At golf´s summit, a "match play" scenario ends ugly

Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson are unquestionably two of golf´s "hottest" players. Both have been playing great golf and Dufner has won twice in the last three weeks.


Jason Dufner


But it got really ugly, yesterday, in the final round of the PGA Tour´s Crown Plaza Invitational, where Johnson and Dufner were in the final pairing, six and seven shots clear of their closest rival.

And, as we have seen many times in the past, it became a "match play" contest and it wasn´t pretty.

Dufner couldn´t put a tee shot in the fairway, had a double (ninth hole) and a triple (fifteenth), and carded a terrible four over par 74.

Johnson, playing tentative golf  managed to be par for the course after 17, and had a comfortable three shot lead. Then almost blew the tournament.

His first mistake was to hit his tee shot on 18 out of turn. Dufner had the honour (no penalty here). Then proceeded to hole his final putt for par without replacing his coin, which he had moved for Dufner a few minutes earlier.

He was lucky to be informed of his mistake before he signed his score card. He was assessed a two stroke penalty, shot a mediocre two over par 72, and won the tournament by one stroke.

Why is it that when two of the best golfers in the world are confronted by a "match play" situation, they play such mediocre golf, and make such dumb mistakes ?

Golf Digest called it an ugly "pillow fight" and even recalled a similar situation that occured on the final hole of the British Open 45 years ago.


Zach Johnson


My explanation, from the Mental Golf angle is quite simple:

Both players got caught up in the "match play" situation, and because of the pressure they started playing against each other instead of just playing the shots they needed in order to beat the course.

This is an extremely common situation and what happens is the following:

The golfer (especially Dufner, in this case) starts to "calculate" or "speculate" on what he needs to do to beat his opponent. This concern about the opponent and the outcome (the future), is something that is done with the conscious mind, and takes the golfer clean out of the "present moment". And his shot making becomes erratic and uncharacteristic ( i. e. : Jason Dufner´s poor tee shots). In fact, he has abandoned playing with his powerfull intuitive mind and has suddenly lost his usual body/ mind synchronization.

To prove the point, Zach Johnson admitted in his post round interview that "I got a bit ahead of myself on the final hole", when commenting on his final hole mistakes.

The key to mentally coping with these "match play" situations is to forget the opponent, do everything necessary to focus on the golf course and each shot we have to make (the present moment) and above all, don´t allow the mind to speculate on the outcome.