If the putts don't go in, you don't win

Shaking in their boots. NOT!
Just listen to the announcers at any pro tournament and you will hear them talk about how much pressure the contenders are feeling (except Tiger of course). They'll typically describe in detail the pounding of their hearts and the feeling of veins bulging out of their heads.

For any pros that may be reading this story, I realize I might be way out of bounds for my viewpoint. After all, I'm not a pro and will never live in a pro's shoes, so I'll never REALLY know how much pressure or how nervous pro golfers get while they're in contention for a win. What I do know is how I've reacted during club golf tournaments for the past twenty-five years, including this past weekend. Again, I realize it's not the same as playing for big prize money, but it's not as different as you may think.

To me, there's a big difference between pressure and nerves. What I've experienced is that I'm constantly putting pressure on myself to perform to the best of my ability. In golf it means always hitting good shots and making the make able putts. The ironic side is that the bigger the situation, the less nervous I actually feel. Pressure is a completely different story. All too often it's the pressure I put on myself that leads to poor shot-making and bad decisions, not nerves. Nervousness is a feeling that happens before the opening tee shot and usually lasts until the first putt drops. After that, it's over.

Do you remember Annika Sorenstam's opening tee shot at the 2003 Colonial, when she played in the men's event? After months of anticipation you could tell she was extremely nervous on the first tee. After she saw her first tee shot land in the fairway I'll bet the nerves disappeared, but the pressure was constant. The pressure to make birdies lasted until her final putt in round two, when she officially missed the cut. A few more putts made and she would have gone where no woman ever has.

Throughout my college football and tournament golf experiences, the more competitive the battle, the more intense my concentration level. Instead of nerves, a feeling of calmness and increased focus takes over, which explains why I've performed my best in some of the most pressure packed situations. Having said that, all too often it works in reverse. All it takes is one or two mistakes early for the pressure demons to re-appear, causing more mistakes in a hurry.
I can only believe it's a similar feeling for professional athletes while they are competing. At the recent Buick Classic, Woody Austin said he choked when he didn't make two closing pars to win. In my eyes he simply put too much pressure on himself to get the job done, including ramming his birdie putt on eighteen (to win) fifteen feet past the hole. Woodie suffered the dreaded birdie to bogey three-putt syndrome and lost by one shot. Although the announcers would have you believe otherwise, it wasn't because he was nervous.

We all put pressure on ourselves. Just look at the recently completed Women's US Open, where Paula Creamer shot a front nine 41 in the final round. The day before I watched her miss several make able birdie putts on the back nine, which would have given her the lead. For some reason the hole seems to shrink when you need to make the putts the most. In golf, scoring is all about making the putts. She missed them all and I believe it's because she wanted to win so badly, putting too much pressure on herself. In tournament golf, when the putts don't go in, you don't win.

When I was in the computer business the word FUD meant that a competitor was building up the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the market. A good comparison is a political campaign, when candidates of opposite parties campaign by creating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the voter's mind about their fellow candidate.

FUD is also a good description of the feeling a golfer has on the greens, when make able putts won't go in. Failure on the greens is contagious and all too often I'll putt defensively, in fear that if I run it past the hole more than a couple of feet, I'll miss the come backer. As crazy as it sounds I've had some of my worst putting days when I hit the best shots onto the green. Missing make able birdie putts is frustrating enough, but when birdies turn into three-putt bogeys, you just want to kick something and cry. (I highly suggest crying because the last time I had a major tantrum was about ten years ago during a member-guest tournament. On the first hole of the second day I three putted, then went to kick my golf bag and instead hit the metal post on the pull cart head-on with my big toe. I thought I broke my toe and limped around the final seventeen holes in pain). We've all seen Woody Austin's approach to letting out steam by smacking his head with his putter until it's bent out of shape. Let's not forget, it's just a game!

When David Feherty or Gary McCord talk about veins bulging from a player's necks, I just don't believe that's what pros are feeling. Professional athletes are conditioned to compete. Although I'll never have a first hand experience, I believe the playing field in the heat of the battle is where they feel most comfortable, not nervous. To best prove my point, did you see the Wimbledon final? You don't hit shots like Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal hit in the fifth set and throughout the tie-breakers when your nervous.

60 second Golf Tip
I hope you appreciate how difficult it is to find a 60 second golf tip these days and how rare it is to actually understand and relate to it when you practice.

When I was having ball striking problems in the early 1990's I naturally read what the experts in the top golf magazines suggested, expecting to practice their tips and turn my game around. What happened was just the opposite, mainly because I couldn't understand how to apply the pages of technical jargon and mechanics they described. I found that keeping it simple is what they all preached, but rarely practiced.

To show how the old is forever new, I just finished reading a two page article about golf's newest swing sensation called the stack and tilt, and how it's being used by more and more tour players every day. It's funny because conceptually what they're describing is simple and makes sense to me. In fact, it's a component of my swing I recently needed to re-discover, again.On paper it's a different story. I'm sorry, but I can't relate to pages that tell me to release my hips so that the butt muscles push them upward and toward the target. When they tell me to feel as if I'm jumping up as the club comes down, it doesn't help me hit more fairways and greens.

The skinny of what I read in the article is this, "keeping your weight on your front foot is the simplest way to control where the club hits the ground, which is the first fundamental of hitting the ball. Golfers who shift to the right (for righties) on the backswing have to make precisely the same shift back to the left by impact. That complicated maneuver is the biggest source of frustration in the game today". My swing-thoughts to myself consist of only a few words, so this is how I translate that statement: Keep weight centered, then shift onto the left side into impact. I'm at my best when the brain is quite, my swing is rhythmic and full of feel.

For me, the more time I spend on thoughts about my swing the worse my ball striking and accuracy gets. When I hinge my wrists as I take the club back and delay my thinking until my hands reach waist height on the downswing, then fire them down on the ball, everything just happens as it should. Translation: Thumbs Up on the backswing, then Thumbs Down at impact. What could be simpler?

To discover Simplicity at Last, go to www.golfinstructionmadesimple.com and checkout the Pro Shop. Be sure to notice the Summer Special of three hours of virtual coaching included with the Pro Edition. Cure your slice and teach yourself to be a better ball striker in minutes by adding Thumbs Down, the missing ingredient. Vist my blog for past articles and other products and topics of interest at www.thumbsdownmethod.com. My media center was recently updated to include an article in the Philadelphia Golfer (thank you Nate Oxman!) about me and my appearance on the Golf Channel's Fore Inventors Only.

Enjoy the Open Championship from Royal Birkdale!