People make mistakes – it’s inevitable. Certainly as a young professional golfer playing the European Tour I made loads. The first time I went abroad to play against some of the best golfers in the world I was young, naive and inexperienced. It showed and I took a beating. For me to venture out again, for more competition, I had to quickly learn from my mistakes or I would be throwing another couple of thousand quid down the drain.
It took years of effort and sweat to find out how to compete more effectively. But there is a quicker way to learn how to improve than by subjecting oneself to the frustration and heartache of missing cut after cut. That’s to learn from someone else’s mistakes and following were a few of mine.
Preparation for Competition
No kidding, when I first turned up to play the Portuguese Open over two decades ago, I thought a clean set of golf clubs and a smart pair of trousers were all a player needed. But then I witnessed how the likes of Seve Ballesteros,Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam prepared for events. They wouldn’t just play a practice round and be satisfied. They would also walk every inch of the course to understand the difficult slopes and complexities of the greens. No stone was left unturned and when it came to Bernhard Langer, preparation became a way of life. As Benjamin Franklin once said ‘by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’.
If there are any golfers reading this who want to maximise their potential, or indeed anyone wanting to perform to their highest capabilities irrespective of the task - don’t underestimate the importance of good preparation. Go and prepare well – and then find a way to go one step further.
The Importance of Hard Work
It was only when I studied the best players on the practice ground did I understand what hard work meant. I had never been shy of putting in the hours. In fact I used to get such big calluses on my hands, from hitting balls, I had to rub them down with a wood file. What I did wrong though was practice what I was good at. Give me a driver and a bucket of balls and I was content for the day. But after watching the top players, I came to understand that constructive hard work mainly involves practising weaknesses and the boring bits. After all who wants to practice putting and chipping. The top golfers, that’s who. So anyone out there wanting to excel at a skill – go practice what you‘re not very good at. Target your weaknesses and make them better.
How to Keep Calm Under Pressure
For me perhaps the most important lesson I had to learn was not to panic. When things looked bad on the course I would tend to try too hard and force the situation. But that, unfortunately, rarely worked. A philosophical attitude is needed when competing. If a player has worked hard and prepared properly, fate and luck play a part - if it’s not your day – it’s not your day. Take it on the chin and get ready for the next opportunity.
This of course, is a very hard lesson to learn. It took years of wasted effort and bleak journeys up blind alleys before finding a more effective way to compete, than by trying to bludgeon the course into submission. But my efforts paid off. After taking a real beating first time I played Royal Birkdale, when I walked up the last hole in front of packed stands on the final day of the 1991 British Open, I had proved to myself I had found a better way to compete. Great pity I had wasted so much time!
John Hoskison - John is a class 'A' member of the British PGA and author of the acclaimed book 'Inside - One Man's Experience of Prison'.
