What Did You Learn From Phil and Bubba at The Masters?
Wasn’t The Masters absolutely thrilling this year? The back nine Sunday is always special, but this year the drama was incredible! Any one of 6 golfers could have won.
As the co-creator of a “mental side of golf” training program (http://www.DawsonMethodGolf.com), I was extremely interested in how the pressure would affect the players – and affect them it did! Later in this article I’m going to cover how you can improve your game by what you saw at The Masters. Let’s recap.
Tiger was the favorite coming in by virtue of his victory at Bay Hill. He still is not playing with any confidence at all. I never thought we’d see Tiger tight, but it was evident from the get go. He just could not get in the zone. In my last article I discussed “forgiving yourself” for hitting a bad shot. Tiger just could not forgive himself. Hard to watch, but he’ll be OK.
How about Fred Couples? He is the absolute epitome of “Mr. Cool”. There was a lot to learn from watching him Thursday and Friday. He never seemed to be in a hurry. His gait as he walked off the tee was as smooth as his silky swing. The interview he gave Jim Nance after his Friday round was amazing. It was just two old friends discussing golf. The big takeaway from the interview was that Freddie was having fun!
Several years ago (1994), I had the chance to play 3 holes with Freddie. His equipment deal at the time was with Lynx. At the PGA show, Lynx paid him to play a round with some of their retailers. Fred played 3 holes with 6 different groups of us. He made us all feel like we were just playing with our buddies. The ability to relax has served him well and earned him millions. Why can’t we relax like that? It’s fear. Fear of what? Like Freddie said, “It’s only a golf shot.”
Back to Augusta. I think we all had the feeling that it was going to be Phil Mickelson all the way on Sunday. After the back 9 he had on Saturday to get back in it, I thought he was a lock. Peter Hanson looked really nervous on the practice green. Who knew that Oosthuihizen would throw a deuce at them on the second hole?
But what was Phil thinking about on number 4? His post round statements of “aiming over there because that’s the right place to miss it” seem a little ludicrous. Phil is extremely creative and visualizes every shot. Visualizing the “spot to miss it” is contrary to everything he does. Even with the triple, he had a few makeable birdie putts on the front that just didn’t go in for him.
Tiger has been quoted as saying he likes to play practice rounds with Bubba because of his ability to hit so many types of “curved” shots. He visualizes every shot and rarely does he see them as straight in his mind’s eye.
One of my friends is Pat Fitzsimons. Pat won the LA Open in 1974 and had several top 20 finishes in majors. He was also known as one of the one of the best ball strikers of his era.
Late in Pat’s career, I played in a pro-am with him before the Oregon Open. After the round he hit 2 irons on the range. The amazing thing was he had me call the shot (high fade, low draw, high draw, etc) after he had begun his down swing. He said he used a quick visualization and his hands to change the ball flight during his swing.
Bubba Watson can play that game, too. But with his imagination and pre shot visualization he was able to hit a 40 yard draw though the trees from 135 yards to 10 feet. Of course he displayed a lot of mental toughness by birdieing 4 holes in a row after making bogey on 12.
So what do we, the amateur golfers of the world, learn from all this? We must stick to our routine and use the methods we know work but we often overlook, especially in competition.
Those of us who have been around the game of golf for a while, have hit every shot there is, great at least once and most shots great many times. We must call upon the “replay” of all those great shots from our past to carry us to our best golf ever.
Seven Mental Tips for Golf (and better mental health)
- Forgive thyself for every poor shot
- Stay in the present at all times
- Slow down!
- Don’t try to be a hero
- Get over the fear – its’ only a golf shot
- Have a pre-shot routine
- Visualize EVERY shot during your pre-shot routine
Along with Valerie Dawson, I developed a course to develop your mental golf game, give you a pre-shot routine, and have you playing the best golf of your life. And you learn these techniques at home – not on the golf course.
You’ll see my personal story on our website (http://www.DawsonMethodGolf.com) – the story of lowering my handicap from 15.6 to 8.8 in just 6 weeks. You see since I was in the golf equipment business, I tried to “buy a game”, when all along I had the game within me. So do you.
Who is this course not for? Beginners. If you haven’t played much golf, you don’t have a memory bank full of great shots from your past to replay.
But if you’ve played for a while, our program will have you shooting lower scores quickly – guaranteed or you money back.
Check it out today at http://www.DawsonMethodGolf.com
Chuck Trautman
Chuck is a marketing stratgist and avid golfer from Phoenix, AZ. His favorite course in the Phoenix area is Legend Trail Golf Course in North Scottsdale. Chuck sold over $100 Million worth golf equipment in his days of owning 6 retail golf equipment stores.