Win some, lose a lot more

If winning was easy we would all be winners, but the cold hard truth is wining is hard.

You look at every professional golf event there are over a 100’s of losers and 1 winner, it’s a simple as that.

Its one thing to win your weekly medal at your golf club. You are out there, usually with your mates, relaxed and having fun, allegedly!
You return to the club, enter your scores and wait for the computer to return to the home page to see where you are sitting.

I remember one stableford competition years ago, I was sitting in the hutch on 45 points, about 5 points in front of the 2nd place guy, a lock in.
I finished 3rd after a count back! My only reward was 2 strokes off my handicap & £5.

I must confess I was a trifle upset and used the word “bandit” a lot! But 2 strokes of my handicap was 2 shots of my handicap.

If I had seen a scoreboard all the way round would I have played as well?

If I had to give a media interview at the end of my round would that have distracted me ?

Truth is I don’t know, but think it may have. How would you react ?

What happened to Kyle Stanley was unfortunate.

Did the pressure get to him? Coming up 18 was his mind on who to thank when he was getting interviewed ? Did his caddie make a monumental screw up and let Kyle down? Or was it a combination of all 3 ?

Its all very well us playing Monday Quarter Back, but how many of us have ever been close to that ?

Good golfers have incredible self belief in tandem with brilliant ability.

Great golfers are single minded and arrogant with brilliant ability, that’s on the course of course.

If you don’t think and feel you are the best there is then you will win nothing, doubt in yourself and you will win nothing.

Don’t for one second that this is a criticism because its not, really good golfers have to be selfish when it comes to golf.

These players, men and women, practise for hour after hour in all weather conditions and these days add gym work as well.

What made Tiger so good for years was that he was light years ahead of everyone with regards to mental strength, he believed he was unbeatable.

Not only did he believe it but the media did too, and because the media kept going on about it other players started to believe it.

Tiger won quite a few tournaments by players hitting the panic button when he appeared on the leader board, players stopped focusing on themselves but started watching Tiger on the board.

The difference now is that there are youngsters coming through that don’t only think they can beat Tiger but that they can beat anyone.

Several years ago I remember Charles Howell III hitting the flag stick at La Jolla and rolling back in to the water, that was unlucky, Kyle Stanley was not unlucky it was simply poor course management.

There where 2 winners this weekend, Robert Rock and Brandt Snedeker, everybody else lost, not just 2 people.