One day when John Paul Newport was in his mid-thirties, he attended a corporate outing at a golf course. He had hacked around on the fairways for a couple of summers as a kid, but had always found other sports, especially football, more compelling. Golf was a game he had played only a handful of times in the past twenty years. But that day on the course he more or less accidentally nailed a drive more than 300 yards.

The feeling he had as he watched the ball soar was incredible?grace, power, and purity combined. Much to his surprise, he was hooked.

Within a month he had bought a set of clubs -- the first he'd ever owned -- and discovered he had a knack for the game. With practice, his scores improved steadily, until one day two years later, he miraculously shot a three-under-par 69.

This amazing experience triggered all sorts of questions in his mind: How was such a round possible? Having shot 69 once, what prevented him from shooting 69 every time? In golf, as elsewhere in life, why is one so consistently incapable of fulfilling one's clearly established potential? Projecting into the world of professional golf, he wondered what was it that allowed some pros to stay at the top of the PGA Tour golf rankings year after year while others with seemingly just as much talent got stuck in the bush leagues?