Psychological Warfare Among the Golf Players

The golf players not only play the game on the course, but also in their minds. Since 2007, when Tiger Woods' former swing coach, Butch Harmon, started working with Phil Mickelson

Boynton Beach, AL (prHWY.com) June 11, 2012 - The golf players not only play the game on the course, but also in their minds. Since 2007, when Tiger Woods' former swing coach, Butch Harmon, started working with Phil Mickelson, Mickelson has established an 8-3 record against Woods when the two are paired together in a tournament. After Harmon started coaching Mickelson, he explained to Mickelson the "psychological warfare" Woods used against him, and how to counteract it.

What was this psychological warfare? You can get a clue from understanding how Tiger was coached by his first mentor--his father, Earl. In order to make Tiger mentally tough, Earl used to deliberately try to distract his son by jingling change in his pocket, dropping golf bags, tearing open the Velcro of his glove, coughing loudly, and do anything else to unnerve the young golfer. What this did was a created in Tiger an attitude not just of mental toughness, but of being oblivious to his playing partners. You can focus on their body language at the most recent pairing of Woods and Mickelson in the last round at this year's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. Mickelson shot a 64, coming from six strokes back to take the championship by two strokes. Woods, meanwhile, shot a 75. The only contact they made was when they shook hands at the beginning of the day.

After that Woods did his usual thing: he acted like he and only he existed in the golf universe. He treated Mickelson as he does all opponents as if he was a slightly bothersome gnat who Woods had to put up with as he went from hole to hole. Woods was focused solely on his own game and spoke only to his caddy about his game, never making eye contact with Mickelson nor even looking in his direction. When Woods had to pause while Mickelson took his shots, he had an impatient expression on his face, as if he were thinking, "Come on, get your mediocre shot over with so I can continue with my important game."

For his part, Mickelson seemed to be extraordinarily cheerful and eager. Apparently his way of counteracting Woods' "psychological warfare" was to convey the message to Woods, through his own body language, that not only was he not bothered by Woods' cold, oblivious attitude, but that he was thriving on it. Indeed, Mickelson's unrelenting cheerfulness, added to the success of his strokes, seemed to eventually get to Woods. Mickelson's 64-stroke win, and his trouncing of Woods, gave testimony to the success of his counter-warfare.

Asked later if Harmon's advice on how to counteract Woods gamesmanship had worked, Mickelson answered dryly, "Possibly." Each golfer has his or her own ways of trying to psyche out their opponent. Jason Day, talking about the methods he used in last year's Accenture Match Play Championship, admitted to trying to get into K. T. Kim's head by constantly walking ahead of him during the entire match. He hoped to keep reminding Kim that he, Day, was still around. In his second-round match against Paul Casey, Day made Casey putt out a short putt of only a little over a foot, instead of conceding it as one might normally do. This was very early in the match. Casey shot an angry glance at Day, and Day hoped this anger would affect the rest of his play. It did. Day won the match.

Other players have more of a "kill him with kindness" aura. Fred Couples is known for his laid-back attitude. He will heartily shake an opponent's hand at the beginning of the match, come up to the opponent to congratulate him on a good shot and carry on a running "hail fellow well met" commentary throughout the match, disarming and distracting the opponent. Before the opponent knows it, Couples is two shots ahead. Lee Trevino, a champion of the 1960s and 1970s, was a jokester. His constant joking and chatter during play and the loud clothes he often wore were so distracting to some opponents that at least two, Neil Coles and Tony Jacklin complained about it. At one tournament, when he found out he was paired with Trevino, Coles asked to be paired with someone else.

In a book called Psych-Out Golf, Todd and Judah Domke came up with a host of methods for getting into the heads of golf opponents. "Golfers will spend thousands of dollars on all this equipment and gear...and they'll really only shave off a few points," Todd Domke notes in the book. "The truth is, you can psych-out your opponent and win for only the cost of this book."
Among the mental games advised in the book, which is geared for amateurs rather than professionals, are citing obscure rules in order to infuriate an opponent; commenting on the mechanics of an opponent's swing in order to make the opponent self-conscious about it; or using humor to distract an opponent, such as showing up on the course wearing a T-shirt that says, "Your handicap is me."

Professionals do not normally go in for such tricks, and in fact such shenanigans are seen as bad sportsmanship in a game long known as the gentlemen's game. But, from the perspective of sports psychology, there seems to be more time for mental games in golf than in any other sport, probably because of the long periods between holes when so much can happen between opponents.

Lovegolf helps the golfers improve the game by giving them some great golf tips. Check out www.buybrandgolf.co.uk for a full service resort which will allow you to enjoy all kinds of golf clubs at home.

###

Tag Words: mickelson, tiger, mental control

Categories: Sports

Link To This Press Release:

URL HTML Code