Targeting the mind game key to major glory

GOLF BOB ROTELLA INTERVIEW:PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON refuses to kowtow to conventional thinking in discussing his golf. He will often find more nuggets in a 74 than he will in posting a 68, an explanation that flies in the face of the bald mathematics of a scorecard.

Despite the often persuasive logic of his argument, declarations of the rude health of his game when shooting over-par are occasionally greeted with a smile by his audience. History has shown that second guessing Harrington’s form, mental and physical, can be a devilishly tricky pastime.

High scores or a run of poor results don’t always equate to a player in the doldrums when referenced against Harrington’s career. Adversity is something he handles better than the majority of his peers.

This week he’ll tee it up at Turnberry attempting to win a third successive British Open but arrives at the tournament having missed five cuts in-a-row on the US and European Tours. For those looking from the outside at his prospects, the equation governing his chances in Scotland is not quite as straightforward as it appears, especially after soliciting the views of a member of Harrington’s inner golfing circle, Bob Rotella.

The celebrated sports psychologist and prolific author - his books on the mental side of golf are among the best-selling sports’ tomes of all time - will once again share a house with the Dubliner this week as he has done for Harrington’s two previous Open triumphs. The pair have been in regular contact, including last week when the golfer made the short journey to The European Club.

Rotella is adamant that Harrington is on the cusp of recapturing the form that will banish the memory of his recent travails and permit him to mount a robust defence of the Claret Jug. To facilitate the process, the American has reminded his pupil that remaining rooted in the present is the key to successfully recalibrating the thought process.

“The good news is that he (Harrington) has lots of experience winning British Opens. He is trying to get his mind real quiet again and very softly see his target without any thought of the result of his shot.

“He’s really trying to get back to being that quiet and have total acceptance of everything and anything that happens.

“(To accomplish this he has to) get all the stuff he tried to do with his golf swing out of his head. I think that he feels good that he is moving in the right direction; he was very excited about playing in the Irish PGA tournament and getting himself ready. A lot of times playing on a links golf course helps you get into that state of mind.”

Rotella is encouraged by Harrington’s repeated facility to translate instruction into practice when the pressure is at its most intense. The American continued: “That’s how he separates himself from everyone else in the world because it (the process of uncluttering the mind) is hard to do.

“He has gotten himself to the point that his mind was very quiet and very clear, where all he ever thought about was where he wanted the ball to go rather than thinking about where he didn’t want it to go. If it was easy everyone would do it.

“There’s a tendency for everyone to think that you master it or you own it. The good news is that I don’t think anyone understands that it is a journey more than Pádraig. He really gets the whole journey of how good you can become at golf.

“Pádraig and I have talked about it. Sometimes you try things that don’t work or sometimes you try things that don’t work immediately but end up working down the road in a month or three. He is very patient and understanding about that. I don’t see any frustration in Pádraig.

“I think he is still very upbeat, very positive about himself and his game.

“I think the other point is sometimes when you go on a run, it’s easy to say after you win, ‘okay good I just won three majors, now let’s take it to a whole other level’. You try things that don’t work so well, but that is part of the journey. He’s pretty fine with it and that’s how you learn what doesn’t work.”

Rotella chuckles following the enquiry as to whether Harrington has to be reminded of the importance of not over-thinking things and creating peripheral pressure with which he doesn’t need to involve himself.

“I think it’s fair to say that we have had that conversation several times over the last few months.

“Sometimes being overly- analytical hurts him. On the other hand being analytical helps him because he asks a lot of questions and once he understands, he gets it. Once he gets it he can go do it. It’s his nature and it’s him.

“He’s in a very good place right now. Since the Friday round at the US Open which I thought was spectacular - he didn’t make the cut but thought he really got back to scoring and getting the ball in the hole.When Pádraig’s really good it shows up in his short game. That’s when you really start to see his head getting clear again. He can get in the hole regardless of where he’s hitting it.

“It’s easy to want to peak for majors and in trying to peak, you get a little ‘perfectionist-ic;’ you get out of being clear and accepting. He’s definitely on a mission.”

Harrington is not the only player to whom Rotella will be ministering this week.

David Duval is another celebrated pupil and one who commandeered the headlines at the recent US Open in producing a performance that many would have thought beyond him, such was the decline from major winner to a golfer for whom the sport no longer held the same appeal.

Ill-health contributed to the downward spiral but Duval’s priorities changed as he pursued marriage and a family rather than ranking points. It allowed a more contented Duval to eventually return to the golfing world with a renewed vigour, having addressed what he perceived to be voids in his life away from the course.

Rotella recalled a meeting with Duval the week of the US Open. “On Monday morning David Duval told me that he was ready. It’s the first time he said that in a long, long time. He basically said my mind is quiet again. For him it is just seeing a trajectory and letting his swing happen, being patient and accepting.

“I thought it was very clear on the Monday morning that he was ready to play (so much so that he advised a friend to have a punt on Duval).

“He trusted his driver again, drove it great, looked at me and said, ‘I’m ready. Let’s go to the putting green and get my putter there. If we get my putter there I’m ready to win this thing.’ I thought the fact that he got two or three over in his last two rounds and came back really showed he was ready.”

It is interesting to note that Rotella can see many of golf’s current tyros take a brief sabbatical to reacquaint themselves with the world outside golf, before returning to the sport.

“I think we are probably going to see more and more of that, maybe not to the same extreme as David.We have so many kids from a very early age being single- minded about golf to the exclusion of all else.

“Somewhere in their mid-to- late 20s, we are going to see a lot of kids who have focused everything on golf decide that they want have a love in their life or they want a family; find some other hobbies to interest them.

“A lot of kids find out, winning in golf is not enough. Sometimes you spend your whole life wanting to win the British Open and you get it and then some of those guys then say: ‘is that all there is? I thought this was going to make me eternally happy.’ You wake up and you find out it doesn’t. I think everyone needs a little bit of balance in your life. I think we will see more of it in this generation that is very single-minded.

“You see an awful lot of kids who are mighty, mighty good at golf at an early age be very single- minded. If you want to get really good at golf at an early age, being single-minded is probably beneficial but if you look at it from wanting long-term health, happiness and success there’s some real advantages of having some other interests, playing some other sports and having other friends outside of just golf.

“I don’t think the issue shows up until your late 20s or 30s and sometimes you have to win something big for it to hit you. You can find everything is not what you thought it would be. It doesn’t totally change your life, it changes the way other people see you. That’s the benefit a guy like Pádraig has: he’s got other interests, he plays other sports and he hasn’t always been on top. That gives you some great strength.”

To be a champion, Rotella maintains that a golfer must appreciate the difference between placing too much emphasis mentally on the outcome of a shot rather than focusing on the process.

“They have to know the difference between, ‘did I give myself a chance versus did I not even give myself a chance because I played tight and careful.’ The really good ones know the difference.

“They are not destroyed when they come in second or third. If you have got your head in the right place most of the time you are going to finish somewhere in the top 15. It is easier to have control over that than winning.

“You could shoot 64 and have someone else shoot 63 and get labelled a loser. If you have to be the winner in order to feel like a winner, this game will beat you up.

“The closer you come to winning the more grief you’ll get (using the example of Phil Mickelson blowing the US Open atWinged Foot on the last hole). TigerWoods doesn’t make the cut but Phil got all kinds of grief because he messed up the last hole and finished second. You get more grief from coming close than you do when you’re nowhere.

“It makes no sense but it is the way it is presented to the world. You have to be able to have a perspective that understands that. It is like the perspective that Pádraig has - I know where I am headed, know I am doing the right stuff, know that I am not getting the right results but it’s coming. A lot of it is just getting back to doing the right stuff.”

Harrington will be hoping that this week his timing proves right on and off the course.

Improving your game: Rotella’s three fundamentals

1 Think of nothing but where you want the ball to go, your target.

2 Totally accept that it is a game ofmistakes, not a game of perfect. It is never going to be and you’re not going to be the first person to master it.

3 Develop a complete acceptance of everything and anything that happens on the golf course because playing golf means loving it all. If you can only love golf when everything is going your way, going where you want it to go, winning every tournament, then you don’t love golf. You find out that you love golf when it is not going your way. That’s what separates Pádraig Harrington from others. He loves the game.