Article #86
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Dear Jitterbug:
I've always seen mental toughness as the greatest attribute a competitor can possess. Now, as my son is learning golf, I want to teach him the mental side of the game, how to be a fierce competitor, how to finish off the competition. What's the best way to do that?
Jeff Eder
Jitterbug Gang Fan
Jitterbug:
Mentally tough players enlist great powers of imagination. Being tough means you possess the calmness of spirit to imagine the four-footer you have on the 18th hole to be the one you've made a million times in practice. Mentally tough players can look at a narrow driving hole and see clearly the wide-open fairway they've never missed. They can feel muscular tension leave their arms as they imagine holing a chip shot.
Mr. Eder, you have to encourage your son to compete. Let him lose, as he is sure to, but never let him make an excuse for losing. He must learn to imagine, to be somewhere else mentally as the rest of the field succumbs to pressure.
Mr. Vaughn:
There is an undeniable force in the universe that punishes scared players, and rewards those who have faith. If, for instance, both competitors are scared, the one who is less scared comes out on top. If both have faith, the one with greater faith leaves victorious. But, it is not fear or faith alone that determines the winner; it is how fear and faith affects one's ability to clearly imagine.
Scared players see through a fuzzy screen because can't find the peace of mind to imagine. They can't resist the urge to hurry up, to wish the round would end.
The golfer who in the end can still conjure up positive mental images wins.
Lord Berry:
Tiger Woods is not the greatest competitor of all time because he was born that way. Rather, he was conditioned that way. His father, Earl, once screamed at him, "You don't quit! Do you hear me? You don't quit! You don't quit! You don't quit! You don't quit!"
Earl was not referring to physically walking off the course before the completion of a round, but rather, mentally walking off the course, giving up before the contest is over.
Coming down the stretch, and in the heat of the battle, Tiger sees a ten-footer for double bogey as crucial as the same length putt for par. Tiger is unshaken by his own misfires or his opponent's pinpoint shot making. He plans to play brilliantly, but carries an unflagging belief that the universe will conspire however needed for him to win. And, on those occasions when he doesn't win, Tiger takes an honest look at what happened so to avoid ever losing again in the same manner.
What does all that mean? It means that mental toughness involves never giving up, and never giving up is at the heart of mental toughness.