27 Oct 2016

Belief And The Competitive Player

By Mark Harman USGTF Master Golf Teaching Professional

When I first picked up a golf club at the age of 12 in 1974, I immediately dreamed of playing on the Tour and making a living as a professional golfer. I always enjoyed competition, whether it be Little League baseball, golf, or playing in a pickup football or basketball game.

That first year I played, I was shooting around 50 for nine holes by the end of summer, so I made double bogey my “par.” I remember playing in “tournaments”as I tooled my way around the course, my imagination running wild as I tried to better my personal par of 54. When I got into high school, I went out for the golf team but wasn’t good enough to crack either the varsity or junior varsity (JV) lineup as a freshman. I kept at it, and as a sophomore I was able to make it as a regular on the JV team.

My junior and senior years I played #1 on the varsity (although it wasn’t that tough to do, as no one else besides me could average better than 88 for 18 holes). I played golf at NAIA-level Franklin College in Indiana, where I was the two-time MVP averaging about 80.(Today, shooting 80 at Franklin might not even qualify for the team.)

However, since I wasn’t good enough to turn pro after college, I found a job as a bill collector/computer programmer for a division of Chase Manhattan. After most workdays from April through October, I would hit the course and play and practice as much as I could. My life consisted mainly of work and golf and little else.

Eventually I worked my way down to a 1 handicap, and through a connection with Geoff Bryant, I moved to Tallahassee, Florida, and started teaching at The Florida Golf School. Although I was teaching, I still harbored dreams of playing with the best players in the world. Except…there were a few problems with that.

The most pressing problem was that I only hit the ball about 240 off the tee on my best shots and I hit 7-iron from 150. Even in the early 1990s, this was short for a professional player. The second obstacle was I had no money to play mini-tour events full-time.

Finally, and most importantly, when I teed it up in competition, I got so nervous and anxiety-ridden that, more often than not, I played horribly. I can remember starting a 36-hole mini-tour event bogey, double bogey, and having a six-inch putt for a quadruple bogey on the third hole. I picked up my ball at that point, knowing I had no chance to break 50 for nine holes, apologized to the guys in my group, and said I was quitting as I didn’t want to be a distraction for them. They said no, keep playing for fun…and wouldn’t you know it, with the pressure off, I shot a 33 on the back nine.

About this time in my life, I got to know Gregg Steinberg, who became and still is a very good friend of mine. Gregg, as you may know, is the longtime USGTF sports psychology consultant. He gave me some tools that helped refine my mental skills and was a great help in my improvement.

By 1995, I had some money saved up, and Gregg urged me to give the mini-tours another try. I told him I didn’t think my game was good enough. He told me something I’ll never forget: “You might get good enough if you start playing.”

And he was right. I played maybe a dozen events in 1995 and cashed in my last eight events, and in 1996 I cashed in almost every one. What was the difference?

In one word, belief. I came to believe that I was going to play well each and every time I teed it up in competition. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be in the money for those events. I eventually wound up winning four times on the Emerald Coast Golf Tour,defeating the likes of present and former Tour players like Boo Weekley, Ben Bates, and Iain Steel along the way.

In the end, I didn’t make the big tour because of two factors:1) I never was able to gather the consistent financial support that was needed in order to play full-time without working, and 2) I just hit the ball too short. I think I played about as well as I could have playing part-time. Learning to shoot lower scores with my lack of distance required playing full-time.

Think about the Ryder Cup. Why have the Europeans dominated for the past three decades? Why do the Americans always seem to play poorly? Various commentators have said that the European players have a closer bond with each other, or that they are more used to match play, or that they have a greater desire than the U.S. players. Based on my own experiences and observations, along with comments made by the U.S. players themselves, I believe none of these reasons are valid.

What I think happens is that the European players expect to win, while the U.S. players hope to win. That’s a huge difference,and it means everything. When I competed and hoped to do well, I almost never did. When I expected to play well, I almost always did.

If you’re coaching competitive players, they need to have a genuine belief that they are going to succeed. If you hear them make statements like,“I’m just going out there to have fun,” then you know they are in trouble. Sure, having fun is important to both a recreational and competitive player, but without the belief that they are going to play well, they won’t. They just won’t.

Listen to what your competitive players tell you. Know when they have belief and when they don’t. The USGTF has a number of wonderful resources to help you develop your competitive players’ belief systems, among them Gregg’s book Mental Rules for Teaching Golf and the online course through the International Golf Psychology Association, found at <a href=”http://www.MasteringGolfPsychology.com”>www.MasteringGolfPsychology.com</a>.

Someone once said, “I’ll take the man with 50 percent talent and 100 percent heart over the man with 100 percent talent and 50 percent heart any day.”

So would I.
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How Head Injuries Cause Parents To…Turn To Golf
24 Oct 2016

How Head Injuries Cause Parents To…Turn To Golf

By: Ben Bryant, WGCA contributing writer On June 15, 2013, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Alex Cobb delivered a fastball to the waiting Kansas City batter, Eric Hosmer. Hosmer made solid contact with his bat, sending the ball straight back toward the mound. Cobb, who was at the end of his throwing motion, falling off the mound and in a vulnerable, defenseless position, could not dodge out of the way of the incoming 103 mph (166 km/h) line drive. The ball hit Cobb squarely in the head just above his right ear. For the crowd and the audience watching on television, the worst part was the sound – a hollow thump that reverberated throughout Tropicana Field. Trainers rushed to Cobb, who was lying face down on the turf, to render assistance. Although Cobb never lost consciousness, he was eventually placed on a stretcher, carted off the field, and taken to the nearest emergency room. The true dangers of concussions and head in-juries are finally beginning to be understood by the medical community and parents. As a high school golf coach, I have to undergo concussion protocol training every year and have a plan of action in place in case of head injuries. Over the last few years, I have had several players who have come from other sports whose parents have become more and more concerned about the physicality and head injury risk in sports like baseball or football. As the parent of a four-year-old on the cusp of athletic greatness myself, I have struggled with the need to balance sports participation and safety for my own son. This is becoming a common situation for parents all across the United States and the rest of the world. As a result, the sport of golf – as a mainstream, safe alternative to the other major sports – stands poised to attract a large, new generation of young players. Alex Cobb was lucky. In the end, he suffered only minor injuries, including a small cut and a concussion. He missed two months, returning in August for the Rays. His injury, and others like his, raises the question that has been asked several times over the last several years: should pitchers wear head protection? Strangely enough, despite there being several companies that manufacture head protection specifically for pitchers, Major League Baseball has not adopted new rules requiring pitchers to wear it. Even Cobb said that he does not want to wear extra protection. The reasoning behind their refusal is that these helmets make the player look funny. In fact, so far only one pitcher, Alex Torres of the Atlanta Braves, has decided to wear the extra protection,and he is routinely derided by fans and even other players for the way it makes him look. This is the current state of baseball and many other sports. While there are changes being made in the children’s levels, the professional leagues seem reluctant to embrace safety out of fear of watering down their game or changing fundamental appearances. American football, of course, is having the greatest struggle with these new revelations. New rules have been imposed with the intention to reduce head injuries, but the fact of the matter is that the professionals who play these sports are dragging their feet when it comes to embracing those changes. Ed Reed, the future Hall of Fame safety for the Baltimore Ravens, was recently asked about the dangers of head injuries in football. When asked whether he would want to be tested for CTE – a condition caused by repeated concussions and head injuries– Reed replied that he would rather not be tested because he did not want to know the damage the game was doing to him.  Historically in the United States, baseball and football have made up the bulk of sports that parents choose to involve their children in. Despite changes being made to children’s sports leagues– new tackling methods in football, helmets for defensive players in baseball, banning headers in soccer, etc. – parents face a difficult decision when involving their child in a sport where the professional role models have not embraced the new safety culture. Cobb continues to pitch without a helmet, and anyone who has watched an NFL game recently knows that head injuries are still a major problem in football. The difficulty faced by other sports creates opportunities for the sport of golf. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal and other media organizations wrote about the problem of the lack of young players in the world of golf. But so much has changed since then with the rise of great young players like Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. As the dangers endemic to other sports become more well-known, golf is positioned to become the go-to sport as parents search for safer alter-natives to football, baseball,hockey, and other high-impact physical games. As teaching professionals,we need to use this opportunity as a recruiting tool to get golf clubs into the hands of younger players, although many of the traditional barriers to golf still exist. Equipment is still expensive, and the traditional 18-hole golf course might not be the most exciting thing to a 10-year-old. But golf’s relative safety versus other traditional sports has given it a new leg up in this era of head injuries in sports.        
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