Quote:
Originally Posted by dinopoker
Also good advice. I can tell you from my own pursuit of sports that at the highest levels the psychology is everything. For all of Tiger's amazing physical abilities, I've never seen or heard of a more sound psychological game than he has - at any sport.
Without psychology/strong mental game you can’t succeed at today’s game. If your mental game isn’t perfect you simply waste too many shots. Anyone who watched the Cardinals and Packers yesterday saw it first hand…the Cardinals kicker was 16 of 17 on the year when he missed a 34 yarder, quite badly I might add, to win the game with 14 seconds remaining. That is PSYCHOLOGY period. I would give 50k to have a recording of his thoughts from the time he got the call to kick the ball to 5 minutes after he missed it…it would be awesome to hear what was in his head. I suffer from low testosterone and was able to treat it prior to starting Q School in 2008. I had to stop taking my 2X weekly shots in July that year to get it out of my system for drug testing. As a result, my main side effects of ADD and mild depression kicked back in and the whole year playing was a constant battle between the ears. My sports psychologist gave me great advice and when I was able to put it into play I played great but the days that I didn’t quite have the focus needed on the course, due to ADD/low T, I was a train wreck…look at my results page on PGATOUR.com…holy volatility! Now if you don’t have my issues but don’t have the proper guidance to know the correct thought process you just can’t compete. Some people just “get it” but most don’t. One thing I did for the last two years was keep a 2nd scorecard. After each hole I wrote on my pin sheet if I was 100% committed to what I was doing on each shot. It is a yes or no. i.e. 3 yes and 1 no or whatever. My first tournament to try it was at the 2008 US Mid Am. The first round of stroke play qualifying I shot 29-37 tying the USGA 9 hole record. On the 29 I was 100% on the 2nd scorecard and didn’t even realize I had a putt for 29 until my playing partner told me it would be cool to shoot 29 as we were walking to the 9th green. I thought “this guy has a putt for 29?” I was proud of myself for a split second for being so into my game I didn’t realize he was talking about me...all I was thinking about was how can I be 100% committed to each shot and wow did it work. I backed off my 12 footer on that hole once because I was thinking how much I wanted to make the putt while over it. I backed off, acknowledged the thought, and went back through my routine from the start and never once from initiation of routine thought about what the putt was for. Book it. In pressure situations you must “rely on routine” to get through it. The back 9 I let my thoughts wander a bit and was, I think, 85% on the 2nd scorecard for the 9. Oh well, it was my first time to try the method. I tracked this 2nd scorecard all the way through Q School and each round got easier and easier eventually finishing with a 94.3% commitment for the 18 round Q School. 1272 shots with a bad percentage of 5.7% yields 72.504 shots I wasn’t completely committed to what I was trying to do with the shot. Think about that…I was at Final Stage of Tour School trying to get on the PGA Tour and 24 times in 6 rounds I pulled the trigger not really knowing what I was trying to do or thinking about bluebonnets, or worse…WOW. It obviously isn’t 100% correlation to shots wasted but I missed being fully exempt on the Nationwide in 2009 by a couple of shots. Sure does seem like a couple of shots seems reasonable to save from 24 non-committed swings, especially on the Stadium Course at PGA West.
Nutshell: Psychology is everything.
So what have we learned? Working out is everything, psychology is everything, short game is everything, putting REALLY is everything, hitting it far is everything, point being…if you want to compete in today’s professional game you better do EVERYTHING extremely well and 2 things perfectly…what those 2 are is up to your abilities.