At first glance you might be tempted to think that years of honing his swing had finally paid off for Steve. You might even want to imitate him by going to the range and copying his action.
However, there are two pieces of evidence suggesting that Steve’s win had little to do with technique. The first is that he only used 96 putts in 72 holes including a mere 19 putts during his second round. You’re reading that correctly – nineteen putts in eighteen holes. Hardly anyone ever scores well without putting well and yet swing technique often receives the lion’s share of credit for scoring performance.
The other piece of evidence suggesting that Wheatcroft’s win wasn’t due to swing technique is that in Steve’s next four competitive rounds he posted 74, No Card, 76, 72. As a result, 24 hours after his win he failed to qualify for the U. S. Open, and then a few days later he missed the cut at the Nationwide’s Rex Hospital Open.
We all know that if you can walk and chew bubble gum on Sunday those motor skills don’t leave you on Monday. In the same way the motor skills controlling your swing don’t change overnight either. But some kind of skill left Steve. What was it? The only thing that could have left him was his elevated mindset.
So if Steve Wheatcroft asked you for advice would you tell him to go to the range to recover his swing or would you tell him to sit down and try to recapture the mindset he had when he was on a roll?
An objective person would have to opt for the mindset approach. And that brings up an interesting question about what kind of practice you do. Do you spend most of your time beating balls in an attempt to perfect your technique or do you look for ways to optimize your mindset?
Do you even know what that mindset should be?
If you don’t then you should start asking some serious questions. Because if you don’t know where you want to go rest assured that you won’t get there.
About Bob Skura
Author of How Great Golfers Think- Perfecting Your Mental Game. Have found very interesting research lately that points to how we can recapture our ability to learn like kids do. Currently working on a Mental Game Instruction Workbook
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