While you watch the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship you might be asking yourself why some players perform better in match play compared to stroke play.
Well it is the same reasoning to how you can drop those crucial strokes off your game without changing a thing in your swing.
Raw Talent - is something god given and less refined.
Refined Talent - is something a player has worked years to be able to compete with more talented golfers.
What makes them so different from each other you might ask? One word….FOCUS.
Quick Analogy:
I was born being able to hit a 300 yard drive. I won my first long drive competition at the age of 14. I actually beat and old pro Mark Carnavale in that event. And every one that watched me play early on said, “You have got the natural swing which is what it takes to be great at this game.” However, when I went out to play I rarely focused in on the match at hand much less every shot I had during the round.
During this time I watched a friend of mine with less god given talent at the game of golf surpass me on the scorecard. Actually, not only surpass me but surpass mostly every golfer I had ever played with. Now that I am older and have had time to reflect I realized what the difference was. Once again it was that thing I had never learned growing up, FOCUS.
This friend had a talent of his own and it was perseverance. He worked harder on and off the course then anyone I knew. While I was trying to lace the ball between two trees and get to the green from 230 yards out, he was chipping out into the fairway and excepting his faulty tee shot as what it was.
When you watched him on the tee he had a routine he used every time, it got him in focus and eliminated all the distractions around him. When he was over an approach shot he visualized his shot and if it wasn’t performed right he immediately dropped another ball and did it until he got it right. When he was on the green he got down and read every putt whether it was 30 feet or a 2 foot gimme. Don’t get me wrong he didn’t break par the first day he decided to make this change but after a couple of years he was breaking course records at difficult courses and he didn’t play many more rounds a year then I did.
So go out with your friends and have fun but when it comes time for you to address the ball, visualize what it takes to be good in a Match Play environment and become a better golfer and a better scorer.
Adam Beach
http://www.golfideas.com
“Clone Or No Clone…The Ball Doesn’t Care”
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