Mental toughness is far more important than good technique!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I consider Bernhard Langer as one of, if not THE, toughest competitors, mentally, on any tour in the world!
He reminds me of Nikki Lauder (also from Germany), one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers ever. Both of these gentlemen have that unique ability to handle pressure at the highest level and pull out a victory even when the odds are against them! What every golfer can learn from Bernhard is that mental toughness is far more important than having a good putting stroke or putting technique. But, how many amateurs work on their mental toughness? So the next time you go to the course, work on putting your best effort forward no matter how you are striking the ball and don’t allow anything to upset you! Your game will thank you!
It stood to reason that Berhard Langer — he of the multiple bouts of the yips and heavy reliance on the long putter — would pay the stiffest penalty when anchoring was banned for 2016.
Turns out Langer is doing just fine.
The 58-year-old German won his second major of the year at the Senior Players, and punctuated it with his flat stick. Langer rolled in a 12-footer for par on the last hole to hold off Miguel Angel Jimenez and Joe Durant by a shot.
When the rules changed, Langer figured to have to learn to use some alternative grip on a regular length putter. Instead, he simply kept his long putter and style, but moved his left hand off his chest right before taking a stroke. The change is a perfect example of Langer’s cool-headed, analytical style — put the process first!
“The average player gets so lost in the physical stuff. How to hold it and how to stand, that they totally forget the mental part. And the mental part is the most important,” says two-time major champion and short game guru Dave Stockton. “Bernhard’s work ethic is second to none, but what separates him from so many other players is how he approaches problems. When he makes a mistake, he doesn’t get angry. He’s constantly processing so he can learn and figure out a better way to do it.”
A Great Short Game leads to Strong Mental Toughness!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
David MacKenzie is one of the leading game enhancement teachers globally, with top PGA and LPGA players as clients. But, as David says, you must have a great short game to develop mental toughness. Here David provides 4 terrific short game drills to improve your feel, build your confidence, and gain that mental toughness you’ve only seen on TV!
Victor Dubuisson – Golden Hands (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Try these drills (used by Tour players) to start honing your short game and making more up and downs this season.
1. One club, Two distances
In order to become a genius from 100 yards and in (the scoring zone), you need to develop your feel.
. A great way to practice feel is to hit the same club several distances (you can try this with your long game too). With this drill the aim is to make it instinctive how far the pin is away from you (from within 100 yards), something you’ll need to do to get to low single figures.
Start at 125 yards and hit one ball to the target
Then move to 115 and use the same club to hit to that same target
Continue to move to 105 and change to whatever club you hit from this distance
Then Move to to 95 and hit the same club as you did from 105
Move to 85 and hit whatever club you would from this distance
Finish by hitting your 85 yard club from the 75 yard position.
So…you’ll have played from 6 distances and used your 3 wedges twice each, to 2 different distances.
Some players choke down on the club and change their ball position for distance control and others use swing length and tempo. Experiment with both and see what works for you. You can also repeat this drill and create more distances by using 5 yard increments.
2. Real Short Game Practice
One of the first things I talk to amateurs about when I take on a new student is how they practice. More often than not, a fundamental change is necessary. I try to instill the “practice as you play” philosophy. What this means is that you simulate the golf course as much as you can.
One great short game drill is to take 20 balls and drop them around the practice green from different lies and positions. For each shot, you go through your routine just as you would on the golf course and imagine you are playing in a competition on whatever golf course you normally play (or perhaps where your next competition may be). If the ball comes to rest outside of gimme range (2ft), go through your pre-putt routine, just as you would on the course or in a competition and try to hole the putt.
When you’ve made the up and down, move onto the next ball until you’ve holed all 20. This exercise might take 40-50 minutes to perform, but it makes practice very meaningful.
What this does is:
Practice your routine – getting your process the same and focusing on it should be consistent no matter what the shot or situation
Work on your imagination and visualization
Simulate pressure while you practice
Makes practice fun, playing from different lies and trying different shots
Gives every shot a purpose, instead of being just another practice ball
5 Keys for Golfs Mental Toughness – #5 is Crucial!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Getting yourself ready for the competition takes a special kind of attitude.
I have always admired players who never give up. They keep on trying no matter what. Gary Player immediately comes to mind, but there are dozens of players who have made a nice living by never quitting and ending up birdieing the last few holes to suddenly jump from 12th spot to 3rd! On the PGA Tour, that’s a lot of money! Check out these 5 keys for golf toughness written by John Haime for golfwrx.com
Are you “golf tough?”
Do you have what it takes to deal with all of golf’s situations and challenges and really use your talent and capabilities?
While there will be some ebb and flow in your rounds, let’s face it, most rounds of golf look like the ticker tape on the stock market — way up and way down. Is your game like the stock market?
I think you might know what this looks like for you. Things are going well, and then, unannounced, a string of bad play or that nasty triple bogey creates the big black mark on your card — there goes another round! The symptoms of this syndrome are quite recognizable.
1. The Bum Drag
An important area I work on with athletes is resilience or mental toughness, as some call it. For our purposes, we’ll call it “golf toughness.” It really is a separator between those who have consistent performances and careers, and those who struggle. The line in competitive sports is fine — and wasting a shot here and there because of a lack of golf toughness can be the difference between winning and losing, a great season or a mediocre one, or a great round and an average one.
Over dinner at the Masters a few years ago, Butch Harmon was asked the difference between good golfers and great ones. He apparently didn’t take long to answer.
“The ability to recover from adversity faster than everyone else,” Harmon said.
You need golf toughness to reach your capabilities and develop consistency in your game.
I just returned from watching a high-level junior event and it is fascinating watching the kids and seeing the heads go up and down — the body language come alive and then sag as they go through the peaks and valleys of a typical round. Peaks and valleys are a reality in golf, but it’s how long they last that separates players. For some kids at the junior event, this feeling lasts for one hole, some for four holes, and others more.
And, junior events aren’t the only events I see bums dragging! I see the spectrum of “golf toughness” at all levels and ages.
2. Bouncing Back
You are probably familiar with the PGA Tour’s “bounce back” stat. It calculates the percentage of time a player has a bogey on one hole and then comes back with a birdie on the next. It’s an important stat because it suggests resilience in a player — how quickly they are able to turn things around and not allow mistakes to dictate their play. The top three leaders in the bounce back stat in 2015 are Jordan Speith, Bubba Watson and Jason Day — all in the top 10 on the money list. J.B. Holmes, who has had the ultimate “bounce back” from brain surgery to the PGA Tour, is having a great year and well up on the bounce-back list.
J.B. Holmes underwent brain surgery in 2011. He regained his form and is once again a top Tour player.
5 Keys for Golfs Mental Toughness – #5 is Crucial!
Golf fans probably also saw Rory McIlroy in the recent WGC-Cadillac Match Play get down late in matches to world-class players, but he stayed the course, played to his strengths and turned the matches around. His “golf toughness” led him to the eventual win.
And like yours, the rounds of PGA Tour players ebb and flow, too. But how players recover from the “valleys” often determines the size of their paycheck. The bounce back stat demonstrates that there’s a definite relationship between resilience and great results.
I assess the emotional competencies of many players during the course of the year, and one interesting thing to note about their results is the link between emotional self control, focus and resilience (or “golf toughness”). As I have mentioned in previous articles, emotions run the show in golf and if emotion bubbles to such an extent you don’t have a handle on it, the ability to focus becomes a problem and the ability to bounce back also becomes difficult. All are intertwined and this performance drop can lead to extended trips on the bogey train, big numbers and overall inconsistency.
Why is Jordan Spieth so good, and what can we learn to help our game?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Karl Morris of The Mind Factor has been instrumental in Louis Oosthuizen, Graham McDowell, and Darren Clark, just to name 3 of the 6 Major Championship winners whom Karl has coached.
I have personally bought his CD’s, and they have helped me tremendously. It made me a better teacher in my golf game by understanding how the mind controls performance. Read his excerpt below on Jordan Spieth’s victory and how you can learn from it!
In the video below, Louis Oosthuizen describes how Karl Morris helped him win the Open Championship!
Very few of us who saw Jordan Spieth go wire to wire and win his first Major at the Augusta Masters can fail to have been astounded at just how good this twenty one year old is.
It was an extraordinary performance in many ways, not least because of his age. But perhaps more the fact he managed to hold onto his lead for four rounds at one of the world’s most demanding venues. And with the full force of the watching world waiting for him to slip up at any moment!
This win was no unique event either.
Three of his four victories since the end of last year have seen him make a fast start and run away from the field.
How CAN we hold ourselves together when we have a big lead in a tournament and we are expected to go on and win?
It can be really tough with golf being the game it is. We know ANY lead can be taken away from us if we unravel mentally and a four or five shot lead can disappear in a heartbeat.
I don’t know what Jordan Spieth has worked on specifically in terms of his mental game. But it is very clear he has one of the most powerful of all mental game tools in his bag, a sense of PERSPECTIVE.
This sense of perspective tends to insulate yourself from making winning tournaments TOO important and the pressure unbearable.
Ellie and Jordan Spieth.
For such a young man, he has a remarkably balanced perspective on the game. In a world that has a consistent habit of blowing sporting performance and ‘pressure’ out of all proportion. The effect on Spieth of his younger sister Ellie’s neurological disorder is clear. Jordan Spieth’s swing coach, Cameron McCormick has said, ‘Ellie grounds Jordan, inspires him and makes it easy for him to detach.’
He is still clearly able to see golf is a GAME. Yes!!
A game you play with all of your heart and do everything you can to succeed but a game, not a matter of life and death.
When you have a sense of perspective like this, it is much easier to relish the challenge of maintaining a lead. As your whole value as a human being is not on the line for the outcome of a golf tournament.
I am not saying for one minute that winning isn’t important or the value in shooting low scores. But when a golf score defines you as a person, you begin to play a VERY pressurised game. We all at times need to be reminded golf is something we DO, not something that we ARE.
It is very interesting to see with the sense of perspective Spieth brings to the game. How he is right up there at the top of the stats, for what they call in the USA ‘Bouncebackability’ – the ability to follow a dropped shot with a birdie or better at the next hole.
