Southern California's No. 1 Source for Golf
STROKE OF THE DAY |
"Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing" |
-Dave Barry |
SITE
SEARCH
GOLF
CALENDAR
INSTRUCTION
|
||||
 Our teaching style has evolved and has become process-oriented, with the process dictating the bottom line. Simply said, follow the right process and success will find you. The greatest proving ground for winning in professional golf is playing among the final groups. Our rookies have had the opportunity to experience this a few times this season. Anticipation is part of every competitive sport and every player experiences it. Whether you're a weekend golfer or one of the best players in the world, there is some level of anticipation before pulling the trigger on the next shot. An exciting part of our experience in coaching PGA Tour players is to use the years of practice time and playing experience we have shared to help them realize how good they are. We build them up to the point where every time they're on a golf course and competing, they're like a thoroughbred preparing to race. That way, when they get into a position where they're competing for a title, it's just another race around the track. It becomes instinctive and natural. The exteriors around a player can be challenging. Family members, friends, large galleries, television cameras and Internet access can follow a player's progress shot by shot. The greatest hurdle to getting a player ready to play on the last day is getting them focused on the job that is in front of them, and allowing them to do their deal. Resting the night before the final round when you're in contention can be tough. A PGA Tour victory can be a life-changing experience, but we try to make our players realize that they're the same golfers who put in all the hours of practice and executed all the shots to get them to the doorstep of victory. They just have to trust in their process. We try to make a player understand that his mind is going to race a little bit and it might be tougher than usual to go to sleep the night before, but as long as he anticipates these things and isn't going to be caught off guard, he'll be ready. When your adrenaline is going, it's easy to get moving too fast. Under the pressure of competition, we need time to slow down. Taking your time eating before heading to the course and not rushing through your warmup will help. The biggest anticipation comes right before the first couple of shots, so we tell our players to trust their swings, because they haven't forgotten how to play overnight. While these young men haven't won yet on Sunday, they have performed admirably. In fact, every one of them has played the finishing holes in under par. When their peers might be fighting to get to the clubhouse, these players are hitting their stride and following through on their commitment to trust the process until the end. It's this commitment to the process that will ultimately deliver them to success. SG Jamie Mulligan is a PGA professional the chief operations officer at Virginia Country Club. |
||||
RSS Subscribe
Digg This Article
