homePRACTICE UNDER PRESSURE
Golf is almost unique in so much that we tend to do all of our practice in an environment (i.e. on a range) that has little or no relevance to the real game which is played on the course. When you play golf with a card in your hand, each and every shot has a consequence. Yet we are all guilty of standing on a driving range that is wide open and belting balls one after another with little or no consequence to the outcome.
This style of practice gives golfers what I call ‘false confidence’. You are good in an environment that is totally removed from the real thing. Without identifying a specific target, you might hit 30 balls on the range to loosen up and feel that you are hitting them pretty well. Then you get to the 1st tee, and all of a sudden you find yourself looking at a narrow fairway, trees left and right. That warm-up session hasn’t prepared you for this – now the shot has a real consequence. And you get nervous...
DO NOT DITHER
The normal reaction under pressure is to slow down and try to think too much. Over the first three rounds of the ’96 Masters at Augusta, Greg Norman’s routine hardly varied. Yet in the final round his pre-shot routines varied by anything up to 45 seconds. It’s no coincidence he collapsed to a 78 while Nick Faldo was putting together a 67. The Australian played magnificent golf to build that 6- shot lead going in to the final round...and then he abandoned the execution of his game plan and his natural shot-making rhythm.
It is counter intuitive...but under pressure we need to be a little bit more intuitive and just do it! This is why it is SO important to have – and to practice – a really effective pre-shot routine. A routine that is concise and rhythmical. You should gather just enough information and go through a set procedure and then get in there and GO! If you don’t practice this when there is no pressure don’t expect it to hold up when there is pressure.
FOCUS ON THE PROCESS NOT THE OUTCOME
One of the things that settles your mind down under pressure is to focus on things that you are able to control. Unfortunately, winning is not one of them. If you shoot five under and someone else shoots seven under then there is nothing whatsoever you can do about it. What you DO have control over is your own emotion and your game plan. The advice I give to a lot of my clients is to become fascinated with the golf course. See the course as a complex puzzle that you are trying to unlock. Ask yourself what the course designer is trying to trick you into doing and then come up with a plan that will enable you to play your game and defeat him.
To be absorbed in your own game plan and what you need to do is a wonderful antidote to the physiological symptoms of pressure. I love the line that Jack Nicklaus used when he said that in the main he didn’t win majors, he let others lose them. Under extreme pressure he knew that other players would stray from their game plan and watch too closely what others were doing. He knew that he wouldn’t do that because he had a plan and he would stick to it. That’s a key message from the greatest player who ever lived – one that you should remember and apply to your own game.
Reproduced with kind permission of Golf International Magazine
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