Britain´s Big Three of Golf. 1998 was a key year

And, who are Britain´s Big Three of Golf ?

In my opinion none other than Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and Justin Rose. Number one, two and four in the latest Official World Ranking published today.

The three of them are great golfers and great individuals.

Donald y McIlroy en Dubai 2012

Curiously, the three of them must look at 1998 as a significant year in their golf careers, since they achieved big wins and/or great performances, then, and that without a doubt marked their future in golf.

And I happened to be a witness of one of them, here, in my home country of Chile.

It was year end 1998 and we were hosting the World Amateur Championships. On the men´s side it´s the Eisenhower Trophy.

And, in a great come from behind victory, Great Britain and Ireland were the winners, with a very strong performance from Luke Donald. I was there that final day in Club de Golf Los Leones, and as a Chilean of British descent, I celebrated in true form.

It was a great year for Donald, who was at College in the USA, since he had recently won the NCAA Individual Championship and had been voted as College Player of the year.

Earlier that same year, at the British Open at Royal Birkdale, a 17 year old amateur by the name of Justin Rose, holed out a wedge shot on his final hole to capture fourth place, and to thrill the golfing world.

Justin Rose

Also, in 1998, a boy from Northern Ireland named Rory McIlroy, only nine years of age, travelled to Miami, Florida, to win his age braquet and his first international golf tournament at the Doral Junior Publix Chamionship.

That same year the BBC interviewed the young phenomenon and his swing instructor, Mike Bannon, who now travells the world full time with McIlroy. At that tender age, the young lad had clear in his mind that he would be a golf pro and that he would win Majors.

Fourteen long years have gone by and these three Champions are at the pinacle of World Golf. And it seems to me that they will be up there fore a long time. That´s why I call them the British Big Three of Golf, a bit of a reminder of the other "Big Three" of the sixties: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Some could say........Not so fast !!!!! The old guys had won a bunch of Majors and two of your boys have won none. But, still, my response would be that it´s a different era, there is much more competition at the Majors now, and, carefull !!!!!.....my boys are still very young.

Anyway we look at it, McIlroy, Donald and Rose have had an impressive couple of years. They have between them won some 20 tournaments worldwide and McIlroy (2012) and Donald (2011) have, in the same year, won both money titles, on the PGA and European Tours, something never achieved before. They are, respectively number one and number two in the world, and McIlroy has won two Majors at the tender age of 22.

Rose is now number four in the world (Tiger Woods is number three) and was the hero of Europe´s amazing Ryder Cup win when he lead the charge and beat Phil Mickelson in spectacular fashion. He followed that up by beating Tiger and company at the Turkish Airlines World Golf Final and then was second to McIlroy at the European season finale in Dubai, closing with a course record 62.

For those of us who closely watch the Mental side of the game it´s a probable fact that these three Champions have a brilliant future, because, each one of them, in their own way, have made a big effort to strengthen their Minds.

McIlroy and his successfull work with putting Guru, Dave Stockton. Donald and his interesting practice drills with Performance Coach, Dave Alred, who comes from the world of place kicking in Rugby. And, Justin Rose, has now worked for years with the excellent Mental Golf Coach, Gio Valiante.

I wouldn´t be surprised if the British Big Three win a bunch of Majors in the next few years.

Improving my golf for 2013

Year end is just around the corner. A good time to asses my 2012 golf, and a good time to make some adjustments for 2013.

There is an objective fact that I´m very proud of. At the age of 62, I happen to be playing the best golf of my life.

My average handicap index for this year is below one, something I never achieved before. And I can assure you that it´s for real, as I submit 100 % of my scores.

I owe this to my Mental Method.

I started using it some five years ago, and in 2012 I feel I was able to reach a pretty high level of effectiveness in the use of the techniques and behaviors that allow me to be better synchronized in body and mind for great shot making.

Chilean National Seniors Champ 2012

During the year, I was able to win a number of important tournaments, and when I didn´t win I was almost always in contention.

I won the Chilean National Seniors Championship against a pretty strong field, and three other Open Tournaments (one of them competing against the over 40 crowd and the other two in the Senior category).

In Lima, Peru, in this years´ South American Seniors Championship, I was third in the overall individuals, and won my age bracket (60 to 64 years of age). And I was able to contribute to Chile´s team win, our third in a row.

I also won a couple of other team tournaments during the year.

But, even so, and considering that 2012 has been an excellent golfing year for me, I know that there is a Mental aspect of my game that needs improvement for next year.

In two or three tournaments I had trouble closing out rounds that started incredibly well, and I "folded" a couple of times when in the lead and with just a few holes to go. Now, I compete a lot, and in golf this will tend to happen, and it´s normal, but I feel it happened to me just a little too often.

It happened to me in a recent Senior´s tournament that I was leading comfortably in par, with eight holes to go, until I "lost it", with a run of over par holes, to end up third. And it happened a couple of times in the Southamerican Team qualifying events and it meant some "unnecessary personal suffering" in order to make the Team.

But, fortunately there are effective psychological techniques that allow for the "re programing" of the mind in order to overcome weaknesses like the one I have described.

And, it so happens that in my role as a Mental Golf Coach, I teach my clients techniques to precisely avoid the pitfalls of dwelling on the past, or catastrophizing over the future, when few holes remain in a pressure packed round of golf.

Many of these techniques require work outside of the golf course.

It´s what I call Mental Gym. Golf will hit us hard, and many times will hit us "when we are down". And just as we need to go to the gym to avoid our body getting flabby and out of shape, it is also key that we permanently exercise the Mind, to keep it strong and confident.

What we are trying to accomplish with this is to always be able to think positively, and with confidence and optimism on the golf course.

In assessing my year 2012, I realized that I had not done enough work in the key area of  "staying in the present" in those key final moments in the round, when I´m in the lead and the rubber hits the road.

The good news is that a Mental Gym program is much simpler to do than a physical fitness program required for an effective work out.

Mental exercises require less time, but it´s essential that they are done properly and in a very disciplined manner for them to be effective.

I have been doing Mental Gym exercises for some four years, now, and they have been extremely positive for me in many, many aspects.

But I realized that I had never focused them with enough decision on "staying in the present" in the key pressure moments of a round of golf.

I have recently modified my mental exercises in order to prioritize this key aspect of my Mental game.

It´s going to be very interesting to see the results of this new approach in the 2013 tournaments.

Golf My Way by Nicklaus. The Mental lessons

I have just finished reading an updated version of Jack Nicklaus´ excellent book, Golf My Way.

I had wanted to read it for some time, now. It´s essentially a book about swing technique, but I have always been aware that Nicklaus was also a master of Mental behavior and Mental techniques.

And I wasn´t wrong.

I found four very relevant themes that I would like to share:


1. The danger of major swing changes

The Foreword was written by none other than Jack Grout, Nicklaus´ long time teacher and swing coach. Grout emphasizes a fundamental point about the golf swing, something that has huge consequences from the angle of Mental Golf.

Grout points out that Jack maintained the same golf swing for the most part of his career, and that as a youngster nobody worked harder than Jack at mastering the proper fundamentals.

Grout explains that this is key as "the golf swing is the least natural movement in all of sports. It is, as a consequence, extremely difficult to teach and even harder to learn".

My comment:

One of the most difficult things in golf is to make a major swing change.

Precisely due to the difficulty mentioned by Jack Grout an enormous effort is needed involving the limited conscious mind and that requires thousands of swing repetitions, in order to achieve the necessary automatization that will allow us to play intuitive golf again. The kind of great golf we can only play with our powerful unconscious mind.

As opposed to Tiger, Nicklaus avoided  modifying a swing he had learned so well as a youngster "like the plague". And, in my view, this had a lot to do with Jack going on to win a colossal 18 Major Championships and a spectacular 19 runner ups in these big tournaments. He only went back to Grout at the beginning of a season for "fine tuning" sessions.

It is very possible that the three swing changes Tiger has endured, during his pro career, could cost him dearly. Falling short of Jack´s 18 Major win record would be a painful defeat for Tiger. Time will tell.

2. Visualization, proper alignement and aiming.

Nicklaus tells us that, in his opinion, hitting the ball to a "selected place and with the desired trajectory" requires:

Mental picture                                                               50%
Proper alignment                                                           40%
Swing                                                                            10%

My comment:

Jack´s comment makes all the sense in the world to me:

Jack talks to us about "going to the movies" because he was a master at properly using the technique of golf shot visualization. He would "imagine" the trajectory and the type of shot he wanted to hit. Together with allowing for enough time for proper alignment and precise aiming at the target, visualization helps the golfer achieve two key objectives:

A. It increases the probability of the ball going where we want it to go since we are aiming properly.

B. The above, together with the proper use of shot visualization, allows us an "easier entrance" to the intuitive mode and the "present moment". This, in turn, ensures a better chance at mind/body synchronization for great ball striking and great golf shots.

3. The three tension "relievers".

Nicklaus talks about the three "tension relievers". According to Jack they are the following: Confidence, concentration and the intense focus on aiming and alignment.

My comment:

I totally agree. Confidence is vital in golf.

One of Bob Rotella´s more recent books is The 15th Club. Well, Rotella´s 15th club is none other than confidence. Today, many Mental Golf Coaches insist that their pupils utilize certain techniques, outside the golf course, designed to strengthen the mind and strengthen confidence.  Like many of us go to the gym in order to strengthen our bodies, the golfer must do "mental gym" to strengthen the mind.

On the other hand, an intense focus on aiming and on concentration are tension relievers because they keep us in the "present moment", well away from ruminating about recent poor shots, and away from catastrophizing about future shots, or potential disasters.

4. Good "Golf Course Management" is key.

In this book, Jack Nicklaus reaffirms his great emphasis on sound "golf course management". Specially on complicated holes with dangerous obstacles or hazards.

My Comment:

I am in total agreement for two reasons:


A. Standard golf courses are simply full of hazards, water, out of bounds and countless other obstacles and
as 100% of our shots count (99% of the time we compete in the stroke, or, medal play format), it is absolutely vital that we plan all shots in a very rigorous and conservative manner.

B. If we make dumb or stupid shot planning errors, we not only pay the price in wasted shots, but we will, more than likely than not, get mad at ourselves, and this will "take us out" of the automatic, unconscious or intuitive mode, and we will start to play with our inefficient conscious mind, outside of the present moment, and not synchronized in body and mind.

On reading Nicklaus´ excellent book from the Mental angle, it became clear to me that Tiger has several weaknesses that Jack never had, and he doesn´t have it easy in his quest to surpass Jack´s Major tournament achievements in order to be considered  the best golfer that ever lived.