Beyond the Fairway: How Golf and Healthcare Strive for a Healthy Performance Mindset

What does it take to perform at the highest level, week after week, under enormous pressure and still maintain a healthy mindset?

“When I think about the Korn Ferry Tour, I think about growth, development and discipline for these young men who are aspiring to move to the next level,” said Mandy Eaton, president and CEO of Memorial Health. “I also see parallels between golf and our organization: performance, consistency and how you handle pressure.”

That connection was made during a Players Panel ahead of the Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS, where three Korn Ferry Tour professionals spoke candidly about performance, resilience and the habits that carry people through, even when their best isn’t available.

Their answers offered wisdom that applies well beyond the fairway.

C.T. Pan, Doc Redman and Anders Albertson have all competed on the PGA Tour and each faced adversity through injury, illness and time away from the game. Pan returned to competition in Springfield following wrist surgery in 2025. “My mindset changed totally after the surgery,” he said. “As an athlete, your body is your biggest asset.” He spoke about the importance of playing for the right reasons. “I want to play golf for myself, my happiness, my dream.”

Redman, who won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2026 after stepping away for several months, focused on process over outcomes. “In golf, the results are very obvious, but maybe it’s not the best indicator of how you are doing.” He credited self-compassion for his return to form. “For some reason, it is easy to be mean to yourself. Being kind in my self-talk made all the difference.”

Perhaps no story carried more weight than Albertson’s. The 2018 Memorial Health Championship winner spent much of 2023 and 2024 in and out of hospitals with alarming symptoms: numbness, vertigo and a heart that felt “like it was being stung by a hundred bees.”

He spoke with gratitude about the care he received and what it meant to have clinicians who took his questions seriously.

“Having a place similar to what you do here at Memorial was huge for me,” he said, “to answer questions like, ‘Am I dying?'” His recovery gave him something unexpected: a quieter mind and a renewed belief in the game.

All three golfers returned to a truth that resonates equally in healthcare.

“I’ve wanted to believe the difference between good and great is technical,” Albertson said. “But as I get older, I think it is more internal – the belief you have going into it and the kindness you show yourself after.”

Healthcare professionals face their own version of this, walking into uncertain situations, drawing on years of training, managing the emotional weight of outcomes they can’t always control.

“Both come to work every day with a set of skills,” Albertson said. “Remembering to absorb what’s going on. Never knowing for sure what will come your way – but still bringing your skills and experience to it every day.”

The course may look different, but keeping a healthy performance mindset is the same.