How does ‘process’ lead to winning golf? Harry Higgs explains

When it comes to developing sustained success at the elite pro golf level, a lot of professionals use the P word. They repeat it over and over — on good days and bad. If they can just develop a great process and stick to it, good golf will follow. It’s not as much about trying to play good golf as it is sticking to a process that will eventually bring it out. 

The theory goes that golf is too fickle to ever master. It also involves too much randomness and luck to let any one result define your game. That’s why players try and create top-level processes that hopefully bring about their best. Little things can become big things: visualization, a consistent gameday routine, even going through a mundane golf checklist in a specific order to reinforce some bit of uniformity to every shot in a round, when those shots and conditions can be very different. 

When pros establish and stick to a process, it paves the path for good opportunities to become great achievements. Harry Higgs made that happen as well as anyone — well, anyone not named Scottie Scheffler — in 2024. Higgs began the year ranked 421st in the world, a far cry from his peak of 91st in 2021. He had played his way off the PGA Tour and back onto the Korn Ferry Tour. Worse yet, he had toiled through the spring without much to show for it.

Higgs missed four straight cuts and followed them with T43 and T50 finishes before arriving at the Kansas City stop on the schedule. That’s when his best golf showed up and he found himself in contention. He had crafted a simple and effective process for this on-course play that week that really narrowed his focus, and he explained it on a recent episode of the No Laying Up Podcast.

“I did feel it coming,” Higgs told host Chris Solomon. “I just remember walking to the 1st tee on Thursday being like ‘Oh, s—.’ Ready to win. Ready to compete to win this tournament.

“In that, okay, so let’s focus on a handful of things that aren’t that. Let’s not just constantly walk around saying I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win. Let’s focus on how I’m gonna give myself the best chance to win.” 

That HOW was Higgs’ process. From his retelling, it came in four parts, which we have listed below and synthesized slightly. 

1. Don’t hit a shot without a clear intent.

Simply, know what exactly you’re trying to do with the ball.

2. Don’t hit a shot without a rehearsal to match that intent.

Practice exactly that intention in the form of movement. A deliberate practice swing!

3. Accept the result, post-shot.

Whatever happens, happens. Move forward and accept it. 

4. Walk with your head held high. 

Through that acceptance, feel confidence in your game and how it is projecting. Walk with that confidence. 

“I would just check in my yardage book — yep, do it, walk, look again, yep, do it, walk — and I did it for four days,” Higgs continued. “I had a whole lot of luck to win that golf tournament. I teed off the 72nd hole in fourth place. And wound up winning. Obviously the next week, well, might as well do the same thing.”

Those who followed Higgs’ run this summer know what came next. He teed it up a week later in Knoxville, Tennessee, stuck to the same process, and won again. Of course, he admitted, it was a lot easier to stick to that process the second week when it had delivered a victory the week prior. Naturally. But he did it in a playoff, too, a situation he is none too keen for, particularly when he’d surrendered a lead to enter that playoff to begin with. 

But that’s where the back half of his process really kicked in. Higgs could have sulked or pouted as he walked between shots, playing the same par-5 over and over until he won. But he had reached a level of acceptance that wasn’t going to allow poor shots impact what remained of the tournament. 

“I was totally at peace with whether I won or lost this golf tournament,” he said. 

You can listen to Higgs break down his process, mental health on Tour, his thoughts on the future of the PGA Tour and much more in the podcast below.