[Dark Saint Alaick]

As a matter of fact most of the difficulties in golf are
mental, not physical, are subjective, not objective, are the
created phantasms of the mind, not the veritable realities of
the course.

I find these things in Mr. Haultain's book entitled The Mystery of
Golf.

There is no game where there are fewer mental difficulties than in
golf. The game is so extremely simple that it can practically be
reduced to a matter of physical and mechanical accuracy. The mental
demand in golf--provided always, of course, that the man who is
addressing the ball knows what he wants to do--is extremely small and
extremely simple. "The created phantasms of the mind" are supplied by
fantastic writers who have proved for themselves that these phantasms
are the deadliest enemies of good golf. In another place I read the
following passage:

You may place your ball how or where you like, you may hit it
with any sort of implement you like; all you have to do is to
hit it. Could simpler conditions be devised? Could an easier
task be set? And yet such is the constitution of the human
golfing soul that it not only fails to achieve it, but
invents for itself multiform and manifold ifs and ans for not
achieving it--ifs and ans, the nature and number of which
must assuredly move the laughter of the gods.