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I would love to make hundreds of dollars an hour just talking to people about golf. I think my problem would be, and my wife could back me up on this, that I couldn’t fill up an hour with talk about how one is supposed to deal with the difficulties of the game, or, if I could last an hour, by the time the next confused soul regaled me with the same laments I would be pretty much fed up. She used to think it was a total lack of compassion, but now she just refers to it as “being Wayne”. My problem is that I can’t stand whining, or anything approaching whining. Golf is a game, albeit a quite difficult one, and can cause great consternation, especially for those who are trying to play it for a living. That being said, no one is shooting at you, no one is dying, there is no tragedy involved. I can see the need for professional psychiatric help for those who have to deal with such things in their lives, for living can in itself sometimes seem almost unbearable. Seeing a professional therapist to help your golf game, however, is not something I would consider to be an effective way to spend your hard earned money.
The idea, of course, is to play better golf. The sport psychologist specializing in treating golfers would ostensibly be helping golfers cope with the vagaries of the game and formulate ways to improve both practice and performance. That’s nice, but isn’t that what a golf instructor is supposed to do? A competent teaching pro should be able to give the student what he need in both the physical aspect and the mental aspect of the game. My belief is that playing good golf requires both physical skill and mental toughness, and from what I have seen and heard most sport psychologists are woefully lacking in the “tough love” category. Were I to take on that role I would expect to be a complete failure, as the advice I would give, I’m afraid, would be much more blunt and abrupt than what would be expected or desired.
That being said, I do believe that the subject of sport psychology and the importance of the mental side of golf is an interesting one, and I have taken the liberty of assuming both roles (myself, the golf instructor, and me as a sport psychologist) for the following discussion. I have tried to present the other side as unbiased as I can given my predilections, and I do admit that I find myself quite often going over many of these very ideas during my daily lessons. I recognize the importance of the mental game once a certain level of physical mastery has been attained, and I am not shy about passing that message on to my students.
SP (Sport Psychologist): So, Wayne, let me introduce myself. You can call me SP, and I have worked with many golfers, including a number of Tour players. In fact, golf seems to create so many issues among those who try to master it that I have come to specialize in their problems. I am quite busy, and my rates have increased nicely over the past few years. In fact, I think I make more per hour than you do, which should tell you something about the importance golfers place on the mental side of the game. I don’t claim to be able to make your swing better, but I can help you swing the way you know how to swing when the situation might keep you from doing so. You see, golf is a game of confidence, and if I can get someone to be more confident and to commit to what they are doing at any given moment I can make them better.
Wayne: O.K. I’ll grant you that what you just said is true, that a golfer will do better if he feels confident in spite of pressure and if he stays in the moment and focuses on one shot at a time. Now that we have decided that, (and that took about 30 seconds), what are you going to do for the next 59 and a half minutes. My problem is not with the ideas, it’s with the fact that all this stuff is common sense. Let’s take the person who is having issues with what you have already discussed. Say Jim seems to have a good swing and can play fairly well with his buddies, but as soon as he gets himself into a tournament situation he folds like origami.
SP: That’s a very common situation, one I deal with all the time. I’m going to tell Jim that he needs to believe in himself, that he needs to draw confidence from previous experiences and allow himself to let his swing work the way it does when there is no pressure. I might give him breathing exercises or get him focused on a routine that fills up the time when he might feel the tension building. I will tell him to focus on the target rather than getting too involved with technique. In other words, play golf, not golf swing. He should take what he has and see if it works, rather than trying to fix up every little thing the whole round. He should stop being so hard on himself and realize that there is no perfection in golf, and that getting the ball in the hole is the priority, not hitting beautiful looking shots. He should make a plan as to how he would like to play the round, and use his imagination to visualize each shot coming off just the way he would like it to. Before each shot he needs to see a successful result, and once the ball is gone from the clubface realize that there is nothing more that can be done about it, so just accept the result, go find the ball, and plan the next shot.
Wayne: You know, that all sounds familiar, and there’s a lot of it, so I’ll make a list and address each point. Let me know if I leave anything out:
1. Believe in yourself.
2. Confidence breeds success.
3. Pretend you’re in a non-stressful situation.
4. Try breathing exercises.
5. Develop a routine.
6. Focus on the target.
7. Avoid being too swing conscious.
8. Don’t be hard on yourself.
9. Remember that no one’s perfect.
10. It’s the score that’s important.
11. Plan your strategy for the round.
12. Visualize a successful result before each shot.
13. Accept whatever result occurs.
14. Play one shot at a time.
SP: I think you got them all. I could think of more if I had more time.
Wayne: That will be enough for now. All right, I believe that I can group these ideas three ways: the good ideas (ones I incorporate into my own attempts to play the game), the obvious ideas (ones that you shouldn’t have to pay to hear, nor should you have to be told), and ones I would consider bad ideas. Let’s start with the good ones, and feel free to butt in if you have something to say.
Looking over the list there are three items I would say are vitally important for every player who wishes to compete successfully. The first would be to play one shot at a time. If every golfer learned to follow this dictum there would be no need for sport psychologists at all, and I could spend all my time doing the important and more productive work on technique. Now, if you’re literal minded you might say that you can only play one shot at a time, so everyone would actually be doing just that. The problem becomes one of focus. The idea is to give 100 per cent of your focus on the shot in front of you. This is an easy task when you’re in the middle of the round and things are going well. It becomes much more difficult when you are following a mistake or a bad break, or if it is later in the round and each shot is becoming more important. Players call it “not getting ahead of yourself”. It’s a bad idea to think about what it would mean if you finished well, how great it would be to tell your Dad and all your friends that you won, or to start composing your victory speech before you’re finished. Along the same lines, playing one shot at a time means forgetting about your three-putt on the last hole or how you pulled that wedge left of the green and made bogey three holes ago when you should have given yourself a birdie chance. What’s done is done, and what might happen is out of your control. Just hit the shot in front of you and don’t worry about anything else. The ability to do this under pressure is the hallmark of winners. If you’re not good at it your chance of saving a round after a bad start is slim, and your chance of finishing a round well when you are in the hunt is also suspect.
SP: Wayne, you are absolutely on the money. I would also call it “staying in the moment”. Deal with what you can control and put all the other extraneous thoughts out of your mind.
Wayne: It took me a long time to figure this out, many years of ruining rounds by getting upset at bad shots or poor decisions. One of the reasons that I champion the idea that teaching professionals should continue to compete throughout their careers is that by playing competitively and continuing to add to their experience they can relate these lessons to their students and have some credibility in doing so. It annoys me to no end to listen to teachers who don’t play pontificate about playing “under pressure”. There is no pressure sitting in a chair watching someone hit balls.
When you think about it, most of the things a sport psychologist would be dealing with involve what happens when things begin to go poorly. It’s easy to have a great attitude when you’re making nothing but pars and birdies and playing your best golf. It’s what happens when you start losing it that most people aren’t so good at, and need help coping with. Looking back at the list, there are a number of items that are keys to helping you handle the vagaries and capriciousness of the game. It’s a good idea to avoid being too hard on yourself. Golf is a brutally difficult game, and no one escapes a round unscathed by a poor result. You have to remember that the important thing is the score, and a good finish can make up for earlier mistakes. You are going to have less of a chance to finish strong if you have been down on yourself for bad execution during the round. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to get irritated by bad shots. You see the best players indicating their displeasure in poor swings or strokes. I want the kids that I teach to hate bad shots. Their emotion shows me that they have the desire to succeed, and goodness knows they’re going to need all the desire and perseverance they can muster. The secret is to channel negative energy into even stronger focus on making up for the bad shots with better ones. Part of that ability is simply strong will. The desire for success will prompt a player to figure out how to maximize his or her chances for success. Items on the list such as developing a routine, practicing breathing exercises, visualizing successful results, accepting whatever result comes from your efforts, all of these serve to make it more possible to end up with the lowest score possible for that particular round.
SP: I notice that you don’t say “end up with a great score”, just “the lowest possible score”. You are known as a “grinder”, and in the world of competitive golf that has taken on a very positive connotation. Being a grinder indicates that you never give up, that you fight for every stroke no matter what the circumstances. Sometimes you might be trying to break 80, or you might be trying to birdie the last hole after a late double has eliminated your chances of winning. Whatever the case, you will never find a great champion who gives up when the chips are down.
Wayne: You’re right, and there is a reason for it. I have always had a great desire to win, but I have never had the talent or physical ability to have it come easily. Most of the rounds that I play are “grinding” rounds, simply because I am not that good. I’m pretty good, but not good enough to attack a course and shoot an “easy” 68. I always have to fight for every stroke, and stay entirely aware of what I am doing: otherwise, I inevitably fail.
Now, I have to ask you, how many sport psychologists would just look at a patient and simply tell them that they needed to “toughen up”, to stop whining and complaining and just suck it up and get on with it?
SP: Well, it would certainly be nice if all my clients would respond to such “tough love”, but not everyone is built that way. The fact that they are actively seeking help from a professional is an indication that they are looking for reinforcement, encouragement, ways to deal with whatever they perceive as their particular “problem” that is getting in the way of their success and/or happiness. They don’t want to be told to just “suck it up”. They realize they have issues, but not that the sum of most of these issues is basic weakness. It’s my job to give them ways to overcome their fears, to make them feel as though they have the means to fight back against the nerves that pressure inevitably brings. I don’t think it’s much different than you working on their swing mechanics, making their technique good enough to hold up at the end of a big event.
Wayne: You know, in your list you mentioned that confidence breeds success, and that you try to find ways to make them feel confident. It has always been my belief that it is just the opposite, that success breeds confidence. Why should someone be confident after failing consistently? Why should you feel like you’re going to pull off a shot over the water when you’ve skanked it in there every time you’ve played the hole? The answer I come up with is that you’re not going to be confident until you achieve some success, and you’re not going to be successful until you improve. Want to be confident? Get better. Work on your technique until you can hit the shot over the water. Gain belief in yourself through hard work and dedication. Sure, you can work on routines and breathing exercises, focus on the target, plan the round, visualize successful results, do all the things that over time have helped golfers in their search for better results, but what true improvement really boils down to is the physical act of hitting the ball better, putting better, pitching and chipping better. Tour pros continue to put the time in on the range and the short game area because they know that perfect preparation and perfect pre-shot thoughts are made useless by a bad swing or a bad stroke.
Certainly you’ve given yourself a better chance by doing everything on the list, but none of it guarantees a good result. I guess my beef with sport psychologists would be that a competent teaching pro that still plays the game competitively should be able to dispense the same knowledge and work on improving the swing technique at the same time. I think it just gets to the point that good players run out of options and look to guys like you because they have access and can afford it. I don’t see it being much of a benefit to the average guy trying to learn the game. The mental game becomes far more important when you’re already extremely good at the physical side. Nicklaus once said that golf is 90 per cent mental. I always thought “that’s great if you hit it and putt it like Nicklaus”.
SP: I won’t deny that I am filling a void created by less than competent golf instructors. I also won’t deny that I find it somewhat amazing that a number of great players need what I have to offer. You would think that having grown up playing such a tough game would make them tough enough to get the mental side on their own. But as it turns out the Tour is just a small sample of what you find in everyday life: people who struggle with being alive. A player finding himself in a prolonged slump and on his way off the Tour is going to look for help wherever he can find it. If they’re not finding me they might be finding Jesus instead. You’re contention that they really need to find a better swing might be true, but we all know the incredible difficulty with changing a swing pattern built up over years of competition and practice. As long as there are testimonials to the effect that working with a sport psychologist helped turn things around, we will be in business.
Wayne: One thing is for sure: it’s a big business and there’s certainly room for just about everybody. If people want to spend their money to talk to you who am I to say it’s a bad idea? It’s not like you are going to hurt anyone, and, as we have discussed, much of what you say is worthy of being installed in the repertoire of any golfer seeking his best results. My warning would be to those who are spending more time talking about the game than practicing it. I would hold that most answers are in the dirt, and you don’t find much dirt in a psychologist’s office.