Be decisive. A wrong decision is generally less disastrous than indecision.
—BERNHARD LANGER
If there is doubt in your mind … how can your muscles know what they are expected to do?
—HARVEY PENICK
On the day of the final round of the 2000 Masters tournament, Vijay Singh received a nice surprise, the kind of surprise that touches a father’s heart, the kind that brings a smile. Singh’s nine-year-old son, Qass, had pinned a note to his dad’s golf bag. The message read, “Poppa, trust your swing.”
Not wanting to disappoint the boy who trusted in his father, the leader did as requested. Playing steadily and confidently, from the first hole to the last, the man from Fiji whose first name means “victory” won the Masters by three shots. Afterward he appeared with Qass at the champion’s press conference wearing the green jacket and a triumphant smile.
“That’s what I tried to do,” Singh said, reflecting on his round. He looked at his son. “Trust my swing.”
Successful athletes trust their talents. They are committed to every swing, every stroke, every shot, and every pitch. When asked for golfing tips, I tell friends that the best advice I can give is that it’s better to be decisive than right. The late Harvey Penick, one of the game’s most revered instructors, said if you are indecisive, if you have doubts, if there is a lack of commitment in your mind, how is your body going to know what to do? We all have seen what can happen to the most talented athletes. Under pressure, they sometimes become tentative and indecisive. They don’t trust their stuff.
One such scene played out during a sudden-death playoff at the Masters in 1990. It was almost a gimme. Only two feet stood between Scott Hoch’s ball and victory. He lined up the winning putt from one direction. He walked behind the hole and gave it a second look. Hoch came back, knelt behind his ball, and studied the line awhile longer. Then he took another look.
It was twenty-four inches—tops—almost straight in, but Hoch looked like pool shark Minnesota Fats circling a green felted billiard table, chalking his cue, and reading every angle before making a four-bank trick shot.
It was growing late. Instead of unconsciously speeding up, as some athletes do under stress, Hoch slowed down. Chi Chi Rodriguez said, “Take less time to read the scorecard and more time to read the hole.” Good advice, but Hoch read the hole as if it were War and Peace. Finally, the golfer stepped up to his ball. Settled into his stance. Eyes flicked anxiously from ball to hole, hole to ball, back and forth.
Watching on TV, Ben Crenshaw, conscious of the passing time Hoch had spent—fifty-five seconds and counting—was on the edge of a scream.
“Geez,” Ben said, “hit it!”
At last, Hoch drew back the putter blade. There was more prayer than conviction in his stroke. Click. The ball slid three feet past the hole. Crenshaw flinched and shook his head. “Like my dad says,” Ben said in disbelief, “Good God-o-mighty!” Hoch went on to lose to Nick Faldo, who birdied the second playoff hole.
Doubts cause intellectual confusion. Doubts can be paralyzing. It is said that a person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.
Confidence and trust are essential in every sport. Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers said it is better to throw a poor pitch wholeheartedly than to throw the so-called right pitch with a feeling of doubt. “You’ve got to feel sure you’re doing the right thing. Sure that you want to throw the pitch that you’re going to throw.”
Today’s Dodgers’ ace, Kevin Brown, says that if you make a bad pitch aggressively you have a much better chance of getting away with it.
The habits of success are forged in practice. In practice you learn the art of concentration. “You can be out there in the middle of a tough match pleading to yourself, ‘Concentrate! Concentrate!’ and it won’t happen for you,” said Martina Navratilova, the former tennis star. “Concentration is born on the practice court … you must mentally treat your practice sessions as matches, concentrating on every ball you hit.”
In practice you learn to train your brain as well as your body. Sam Snead said practice time is when you put your brain into your muscles. The conscious practice of routines leads to the unconscious habits of success. A routine is something you do regularly that you control and has a purpose. Before Nomar Garciaparra steps into the batter’s box he begins a series of fidgety gestures, repeatedly tugging on his batting gloves. Taking his stance, he taps one toe and then the other against the dirt. They are the same quirky habits he performs in practice. Every hitter has his own routine. Routines are comforting mechanisms—triggering mechanisms. They differ, however, from rituals based upon superstition, like Wade Boggs’s habit of eating chicken at 3 p.m. before every night game.
In golf, a preshot routine begins with the player standing behind the ball, looking at the target. In a thinking mode, it’s time to analyze and develop strategy. Ask yourself questions. Where is the pin? What direction is the wind blowing? It’s the time to mentally shape the shot, as Jack Nicklaus described.
Once you have decided how you are going to play the shot, and you step up to the ball, it’s time to get your head out of the way so your body can perform. Turn off the analytical mind. Switch from the thinking mode to the trusting mode. You can’t be thinking and swinging at the same time.
Ask yourself this: Are you better than your stuff? No. So just trust it.
You must be 100 percent committed to each action. If there are doubts in your mind, your muscles won’t know what to do. Let your routines switch you from the thinking mode to the trusting mode.