Though this pandemic may have interrupted tournament play, nothing need get in the way of the “sitting and thinking†sessions which have worked for one generation of golf addicts after another. By way of a start, just take what they did for the 83-year-old father of that renowned UK coach, Ken Adwick.
Back in 1970, “Old Bill†Adwick took leave of absence from his Surrey care home to head for the Pringle British Seniors championship in Longniddry, Scotland. And it was there, while his son competed in the Over-50s Division, that he cleaned up among the Over-80s with a score in the mid-70s.
True, such a tally would not sound too out-of-the-ordinary today but, that week in Longniddry, the octogenarian’s efforts on what is by no means an easy course occupied the minds of all the seniors.
It was Ken who gave away his father’s secrets. “Dad’s idea of a good practice,†he explained, “is to sit and think. He sometimes does it for hours at a time, visualising the correct position at the address and telling himself that he’s going to hole all his 6-footers.†Ken suggested that his old man probably gained as much from those “sitting and thinking†sessions as he did from pottering around his care home’s three holes.
To digress, the trophy was not the only thing the ancient one took back to his Surrey establishment. A series of newspaper headlines bore his name the following day and, as per usual, the cuttings were pinned to a board in a press tent. Yet by the time the journalists arrived for the next round of the Over-50s, the board was bare. The press officer, who had been sitting at a desk in a far corner, had apparently watched, delightedly, as Adwick Snr had crept into the room and made off with his stash of reports.
It was again in the days before British golfers had started using the services of a psychologist that the now 85-year-old Neil Coles, twice a leader of the old British Order of Merit, took it upon himself to experiment with the power of positive thinking. He remembers it all the more clearly in that the winter of 1969-70 was the only time he went down that route.
“Each morning ... the first thing I did when I woke up was to tell to myself that I was going to win every tournament I played in the coming season,†he said.
He duly started ’70 by bagging three professional events in the South of England before moving on to Italy, where he won what were two of the top events the continent had to offer, the Italian BP Open and the Walworth Aloyco Tournament. With five triumphs under his belt, he then proceeded to Spain, where he notched a couple of second-places. “The magic was gone!†he chuckled.
Even though he was obviously more bemused than convinced by the success of his “I’m going to win everything†approach, he nonetheless claimed his best Open finish the following summer as he and Johnny Miller finished second to Tom Weiskopf at Royal Troon.
Ernie Els first confronted his inner game when, like old Bill Adwick, his ways had to change. For him, it had nothing to do with old age but a water-sports accident – he decimated his left knee – in July 2005.
It was Ken Adwick who gave away his father Bill’s secrets. “Dad’s idea of a good practice,†he explained, “is to sit and think. He sometimes does it for hours at a time, visualising the correct position at the address and telling himself that he’s going to hole all his 6-footers.â€
In the immediate wake of the injury, Els revelled in long summer days with his children and spending night after night in his own bed. It was perhaps inevitable that a degree of restlessness eventually crept in. “More than anything,†he said, “I was missing the competing. It’s something within us golfers. You do it all your life and then, when you’re cut off from it, you want to get back out there and do it again. It’s like a drug.â€
Of course he spent time looking back over his golfing past, only instead of congratulating himself over and over on his three majors he was no different from the average club golfer in brooding on chances missed, most pertinently at Augusta, where he had finished second in 2000 and again in 2004. (To Vijay Singh by three in 2000 and to Phil Mickelson by one in ’04.)
“The more I thought about it,“ he said, “the more I realised that your swing has to be in the groove when you arrive at Augusta if you are going to contend. Any later is too late because you need to be concentrating all your efforts on your short game in the first half of a Masters week.â€
Next on Els’ journey of self-discovery came when he examined his attitude. “As I went into it,†he began, “I realised that I had never been patient enough in the big events.†He gave the matter a lot of thought and, the following spring, put his good resolutions into practice at the Qatar Masters when a local photographer contrived to stand in all the wrong positions.
For 18 holes, Els schooled him politely in where he would do better to stand, and it was only when he had holed out at the last that he did “a Colin Montgomerie,†to use his own words, and told the fellow precisely what he thought of him.
Rather more successful was the decision he made – this was while watching his fellow professionals on TV – to render things easier for himself. “So many of my friends were playing in China one week, somewhere else the next, and then it was back to China. I couldn’t believe what we all do.â€
He promptly sorted himself out a schedule which pleased him rather more than it would please Tim Finchem and, in time, went on to win not the Masters he had in mind but a second Open to set alongside his two US Opens.
For another lesson learned – and this is one which will be mirrored by every one of us when finally we defeat this coronavirus – Els said there was nothing which struck him more forcibly than how much he loved golf.
Top: Neil Coles
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