How do you read the newspaper?

"I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments.The front page has nothing but man's failures". -Earl Warren

Team up for a worthy cause - Golf - Blackpool Gazette

Team up for a worthy cause - Golf - Blackpool Gazette

Darren Clarke Open Champion

The Open Champion

Well if like me you watched the Open Championship unfold at Royal St. Georges I’m sure you were wearing a smile as wide as your face and a warm feeling of joy inside as Darren Clarke cruised to victory.

It was like a fairy tail ending for the Northern Irishman claiming his maiden Major Championship after turning Professional 20 years ago.

I’m not for one minute saying that this is the end for Darren but for sure this is what he’s dreamt about ever since he was a boy. So many false dawns, so many times he’s had to pick himself up off the floor after failing, not to mention having to cope with the cruel illness that claimed the life of his wife Heather. Yet still he kept going and with the aid of strong friends and management team around him he won the coveted claret jug.

So what happened to Darren that week at Royal St Georges? We know that what has always been a constant with him is his skill and ability to hit the golf ball better than the majority. This level of expertise has maybe been an issue for him. Why? Well when you don’t get the results you crave with the talent you have then frustration sets in and the patience you require to succeed slowly disappears.

Working with Darren at the Open were Michael Finnigan and Dr Bob Rotella, two experts in the field of psychology and performance. Between them they managed to create in Darren an acceptance that undesired outcomes, bad shots, were part of the game and that if he controlled his responses to them then his skills and ability would come to the fore. His reactions throughout the four rounds were those of someone who was in complete control of his emotions. I’m sure Darren has had weeks where he has hit the ball better, holed more putts, chipped in, had more fun and yet not won. What happened at Sandwich was that he combined his physical skills and experiences to produce a mindset that did not sabotage his chance of winning.

It all sounds so simple and easy so why has he not managed it before? I’m not sure. The pathway to winning and mastery has many different twist and turns. We do know that hitting great golf shots is not all we need to be a winner nor is working harder than the others. Discipline to control our state and emotions is a massive factor in our quest for mastery. Learning that failure is a process and a chance to learn and not a door closing. A better attitude and a creative imagination will work wonders for us on our journey towards being better golfers. Dr Bob Rotella told me he’d challenged Darren to “stop trying to be a rocket scientist. Instead putt like you did when you were 13 years of age. Putt from the subconscious.“

Darren Clarke is one of life’s givers, generous to a fault, which is one of the reasons why his Open win was universally acclaimed. On this occasion he gave himself a chance to win by controlling his own thoughts and emotions.

Five times Open Champion Peter Thomson once said, “The difference between winning and losing is always a mental one”

Rosemere Fun "Slippery & Wobberly"

Fun at fund raising Rosemere Golfers Against Cancer evening

http://youtu.be/tCGJ7QfBtFI

Missing Tiger

I was amazed to hear that Tiger Wood’s last Major victory was the 2008 US Open. The man who was predicted by so many as the man to beat Jack Nicklaus’s haul of Major wins has become derailed.

Obviously Tigers personal affairs haven’t helped in his quest to become the greatest player who has ever played the game but what else has gone wrong?

We do know that Tiger has had a knee injury that needed surgery and sidelined him for a while. He also changed coach from Hank Haney to Sean Foley. So is it any wonder that his game has lost the lustre it once had and he has become a mere mortal in the world of top professional golf.

We believe that Tiger’s work, originally with Hank Haney, was to change his golf swing to take some of the strain off his injured knee. This took his attention away from playing and more toward the technical side of rebuilding a swing. This was Hank’s swing and how he thought Tiger needed to swing. Not Tiger’s natural swing.

After his well documented personal problems, Tiger switched coaches to Sean Foley, who is a young coach with an ever increasing reputation among the US Tour pros. Again Tiger was receiving information and opinions from someone else about how he should swing the club. More technical thoughts and information taking his attention away from what he used to do better than anyone, PLAYING THE GAME.

Recently Tigers friend and practice mate Bubba Watson came out and said he thought Tiger was taking the wrong road to recovery.

"I'll just go ahead and say it. I think Tiger is going the wrong way,'' said Watson, "I just think he's so mental right now with his swing.

"It's just not the way I go about it. All of us are good at golf. Sometimes I think some of the great players, they get too wrapped up in the mental part ... when you start talking about other people trying to help you with your swing, look at this, look at that, I think they take a step back”.

Again this is only an opinion but Tiger is not the only player who has become worse when working hard at improving. Something doesn’t sound quite right with that last sentence. Surely the more we do something and learn the better we should get.

So is Tiger learning or just listening and taking in opinions?

He certainly appears to be playing at “swings” and not “playing the game” at the moment. When he was unbeatable a number of years ago he hit hundreds of the most amazing shots from some incredibly difficult positions.

What we must learn from this is not to get wrapped up the technical side of finding a perfect swing at the expense of understanding what works for us and playing the game. Remember that they hand out prizes for the lowest score and not the best looking swing.

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.”
 


"Process"

http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2011/06/process.html