Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

Fixing the mental approach requires something more. It gets right to the heart of the essential question that got us here in the first place: Why do you play golf?

S ometimes superstardom is a given, but when it is announced on an overcast day in the Pacific Northwest in late August with all of golf watching with bated breath, it quickly turns fact into phenomenon. We should have known Tiger Woods’s performance on the final day of the U.S. Amateur in 1996 was coming; history had shown us glimpses in the past. He once won a U.S. Junior after being two down with two holes to play. He won his first NCAA title despite shooting an 80. He won his first U.S. Amateur title by rallying from five down with thirteen to play. In short, even at the most extreme of circumstances, his confidence always appeared to be unfazed.
    But nothing could compare or prepare us for Woods on his final day as an amateur amid the lush green and towering pines of Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club and the 1996 U.S. Amateur Championship. Facing an inspired though relatively unknown Steve Scott in the 36-hole final, Woods somehow rallied from being five down after the morning eighteen. Repeatedly, Scott was able to answer the charging Woods, who cut the deficit to 1-down twice only to see Scott push it back. It was grand theater before a swelling crowd of some 19,000 following the lone two-ball on the course all day, and the roars of the players and fans took on the scope of two warriors clashing in the Colosseum. On the final day, Woods hit 28 of the last 29 greens in regulation, shot a 65 for the final 18 holes, and rolled in circus-like putts of forty-five feet for eagle and thirty-five feet for birdie on the back nine.
    When he won on the thirty-eighth hole, his exchange with reporters after hoisting the trophy seemed almost unbelievably matter of fact, but it clearly showed the sort of grace under fire that the great ones develop.

    Q: Going out, you’re five down going to the first tee in the afternoon. What are your thoughts?

    TIGER WOODS: I was feeling very confident.

    Q: Really?

    TIGER WOODS: Yeah. I worked some stuff out with Butch on the range. Worked on my putting and got back in the groove again, and felt very confident going out. One, it’s in the past. It’s over and done with. I’ve been there before. Instead of being five down with 13 to play, I’m five down and 18. It was a comfortable feeling.

    Q: In the tighter matches, you seem to put yourself in a frame of mind that allows you to focus and slow everything down.

    TIGER WOODS: All I do is stay in my same routine. Even though I have certain putts that are bigger than others, you never see me out of rhythm, I always stay the same pace, do everything the same. So what I did the first hole today and the last hole today is exactly the same. There’s no change. I think that’s probably one of the biggest keys. That’s what Nicklaus was so good at. You could time him. Every routine he had was exactly the same.

    As seen this day in Oregon and proven time after time in the years that would follow, Tiger is as great a winner as the game of golf has ever known. Greatness such as this prevails not merely because it is great, but because it knows what to do to make it possible to be great—and then it does not waver from that path, regardless of the circumstances.
    Tiger epitomizes the fearless golfer. Certainly, his style of play can be heroic and exciting, but it is his steely resolve in the most pressured situations that makes him a compelling case study. It is no secret that Woods has taken many of the cues for his career from the attitude and the achievements of Jack Nicklaus. From his youngest days, Jack Nicklaus was well known for his attention to the details of
two things
: the mechanics of his golf swing and the most minute distinctions of each golf course. Jack carefully measured distances of the courses on which he played. He studied them closely and meticulously. He never misunderstood the unalterable truth that golf is always a game between just two players: a golfer and the golf course on which he is playing. Nicklaus once was asked his earliest memories of Pebble Beach, which he first saw when he went there in 1961 to play—and win—the U.S. Amateur. He answered,

    I saw the course at Pebble Beach and I thought the same things I thought about Augusta National. I liked walking down Magnolia Lane, but I really wanted to play the course itself. I’d heard all about the