Top 3 players in the world

At the US Open this year the USGA paired the top three World ranked players together in the first two rounds. Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer have all held the coveted World No 1 position in 2011, yet all have different styles, strengths and weaknesses in their games.

Let’s take Lee Westwood OBE. When you watch Lee hit a golf ball his head moves, dropping into the shot through impact. His left arm bends yet the golf ball more often that not flies laser straight toward the target. If we listen to some experts his short game and putting isn’t great yet he’s still one of the best players on the planet. How can this be?

Martin Kaymer on the other hand looks so smooth and powerful with the “complete game.” Yet his performances of late are not that of a well-oiled, finely tuned piece of German engineering. How can this be?

Now the current No 1, Luke Donald, looks so neat and tidy and with his game completely under control. Yet Luke’s game doesn’t have the power or strength of the majority of the players on the World Stage and until his recent success in the Madrid Masters in 2010 had not won a stroke play event in Europe for 5 1/2 years. How can that be?

In my opinion and without going into the world of psychology these three golfers are comfortable in their own skins. By that I mean they manage what they do and get the best out of their own games knowing exactly what it is they are doing with the golf club. On the surface they all look completely different yet they are all supremely comfortable about what they are doing.

Luke puts his success this year down to culmination of a lot of hard work in the close season with his coach Pat Goss.

Lee on the other hand rededicated himself to his career after slumping to 256^th in the World rankings in 2002.

Martin recent loss of form can be traced back to the point where he was trying to introduce a more right to left shape on his shot to be able to contend at the Masters earlier this year. He is still trying to add skills to his game.

So what can we learn from these three great players? Well the first thing is we must understand what it is we are doing when we swing the golf club, then we can start to manage what we do more efficiently. We must also continue to develop our skills to the point we can rely on them day after day and produce the consistency we all crave..

In the words of the great Ben Hogan

“The average golfer’s problem is not so much the lack of ability as it is lack of knowledge about what he should be doing.”