Take time to read this, Remember Stress is relative, so is aplicable to all, Everybody is unique find what works for you, through experience and practicing as you play and playing as you practice. The Pressure Test P.G.A. Golfers Seek Ways to Tame Final-Round StressBy KAREN CROUSEMARCH 8, 2014 — Closing out a PGA Tour victory is like starting a family. Many dream of doing it, but the reality is often more stressful than imagined. No matter how many times a golfer visualizes it or how thoroughly he prepares for it, there is no way of knowing how he will react until he is in the situation. A golfer can no sooner practice hitting a shot to win his first tournament than he can rehearse caring for a firstborn with a high fever. Brandt Snedeker, a six-time tour winner and father of two, said: “The first couple of times you’re in contention, you have no clue how to act. It’s kind of like having your first kid. You’re calling your doctor 24 hours a day the first five weeks. The only difference is, on the golf course you have no one to call but yourself.” Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Course and Conditions Do a Number on ScorecardsMARCH 7, 2014 Wind and water could conspire to turn Sunday’s final round of the World Golf Championships event at Doral Resort and Spa into the Tournament of Tourniquets, awash in hemorrhaging leads. In other words, a repeat of last Sunday’s Honda Classic, when the leader board was a kaleidoscope of changing names as one contender after another took a tumble in a panoply of pratfalls that included water balls and wayward putts. Jason Day says that slowing his pace and talking about his game with his caddie help him execute shots under pressure. Credit Charlie Riedel/Associated Press By the end of a four-man playoff, won on the first extra hole by Russell Henley, Rory McIlroy, a two-time major winner in the midst of an 18-month tour title drought, was talking about learning from his mistakes and eventually “walking through the door.” Ryan Palmer was finding a silver lining in his deliberate pace, and Russell Knox was expressing delight at being able to trust his ability. If walking through the door remains difficult for someone like McIlroy, who blew the doors off at the 2011 United States Open and the 2012 P.G.A. Championship, it raises this question: Does winning ever get easy, and is there any way to practice being perfect under pressure? “There’s no better way for me to prepare than to be in it,” said McIlroy, who was tied for 19th at three over par, seven strokes off the lead, through 54 holes here at the Cadillac Championship. He added: “I guess it’s like riding a bike. So the first few times you get back into contention, you have to get used to it again, but you know how to do it.” Some would argue it is less like riding a bike than like piloting a fighter jet, where survival and success are mixed in an adrenaline cocktail. Henley said he craved the rush of contending, with his stomach fluttering and his extremities tingling. “If I get into a situation like that where I worked so hard to get there, final group on a Sunday, and I don’t enjoy it, I feel like something’s probably wrong,” Henley said. McIlroy was not thinking of Henley, who has two tour titles in 34 starts, when he said, “Once you get into contention enough, you get into the habit of it and the knack of it, I guess you have momentum on your side.” Just as perfection is the enemy of achievement, so can adrenaline be the enemy of momentum. Snedeker, who said he drops five to six pounds from his 6-foot-1-inch frame during major tournament weeks because of stress, added that he had tried playing practice rounds between swigs of caffeine- and taurine-rich Red Bull to simulate the jitters he feels when in contention. Dustin Johnson, one of the four 36-hole leaders here, said he liked to turn practice rounds during tournament weeks into money games, to raise the stakes and his heart rate. To become more comfortable playing with a racing heart, some golfers will perform sets of push-ups or jumping jacks between shots in practice rounds. In his work with young golfers, Oliver Morton, a biomechanics and performance consultant from Scotland whose clients include the world No. 39, Stephen Gallacher, alternates sets of calisthenics with shooting. Brandt Snedeker says he has tried consuming caffeine drinks during practice rounds to simulate the jitters of being in contention. During the final round of the Honda Classic, Morton wrote on Twitter, “Swings don’t win tournaments, people do.” It was a reminder to his followers that attention must be paid to the golfers’ temperament and tempo and not just their tools and technique. Watching from afar the recent struggles of Tiger Woods, the world No. 1, Morton said: “There’s been a lot of talk about Tiger and his technique. I’ve wondered if it’s a technical problem or an emotional thing. From watching him on the range, his swing and tempo, his tension level is much lower. On the course, his tension levels seem to go through the roof.” Some golfers turn to yoga for help corralling their emotions, using meditative and breathing exercises to reduce their levels of the hormone cortisol under stress. Katherine Roberts, the founder of yoga for golf, encourages her students to inhale for four counts and exhale for six. At a glance, she can pick out the golfers on a crowded practice range who are not breathing properly. Golf is a mind game . Mind has four components .1. Intellect, the seat of reason and logic .2 . Emotion , the seat of synergy , inspiration... Gary Woodland, a two-time tour winner, calms himself by counting to four in his head before every shot. It’s a habit he learned on the basketball court. Woodland spent one season playing for Division II Washburn University in Kansas, where he converted 87.2 percent of his free throws. He said foul shooting, like hitting a golf ball, is mentally challenging because you stand alone with your thoughts and initiate the action. “The counting just helps me block out everything,” he said. Others have to remember to talk. At last year’s Masters, Jason Day made birdies on Nos. 13, 14 and 15 during the final round to vault into the lead. At the par-3 16th, he hit a seven-iron long and made the first of back-to-back bogeys. “The rush that I got through my body after I birdied 15 was amazing,” Day said. “To have the lead there and go, ‘Oh, man, I only have three holes left, if I can play well from here I’ll be the first Australian to win it.’ I was so pumped and so amped that it got to me.” Day communicated none of what he was feeling to his longtime coach and caddie, Colin Swatton. He was so fired up, he clammed up and hurried up. He ended up two strokes out of a playoff, won by his compatriot Adam Scott.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:16:17 +0000
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