Consistency is what counts. You have to do things over and over again.
—HANK AARON
The greatest and toughest art in golf is “playing badly well.” All the greats have been masters at it.
—JACK NICKLAUS
Invariably, the question will come after I’ve lipped out three putts in a row, or as I’m walking off the green—shaking my head with my blood pressure pushing the red line—after making double bogey. A member of our group will turn to me and casually ask, “So, Gary, what do you do for a living?”
In those self-conscious moments I hate admitting that I’m a professional sports psychology consultant. I know what he must be thinking. THIS guy gets paid to help people with their game? If I’m playing poorly and the question comes, I’ll paste on a smile and say, “When you counsel yourself, you have a fool for a client.”
What fascinates—and frustrates—me as a golfer is the unpredictability of performance. One day I can shoot 75, which is a good round for me. The next day, playing on the same course and using the same clubs, I may shoot 85.
Which player will I be today? Jekyll or Hyde? When he plays badly, Bob, a golfing buddy, laughingly tells me, “My evil twin showed up today.”
Sports psychology is especially prescribed for two kinds of athletes. Some perform well in practice but break down in competition because they become self-conscious or overanxious. Others possess worlds of talent but can’t perform consistently. Consistency separates good athletes from great ones. The best athletes win consistently because they think, act, and practice consistently.
Consistency is a defining quality. “Whatever your job, consistency is the hallmark,” said Joe Torre, manager of the world champion New York Yankees. “It’s much more important than doing something spectacular just once. Do your job consistently, and you will be considered good.”
What made Chris Evert a champion? “My father’s coaching, training, and persistent encouragement paved the way,” said the former tennis great. “But it was something more: I was consistent over a long period of time because I never looked back, never dwelled on my defeats. I always looked ahead.”
The greatest athletes are those who can perform at a high level day in and day out, even when they don’t feel well or they are off their game. As Jack Nicklaus said, it is an art to “play badly well.”
Closing pitcher Dennis Eckersley didn’t always have his good stuff. On those days, he performed a little mental trick. “You fake it,” Eckersley said. “You do. You can’t let on that you’re not throwing well. There’s a body language. I really believe it. You’ve still got to act like you’re the man. You can’t fake a good fastball. I’m not saying that. But you have to give the impression that your stuff is on time.”
It’s like the television antiperspirant commercial—never let them see you sweat. Albert Belle says he can sense if a pitcher is confident or feeling a little shaky by the way he carries himself. We reveal much of our thoughts and emotions through body language. In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown is standing with his head bowed, looking at his shoes. “This is my depressed stance,” he tells Lucy. In the next panel, he draws his shoulders back, chin up. “The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better.” In the last panel Charlie Brown assumes his woe-is-me pose and says, “If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.”
Joe DiMaggio said, “You ought to run the hardest when you feel the worst. Never let the other guy know you’re down.”
Chris Evert boiled inside when she played. If her confidence was shaky, or she was losing her composure, she worked very hard not to show it. “If you give in to your emotions after one loss you’re liable to have three or four in a row.”
Every athlete has bad days. The trick, Arnold Palmer said, “is to stay serene inside even when things are going badly outside.” Sam Snead believes that to achieve consistency, a golfer must put a distance between himself and what happens on the course. It’s not indifference, it’s detachment. Jim Colbert echoes Snead’s advice. “My reaction to anything that happens on the golf course is no reaction,” Colbert says. “There are no birdies or bogeys, no eagles or double bogeys. There are only numbers. If you can learn that, you can play this game.”
Ben Crenshaw says that in golf you take the lies as they come. “Take the bad bounces with the good.” Have you ever hit a terrible drive and then followed it with a miraculous recovery shot out of the trees, landing the ball on the green? Don’t act surprised when you do something well, and when you’re struggling don’t let others know it.
Maintain the warrior mentality. Stand tall even if you feel you are coming apart on the inside, and carry yourself in a confident way. All performers can act themselves into a way of thinking just as they can think themselves into a way of acting. Mental attitude is always important. As a player, Dave Winfield, a member of the 3,000-hits club, knew that what he thought affected how he felt and how he felt affected how he performed. “Sometimes you have to say to yourself that you’re going to have fun and feel good before you go out there,” Winfield said. “Normally, you have fun after you do well, but I wanted to have fun before I did well. And that helped.”
To perform consistently you must prepare consistently. Act the way you want to become until you become the way you act.