become extremely skilful. It\u2019s not months but years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelf-discipline is paramount but there\u2019s no guarantee you will successfully pull off that long drive or that six feet putt for the tournament. It\u2019s all with the \u2018golfing gods\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Lysa\u201cThere\u2019s success and failure, you learn to lose more than you win, and you just accept the final result, learn from the experience and try to move on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly how I dealt with my treatment. When I was diagnosed in 2019, I kept saying \u2018what if?\u2019. What if it\u2019s really bad? What if it\u2019s worse than I think? What if I die? I can\u2019t die, I\u2019m too young.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt myself pressing the self-destruct button. But then I thought, I can\u2019t control this, so I\u2019m going to let the experts guide me. I\u2019m not the only woman to have breast cancer, they know what to do, they have a plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I had to control the here and now, which is exactly how I handled my performance in sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The power of focus<\/h2>\n

Lysa found that focusing on a few things really helped. She continued to coach during her three weeks of radiotherapy treatment, and she tried to maintain her cheerful persona.<\/p>\n

She also took up cycling and together with golf, that helped keep her on track.<\/p>\n

Treatment for the grade 2 tumour was a lumpectomy, followed by radiotherapy and medication prescribed for five years. She\u2019s now fit and well.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Lysa\u2019s experience of cancer began a decade before her own diagnosis, when she lost her mum to the disease in 2009. She didn\u2019t seek help for her grief and described having a breakdown while playing in a high-profile tournament that she\u2019d previously won.<\/p>\n

It affected her game, and she didn\u2019t play golf professionally for 12 months. Eventually she realised she needed help, had hypnosis and learned to meditate. But sport was the biggest healer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised I had stopped doing the thing that I really enjoyed and that was golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to play again, enjoying the challenges, and the focus returned. The competitive me came back, even to the point where I returned to the same tournament and same course where I had my breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

She narrowly missed out on winning in a playoff: \u201cI felt so proud that day of what I had accomplished. I wasn\u2019t disappointed as some people thought \u2013 little did they know the mountain I climbed before that day. Playing sport was the perfect recovery pill for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The here and now<\/h2>\n

Following that experience and her own successful treatment for cancer, Lysa wants to pass on her knowledge: \u201cNow I feel fantastic and I\u2019m living every day as it comes, as you would when you\u2019ve had this type of diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still the same person as I was; I have a strong work ethic, I\u2019m still extremely busy as a coach and I would like to think that I am now a sounding board for anyone who is going through it. I just want to get the message out there that there is success from cancer treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The benefits of sport aren\u2019t restricted to those taking part at a professional level, according to Lysa: \u201cLook at children playing any sport: they\u2019re laughing, engaging, having fun, making friends, learning life skills. This can shape us as we grow and form our own destiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never know what\u2019s around the corner but if faced with a cancer diagnosis I truly believe in the power of the mind, the here and now, not worrying about the future or the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a go at any sport, you\u2019ll find yourself actually switching off from the stress that life can throw at us, even if it\u2019s for an hour. That is exactly what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on this topic<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a golf coach and pro, Lysa Jones is used to competing at the highest level and drawing on the mental resilience that she\u2019s gained through years of rigorous sports training. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, Lysa, 51, found that she could deploy the same resilience to help her cope with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43021,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709\/revisions\/43021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}