This is always one of my favorite times of year in golf because so many professionals are in the hunt to make their dreams come true. When I was playing golf as a youth I made numerous putts (in my mind) to win my spot on golf’s main stage. Now, as a grown man with my season of playing behind me, I love watching the guys grind it out.
Last week the Nationwide tour graduated its class of 2008 to the PGA Tour. The top-25 money leaders for the season earned the coveted pass to join Tiger and company on the big tour.
One guy that punched his card this year is Chad Collins. This will be Chad’s sophomore campaign on tour and I believe a breakout year. His game matured immensely during 2008, highlighted by a win at the Miccosukee Championship.
Chad was a rival of mine in collegiate golf. He played for Methodist College and I played Greensboro College. During his four years at Methodist he was the number one ranked player in NCAA Division III every year. Many times we played head-to-head in collegiate events and many times he beat me like Brock Lesner vs. Pee Wee Herman.
I knew Chad was going to make it on tour during his freshman year when he drained a putt on the 72nd hole of 40 feet from off the green to win the NCAA Tournament. Clutch! Over the next three years we watched him break scoring records and win countless medalist hardware. We knew it was just a matter of Time.
Here is a video (courtesy of pgatour.com): Meet Chad
I hope you will tune in next year and watch the crop of young players in pursuit of their golf legacy.
Last week’s President’s cup is further proof of the Tiger and the Dip theory. Here are 3 other observations that will help you in building teams.
1. Everyone needs a Wingman. Phil Mickelson proved to be the ultimate wingman. Like Iceman to Maverick, Phil’s partnerships with rookies, Anthony Kim and Sean O’ Hair were close to perfect. Phil’s talent and experience helped the young guns to stay in the present. It was also apparent that he was able to transfer confidence when his team needed it most. Successful teams from every arena have an experienced veteran that brings out the best in his teammates.
2. Create a “have fun and win atmosphere”. Fred Couples’ decision to bring in Michael Jordan as “assistant-assistant” captain seemed odd to many. I believe it was a stroke of brilliance. Anytime a team can draw from an advisor (s) with a thought process of success there will be benefit. A person like Jordan helps create the atmosphere of a winning team. If the atmosphere is right a team will achieve peak perform.
3. Unity. Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods gel better than Danny Ocean and Rusty, than JB and KG, than Tango and Cash, than Milo and Otis, than..well, you get the idea. My main point here is that two or more teammates who work that well together will inspire a whole team. Their unity was energizing and helped set the example for the whole team. A team acting as one is always powerful.
Recently PGA.com posted the article “How to choose an instructor”, giving the prospective golf student the criteria for selecting a teaching pro. Master Professional John Hughes’ advice is sound, highlighting compatibility, accreditation & experience, swing aides, video, follow up, and playing ability as the key factors to evaluate when choosing an instructor.
Golfers I know and meet, regularly ask me who they should take lessons from. Remember, the greatest teacher in the world is not the greatest for everyone. If so then all of the men and women tour players would probably use the same person. What makes a coach the best for you is that they are the best for YOU. My philosophy for choosing the right golf mentor is simple:
Goals- Your golf coach should be 100% committed to helping YOU achieve your goals. First, make sure they ask you what you want to accomplish with your lessons. Some golf pros have an agenda that is self serving or short term. Run from these. Your instructor should be about helping you get what you want out of your game.
Communication- It is important that your chosen one allows you to give feedback(communication is two-way) during the lesson. Pick someone that talks with you not at you. Make sure you and your coach speak the same language. It is important that each of you can get what the other is saying. Nothing is more frustrating than leaving a lesson and having no idea what the pro talked about.
Connection- Select a golf instructor that clicks with you. You like their style and their attitude. If you are low tech, maybe they are low tech. You relate to their stories and analogies and they relate to yours. A coach that you connect with will pull the best out of you.
There is something special about a student-teacher relationship. It gives the student someone to perform for and the teacher someone to pour themselves into. Good luck finding your coach, I know the relationship will bare much fruit and help you reach your potential on the course.
This week the Wyndham Championships is in town. I always enjoy spending time at this tour event walking the fairways with some of my contemporaries from the amateur ranks. Formerly considered a party event (think Nascar + fraternity kegger), the previously named Greater Greensboro Open has reinvented itself since moving to its new venue, Sedgfield Country Club, for the second consecutive year.
My reason for attending this year is can be summed up in one word, Freddie.Fred Coupleswas my childhood hero and remains my favorite golfer to pull for. Many times I played with Couples in the afternoons while the shadows grew long as the sun kissed the horizon. Sure, this was all in the mind of my youth, but I never played alone while I dreamed of one day sharing the bentgrass stage with Boom Boom.
Yesterday watching him play brought me back to those days, as he strolled down the fairway in his signature nonchalant gate. The pre-shot routine is the same after all of these years (tip). The sound of impact sounded more like it was fired from a howitzer than struck with a driver, just like it did as I witnessed him shooting 64 at the Emerald Golf Club in 1996.
There is joy in being in the presence of greatness. There is awe in being in the company of those you admire. I hope you have the chance to relive your childhood dreams as watching Freddie enabled me to do. It will remind you of the time when you believed your dreams would come true. We must fight to hold on to that simple childlike faith. The world may try to steal it or destroy it but it is up to us to preserve it, to nurture it. Go revisit your childhood heroes and renew your mind to believing again.
Last week was the annual playing of the Gillespie Invitational. This was an anniversary of sorts for me since it marked my return to competitive golf a year ago. This year I struck the ball pretty well but putted terribly. Both days, I found myself very uncomfortable with the flat stick.
After a five minute conversation with my coach a few days later, I relearned a fundamental truth to consistent good putting. Focus on hitting good putts. Simple! I know! But I had been puting the emphasis on making putts for par or birdie etc… instead of on the execution of good putts.
This week I read the following post from Randell Mell’s chat with Morris Pickens. He is the sport psych to Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson, and Lucas Glover. I believe it will help you to grasp this putting axiom as much as it did me. (The day after my tournament I shot 64. Man, did this tweak of thought process make a huge difference.)
..A lot of people, every putt is for a result. The closer you get to the hole, the more you get score conscious. This putt is for a birdie, or to get up and down, or to get the lead. We try to take the putting “for” something out of it. Whether it’s a five footer for eagle or a five footer for double bogey, it’s still the same putt. That way you can make them all the same. It becomes a physical putt, not an emotional putt. The more you can make putting a physical act rather than an emotional act, the more you can make them all the same…
I have also included the link if you’d like to read the full article. Randall Mell post
I have also found we love to put emphasis on the results in life too. We are taught that each action we take is for something.
Closing a sale… Acing a test… Nailing an interview…
Why do we make these actions so emotional? We know what to do, we have trained, studied, learned, and mastered many of the things that we become anxious about. It is just a matter of physical acts which produce desired outcomes. Be free. Loosen the chains of restraint. No longer will the proximity of reaching our goals cause the pressure of execution to mount. We already know the outcome because we’ve prepared. The putts go in, we close the sale, we pass the test, we get the girl. Why? Because we’ve already won.
Tiger Woods has entered “The Dip.” The point in his comeback when he appears to be in a slump. However, this lack of superhuman form is to be expected.
When Tiger came back after his surgery his performance seemed to return almost immediately. Within a few weeks he was winning tournaments seemingly at will. Then he started loosing form. Tiger’s execution was less god-like and more human. He didn’t win the Masters or the US Open and just missed the cut at The Open Championship. Now beyond speculation to the golf world, Tiger is in a slump. In the next few months I predict Tiger will play the best golf of his career.
Here’s why: When making a come back or starting anew in sports, business, music, etc. The initial effort is met with success and the desired goal seems within our grasp. Then we hit the learning curve when gaps in our ability are uncovered and execution becomes difficult. This is when we slide into the dip. The dip occurs as we are getting into form or back to form. The dip is hard. The dip is tough. It seems as if we are going nowhere or backwards. The dip makes us want to quit.
It is also during this time when we are developing and refining our skills, and building mental fortitude, which will propel us to realizing our potential. Tiger is going through this now, as he has done several times in his career, each time coming out of the dip to new heights and greater accomplishments.
Most people don’t persist long enough to make it through unfortunately. We have a goal to break 80, or learn to paint, and right before we come out of the dip we throw in the towel. The key is persistence. The dip has been paramount to Tiger ability to stay dominant even as the competition has strengthened. It is not fun in the valley, but the journey is worth it.
Do you think we are about to enter into a new Tiger era?
Unlike any activity I have participated in, Golf, can engineer an emotional roller-coaster second to none. Seemingly stable people worldwide turn into to the HULK from David Banner and back again. Moods in a round of golf can swing up and down faster than the Kingda Ka and many times for justifiable reasons. Bad bounces, poor decisions, duffs, tops, and three-putts are all grounds for a volcanic eruption of the Novaruptan order. Dr. Jekyll meet Mr. Hyde. I will not dare mention the Sh**ks (can’t bring myself to type it), which has been known to turn Norman Rockwell into Hannibal Lecter.
The thing is, anger is an emotion. Emotions give you an advantage if applied properly. If focused. How many times have you watched Tiger or any great athlete get mad after poor execution, then increase the level of their play. Every champion has done this in some arena. You have too. The anger doesn’t consume you, it heightens your abilities to bounce back. So next time use the emotions to excel. Here are 2 keys I’ve observed from watching great competitors translate rage into peak performance in golf and life.
1. Vent so you don’t explode. Release the rage and get it out of your system. My Grandfather used to cook the best roast with a pressure cooker. He would set the valve to release steam as the pressure would build so that the pot would not explode. The great thing is the valve let enough steam out to avoid catastrophe but not so much as to lose the effectiveness of the heat. Give yourself some release so the pressure doesn’t build to awakening the Tasmanian Devil within . Note: there are ways to do this without profanity, damaging the course, or your equipment.
2. Channel the fury into focus. Use the intensity of your emotions to better concentrate on your next shot. Notice Tiger’s eyes the hole after he gets angry. It is almost Jedi-like the way he can focus and execute what he needs to do to bounce back better than had he not messed up in the first place. This ability is in each of us. Channel the energy into hitting your next shot instead of letting the energy combust like white phosphorus in the veins.
Enjoy this final thought, courtesy of a Top 100 teacher Charlie King, instructing you on proper throwing techniques for when all else fails. Feel free to leave your own techniques in the comments section.
Golf’s US Open was a tiring tournament to watch on television this year. The starting and stopping was like watching matches on center court Wimbledon (prior to this year). I wonder if they can install a retractible roof at Turnberry for the Open Championships?
Nevertheless, it was a great USGA championship. One that gave birth to a new champion, Lucas Glover, and resurrection to a former one, David Duval. Hopefully.
I remember the first time I met Lucas Glover. I was playing in an AJGA tournament in Greensboro NC. Let me rephrase that, I was playing in my only AJGA event. Their tournaments are usually reserved for good junior golfers, but I digress. A tall, lanky, and red-headed 14 year old Lucas, meandered around the putting green with a deliberate and confident gate while sporting a FULL Goatee. That’s right, he was 14. I, on the other hand was 16, and trying to grow enough peach fuzz to justify buying a Gillette, and he looked like a 25 year old major league pitcher. We never played any rounds together, but I distinctly remember him on the range hitting drivers. Every one he struck resonated with tour caliber sound, like the ball being fired out of a cannon. My tee shots unfortunately, always sounded like a scoop of ice cream hitting the pavement. Foreshadowing? Probably. Be that as it were, Lucas is a great champion and a nice guy. I look forward to seeing him add more titles to his trophy case.
Egos don’t win golf tournaments or garner success in life.
On the eighteenth hole Lucas stepped up to the tee with a 2-shot lead. Lucas watched Duval miss his birdie putt and promptly pulled 6-iron out of his bag, on a hole where most players hit driver, and striped one in the fairway. This play allowed him to avoid trouble and a score worse than bogey. Don’t try to win with a 3 when all you need for victory is a 5. That goes for major championships or local club championships.
A mentor of mine says “You can’t feed your family and your ego at the same time.” Lucas demonstrated this remarkably by deciding to hit 6 iron even when he had been driving the ball beautifully all week and had 2 strokes to give with one to play.
The same goes true for success in any endeavor. Most truly successful people are confident but humble. Not the egotistical and malicious sharks portrayed by Hollywood and the media. They became successful by contributing something of value to the community and people around them. The price of sacrificing personal gain or glory for some time period is usually paid, as well is the risk of looking foolish if they fail. But long-term true success can only happen when the siren of ego is silenced.
Happy father’s day to all dads. The influence you have over us lasts a lifetime. The older I get the more I appreciate my dad. Recently, I submitted the following essay to the Golf Channel’s Father’s Day contest. It did not win, but reminded me how many lessons I learned from my dad while we spent hours at the golf course. I have included the short essay below and would love to hear about lessons you remember learning from you dad on the course or off.
My father, Craig, taught me many of life’s lessons during our rounds on the links. Two of these foundational principles which have forged my character are integrity and going the extra mile. He taught me that, unlike other sports, golf requires a higher standard of its players. He modeled this with etiquette and honesty. Going the extra mile, he proclaimed, will distinguish you from the masses. Picking up extra range baskets, hitting one more putt, and self discipline were all habits he imparted. The thought process my father ingrained has been a compass for my life.Dads, I honor you today and appreciate you always.
