Golf is Not a Game of Perfect

by Bob Rotella

  After hours, Paul and Bernice still compete in fox-trot contests and cribbage tournaments. They embody an old Satchel Paige aphorism. Someone once asked Paige, the great African-American pitcher who was in his forties before segregation ended and he got to the big leagues, if he could still pitch at that advanced age.

  “How old,” Paige replied, “would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”

  A firm, balanced commitment has been the hallmark of Paul Runyan’s life. When he was fourteen or so, he competed in a golf tournament for the first time. He was short and scrawny, and most of the boys in the tournament could drive it 40 yards farther than he could. He reacted by deciding that he would develop a short game so good it would make up for his lack of distance. It did. In his prime, he won tournaments against the likes of Sam Snead, giving away 60 yards off the tee. He was so good around the greens that his nickname was “Little Poison.”

  Paul’s example shows what commitment should mean, and commitment is the final component of a good golfing mentality. To play the best golf you can play, you have to make a healthy, balanced commitment to the game and to improvement.

  SOMETIMES, WITH PROFESSIONALS, I find problems of overcommitment. A player is so intent on performing well that he starts to forget that trying harder is not always trying better. And he starts to forget that the game is supposed to be fun.

  Mark McCumber, when I started working with him, needed to learn to relax a little. Mark was a fine golfer, but his desire to win and improve was starting to consume him. He was too tense and too serious about the game and life. And he knew it was not helping either his performance on the course or his relationships off it.

  “None of us are going to get out of here alive,” I told Mark. “You might as well have some fun while you’re here.”

  He had to stop thinking so much about money and titles and start thinking again of golf as the game he just loved to play when he was a kid. He had to stop feeling guilty about easing up on himself a little. I told him that more often than not, good things come to people who stop trying to force them to happen. And good things have indeed come to Mark. He won three times in 1994.

  I don’t advise people to commit their lives completely and exclusively to golf. That would be like deciding to eat only cookies. It would be bad nutrition. And it would soon spoil your taste for cookies.

  This issue arises sometimes when the parents of a youngster ask me for advice. Their child is tearing up the juniors. Her dream is to make millions on the LPGA Tour. So, she reasons, why does she need to study? She should spend all her time honing her golf game.

  Well, she needs to study. She could sprain her back getting out of bed some morning and have nothing but her education to support her. Or she could just decide at the age of twenty-two that she’s tired of golf and wants to do something else with her life. Studying requires discipline and concentration, two qualities important to anyone.

  Some parents, though, are concerned about their child’s golf dreams for another reason. They know the odds against success. They want to shield her from disappointment and failure.

  I tell them not to worry. Certainly, if a child dreams about becoming a professional golfer, she will encounter disappointment and failure along the way. But why worry about that? People develop pride and find satisfaction, not from doing things that are easy, but from trying things that are difficult, that most people don’t even dare to aspire to. I never tell a youngster or anyone else to put aside a dream. Suppose Nick Price had given up on his dreams in 1990, after six winless years? If you give up your dreams, you’ll never know if everything might have fallen into place the next week.

  The answer for anyone, of any age, who is propelled by a dream is a balanced commitment. No one should spend all of his time chasing the dream of becoming a great golfer. But during those hours that he sets aside each day to pursue that dream, he has to give golf his undivided attention and energy. And he has to put those hours in every day, regardless of heat, humidity, cold and wind. He has to put them in on the days when he seems stalled on an infinite plateau as well as on days when he feels the gratification of noticeable improvement.

  And he needs to realize that commitment need not warp his personality and behavior. Sometimes golfers think they’re supposed to be angry and depressed if they have a bad round or a bad tournament. They’ve been taught that the proper reaction to this kind of misfortune is to get mad and go to the practice tee and beat balls until it gets dark. Then they think they’re supposed to brood about their mistakes all night. They think this shows they’re committed to the game.

  That’s not the kind of commitment I’m talking about. For one thing, to flourish on the Tour, a golfer needs the support of friends and family, if not of a spouse. If she wants that, it be-hooves her to show that she can be an enjoyable human being regardless of what happens on the course.

  Some golfers think they should be committed to somehow mastering the game and keeping it in the palm of their hand, as if it were a car or a piece of property that they could own. They can’t. They have to recognize that there will be times when they hit the ball beautifully and times when they hit it abominably. And they have to understand that even at their best, they will not come close to mastering the game. Nick Price, as well as he was playing in 1993 or 1994, was perhaps reaching six on a scale of ten, with ten being perfection.

  ON THE OTHER hand, I sometimes run into people who think they can become scratch golfers without making a commitment.

  They can’t. And I take pride in never saying “can’t”!

  If you haven’t been thinking properly on the golf course, just reading this book and adopting its suggestions can help you. If you have a handicap of 25 and you make up your mind that, henceforth, you will trust your swing when you’re on the course, you will follow a sound routine and you will learn to accept your results without getting angry, you can make a quick and noticeable improvement in your scores. You might, for instance, lower your handicap over a summer from 25 to 15 by learning to think well.

  But if you want to become a low-handicap golfer, it’s not going to be enough simply to read this book, or any other book. You have to make a long-term improvement plan and a commitment more like the one Paul Runyan made. Your plan should include how many times a week you will practice, what you will work on, and for how long. It should include lots of time for short-game practice. Then you must execute that plan.

  If someone tells me that he wants to lower his handicap to 5 but he can’t find time to practice, I can only tell him that people who consistently play in the mid-70s generally do find time to practice. They get out a few evenings a week after work to hit balls, chip and putt. Or they get to a course early in the morning. They find time at home to work on grip, posture and alignment. They spend a few moments every day visualizing their routines. Most important, they never waste practice time mindlessly hitting balls. They practice with a purpose.

  If you want to become a low-handicap golfer, you have to remember what I told Nick Price, Tom Kite, Pat Bradley, and many others about free will. You have the power to make choices. You have the power to think in ways that will help your game. You have the power to make a commitment and keep it.

  The happiest people have a sense of commitment in everything they do, whether it’s playing golf, running a restaurant or selling hardware. They approach their undertakings with passion.

  Golf can give you this happiness whether it’s your profession or your hobby. It doesn’t matter if you never win a tournament. Golf will challenge you, will give you a chance to test yourself. If you take the ability you have and do the best you can with it, you’ll be happy.

  No matter what happens, you will find wonderful people who love golf and will be happy to share your commitment with you. They are part of the game’s rewards.

  In the end, you will realize that you love golf because of what it teaches you about yourself.

  Appendix

  ROTELLA’S RULE
S

  A person with great dreams can achieve great things.

  People by and large become what they think about themselves.

  Golfing potential depends primarily on attitude, skill with the wedges and the putter, and how well a golfer thinks. Great golfers are simply ordinary people thinking well and doing extraordinary deeds.

  Free will is a golfer’s greatest source of strength and power. Choosing how to think is a crucial decision.

  Golfers who realize their potential generally cultivate the three D’s—desire, determination and discipline; the three P’s—persistence, patience and practice; and the three C’s—confidence, concentration and composure.

  There is no such thing as a golfer playing over his head. A hot streak is simply a glimpse of a golfer’s true potential.

  A golfer must train herself in physical technique and then learn to trust what she’s trained.

  Before playing any shot, a golfer must lock her eyes and mind into the smallest possible target.

  To score consistently, a golfer must think consistently. A sound, consistent pre-shot routine makes it easier.

  The correlation between thinking well and making successful shots is not 100 percent. But the correlation between thinking badly and unsuccessful shots is much higher.

  Golfers must learn to quiet their minds, stay in the present, and focus tightly on the next shot to be played.

  The loss of focus on four or five shots a round makes the difference between great golf and mediocre golf.

  A golfer must learn to enjoy the process of striving to improve the short game.

  Attitude makes a great putter.

  As ball-striking skills improve, it becomes a greater challenge to love putting and the short game and to maintain a positive attitude toward them.

  It is more important to be decisive than to be correct when preparing to play any golf shot, particularly a putt.

  Confidence is crucial to good golf. Confidence is simply the aggregate of the thoughts you have about yourself.

  A golfer cannot let the first few holes, shots, or putts determine his thinking for the rest of the round.

  A golfer should strive to be looser, freer, and more confident with every hole. This will combat the tendency to get tighter, more careful, and more doubtful.

  Being careful, tightening up, and trying to steer the ball will likely cause disaster. Good golfers gain control over the ball by feeling that they are giving up control.

  Golfers need selective memories, retaining the memory of great shots and forgetting bad ones. Selective memory helps a golfer grow in confidence as he gains experience and skill.

  Golf is a game played by human beings. Therefore, it is a game of mistakes. Successful golfers know how to respond to mistakes.

  Golfers must learn to love the challenge when they hit a ball into the rough, trees, or sand. The alternatives—anger, fear, whining, and cheating—do no good.

  Patience is a cardinal virtue in golf. To improve, a golfer must learn how to wait for practice and good thinking to bear fruit.

  At night, a golfer can program her mind with great expectations. But she must throw them away when she steps onto the first tee.

  On the first tee, a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot.

  Players with great attitudes constantly monitor their thinking and catch themselves as soon as it begins to falter.

  A good competitor never allows herself to intensely dislike another player. She might be paired with her for an important round.

  The quality of a golfer’s practice is more important than the quantity, particularly for better golfers.

  If a golfer chooses to compete, he must choose to believe that he can win. Winners and losers in life are completely self-determined, but only the winners are willing to admit it.

  Courage is a necessary quality in all champions. But an athlete cannot be courageous without first being afraid.

  In sport, the bad news for the present champion is that tomorrow is a new day, when the competition starts again from scratch. But that’s the good news for everyone else.

  On the course, golfers must have the confidence of a champion. But off the course, champions must remember that they are not more important than anyone else.

  Acknowledgments

  I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE TO THANK.

  I’ve had the opportunity to associate with many of the greatest golfers and golf teachers of this era. Most of them are mentioned in the text of this book. I want to thank them all. Without their contributions, my work would be a laboratory exercise.

  Three players in particular—Tom Kite, Brad Faxon, and Val Skinner—took extra time to share thoughts and experiences that make this a more informative book, and I am grateful to them.

  I also want to thank Dr. Bruce Gansneder for his hours of tireless help with golf psychology research over a period of many years.

  I owe great debts as well to my father, Guido Rotella, and to my brothers, Drs. Jay and Guy Rotella, for hours of listening and discussion. Each of them read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions.

  I also wish to thank Tony Carroll, Steve Grant, Bruce Stewart, and Rod Thompson, all of whom read this as a work in progress and contributed questions and ideas for its improvement.

  I am grateful to Bob Carney and Andy Nusbaum for their encouragement over the years. Dominick Anfuso at Simon & Schuster and Rafe Sagalyn, my literary agent, helped conceive the book and helped me find Bob Cullen as a collaborator. My special thanks go to them.

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster eBook.

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