Competitive Golf
by Joyce Wethered
This article was first published in American Golfer, 1931
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Miss Wethered's thoughts on match play, and on controlling one's mental state during the course of a game show her to well ahead of her time. A modern text-book on sport's psycology could not put it any better. However there is one line which shows that she was on a different plane from us mere mortals. In this paragraph:
"Confidence undoubtedly is a great asset, perhaps the greatest of all. But it must be genuine and based on facts. For myself I can never manufacture it; I can only keep it, if i know I am hitting the ball correctly. If my method is working rightly, then I know that I can have confidence in producing the shot - and that is everything."
Miss Wethered shows that what applies to her, does not apply to most of us. We have to figure out how to win with a swing that is falling apart, and woods and long irons that are unpredictable in the ececution. As has been pointed out by Bobby Jones though this problem does not appear to have applied to Miss Wethered. As he wrote elsewhere "It was impossible to expect that Miss Wethered would ever miss a shot - and she never did."
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The strain of competitive golf can mean one thing and one thing only, a call upon the tensely-strung nerves. However much a player may apparently be blessed with a calm and placid exterior, appearences are generally deceptive;the odds are that there are a tumult of emotions surging beneath the surface that onlookers rarely suspect.
The consolation is that this is an experience common to the majority of those who have to face whatis generall and erroueously termed, "the music". The music may be felt, if not expressed, when one steps off the last green. But while the ordeal is in progress, the discords are various and numerous. Yet I am certain that no one can excel in any game without having to suffer from the sensations in serarable from "nerves".
The only resource one has to fall back onis to try and understand anddevelop a philosophy which will cope with them, and here experiences will naturally differ. I know perfectly well the two qualities which have helped me most: the first is honesty with oneself and the other is a sense of humor. We have to recognize our weaknesses, and unless we realize them and refuse to make allowances for them they will cach us out every time in a crisis. When, however, we have learned them all and recognized that we are going to suffer from them always, it is worth a great deal to be able to feel amused by our own peculiar idiosyncrasies.
I know the feeling of standing on a tee with real fear in my heart, the match slipping away, the club feeling strange and useless in my hand; and yet I have fortunately been able to laugh at the ridiculous side of my feelings and the way they are apt to behave on these occasions. This refection is, after all, perfectly sane and rational, and perhaps by this method of persuading oneself of its value it may be possible to regain a more normal balance.
As the mind govers the whole of our actions, everything will go to pieces, unless it is working on the right lines. Set a theif to catch a theif: set the mind to watch the mind. It becomes in moments of excitement full of fancies, fears or useless wandering ides and it may be no easy task to tie it down to the matter in hand. Concentration is at the root of success, if the mind can be made to concentrate on the right idea. If it will persist in thinking of harmful ideas, the execution of the shot is bound to suffer. If the mind is full of the fear of failure - dread of the next approach, a persistent thought of three putts although the green is still far away - then, in my experience, there is but one thing that can at all help and that is to see the humor of the situation.
If one is really amused (and I admit one rarely is) at the absurdity of one's thoughts and anticipations, he can, and frequently does, respond by changing and coming back to a more practical and firm outlook on things. Oherwise if one cannot direct your thoughts into more sutable channels, they will grow worse and worse with the result that the horrible feelng that you are "cracking" badly becomes a certainty.
Confidence undoubtedly is a great asset, perhaps the greatest of all. But it must be genuine and based on facts. For myself I can never manufacture it; I can only keep it, if i know I am hitting the ball correctly. If my method is working rightly, then I know that I can have confidence in producing the shot - and that is everything.
Of course, confidence depends on the avoidance of distraction. Big occasions are very likely to scatter ones thoughts in every direction. The only safeguard is to create one's own little world and for the time being live in it. I used to play my matches with one definite idea, to be entirely engrossed in my own shots and to be oblivious, so far as I could be, of what my opponents were doing; also to concentrate on the first part of the game entirely on figures and to let the match take care of itself until it took a definite form. I am convinced that to play a match hole by hole right away from the first tee is an un necessarily wearing process. It will, more often than not, make you play down to your opponents if they happen to be off their game. On the other hand, if they are playing well, your best figures are all you can hope for in any case. The scramble will probably come towards the finish.
And while speaking of scrambles, it may be an unusual experience of my own, but I find the moments of greatest strain to be when I have succeeeded in building up a really promising position - say two up and five to go, or one up and three to go. If at this critical moment you have two birdies shot at you, the situation is altered without any need to blame yourself. But when it is just a matter of steady figures to win, then can come the biggest strain of all.
Playing against Miss Cecil Leitch at Troon in 1925, after a most grueling and exhausting battle, I at last became two up and three to go, with an excellent chance of winning the 16th tofinish the match. Instead of that, I faltered and only halved it. To make things worse, I was unable to halve either of the last two holes, dropping a stroke at each. These were the most trying holes I have ever had to palay. That I won at the thirty-seventh has always seemed to me to be a most unjust tribulation for my opponent.
It is just that final clinching of a match that can, with some people, be so difficult. Here what a little philosophy one may possess is apt to desrt one.. The end is just appearing in sight;one is near and yet so far from being secure. I have often wondered how Miss Glenna Collett felt during our match at St. Andrews in 1929. I wounder if at any time she felt quite as uncomfortable or unhappy as I di when I stood two up and four to play, or so utterly incompetent as when I had to run my ball up on to the narrow shelf of the road hole green to win!.
It can be the greatest fun to look back on thrilling encounters that are past. But how fortunate also it is that we cannot know what trials and ordeals the future holds for us - on the links and off!