Memorial Tournament tests both physical, mental aspects for PGA Tour players
Memorial Tournament tests both physical, mental aspects for PGA Tour players
Spectators attending the Memorial Tournament and fans viewing at home get to see how PGA Tour players hone their craft inside the ropes. How the pros perform inside their heads is a different matter.
Golf is two games in one. The physical contest – driver swing, putting stroke, iron play – is easy to spot. The mental game – handling the pressure, dealing with doubt, forgetting the previous bad hole – is more challenging to recognize.
The physical and mental work in tandem, but which has more impact on scoring? Which is harder to master? Even tour players are not sure how to judge the two.
'It's like an endless question,' said 2023 Memorial winner Viktor Hovland, who has battled mental and physical issues for nearly two years. 'I think I heard Padraig (Harrington) answer that, and he's more in the camp of saying it's almost all mental. But at the end of your day, if your technique or the physics of your golf swing are not matching up and the ball's going everywhere, it doesn't matter how you think.'
On the other hand …
'Mental,' J.T. Poston said without hesitation, addressing which aspect of the game is more challenging. 'With physical, it's a lot easier to see the results, Mentally, it's more work. A lot of people struggle or have a harder time in silence, and out here it's a grind. I think golf is the hardest sport (mentally).'
Two-time Memorial winner Patrick Cantlay agrees that the 'thinking' side of golf takes longer to work through than grooving the swing.
'You're out there by yourself, and a lot of times you've got to find the willpower to figure it out,' he said of when his game is not where he wants it.
The majority of pros tend to think the mental/emotional aspect of golf is more difficult to wrestle through than the physical, probably because they already are gifted biologically to make the game look easy. They don't need Youtube videos to learn how to consistently hit a drive 310 yards into the fairway or crush a 9 iron 175 yards.They just do it.
As 2002 Memorial winner Jim Furyk explained it while surveying pros hitting lasers on the practice range at Muirfield Village Golf Club May 28, 'You look down and all these guys hit it really well. The mental side of it? We're all going to make mistakes. We're all human. You're never going to master it, but the ones who do a better job of it consistently are your very best players.'
But even the best players struggle with a mind that plays tricks on emotions.
'You're always going to deal with doubt, because your game's never going to be firing on all cylinders,' Furyk said. 'I've had rounds of golf where I didn't think I could shake in a 3 footer, and I'm a good putter. But I've had rounds, and weeks, where I was a mess. So there's doubt.'
Jack Nicklaus, who with Tiger Woods is one of the mentally strongest golfers in history, summarized the physical vs. mental debate.
'If you don't have the physical, it doesn't make any difference,' Nicklaus said. 'You're not going to win mentally if you don't have the physical. Physically, you can overcome some of the mental, if you're really good enough, but if you're going to win on any consistent basis you have to have both of them.'
Nicklaus did, which is why though he leans toward physical being more important than mental, he uses his own career to prove how the mind cannot be overlooked.
'If you aren't strong mentally, you're not going anywhere. You have to learn to get it between the ears sometimes. I look back and see things that happened that were part of my mental growth," Nicklaus said as introduction to a lesson he learned during the final round of the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills in Denver. Nicklaus led through nine holes but stumbled to a 39 on the back nine to finish runner-up to Arnold Palmer by two strokes.
'I look back and think about how easy it would have been to win that golf tournament if I'd have known how to win,' he said. 'That's what (Ben) Hogan said. His comment was, 'I played with a young man today who should have won this tournament by several shots if he had known how to win.' '
That young lad was Nicklaus, who eventually won four U.S. Opens. Apparently, he figured out how to win.
'The physical was fairly easy for me, but the mental is one that comes later, with experience,' he said.
Cantlay pointed out that 'You can develop both the mental and physical,' adding that he sees tour veterans 'catch runs of success they attribute to a certain mindset change.'
Jim Furyk got mental help to improve his golf game
Furyk includes himself in that group.
'I sought some help," he said. "I was 42 or 43 before I started talking to (sports psychologist) Bob Rotella, and it helped. I shot that 59 and 58 late in my career and I had a lot of voices in my head, whether it was my father's or (wife) Tabitha's or (Rotella's) through the round trying to fight the mental part of breaking barriers.'
Furyk's advice to amateurs who obsess over their score? Focus on the process, not the results. The mind wants to 'Break 80' so badly it thinks in terms of 'I need to par this hole, then birdie the next.' That self-pressure only makes matters worse.
Russell Henley was so mentally consumed with the numbers on his scorecard that his identity became what he shot for the day.
'When I first got on tour and won, and then had a lot of struggles, I realized that my identity was 100% my score, and then I read this book called 'Counterfeit Gods' by Tim Keller,' Henley said. 'And I realized that the misery and anxiety that was coming from golf was in my whole life, and if my identity wasn't fulfilled by earthly things I was kind of miserable.'
Henley turned to God to bring his mental health into proper balance. His additional advice to amateurs who struggle with the mental side of their games is to develop a short memory.
'Forget the last shot,' he said, admitting it is easier said than done. 'Not letting a bad shot affect the moment, not letting it affect the next shot still is probably the hardest thing in golf. But you can learn it. Guys get better at it.'
So you're saying there's a chance?
No easy mental cure for a pitiful swing
Max Homa isn't so sure, especially if you possess a janky swing, which cannot be perfected by online videos promising a quick fix.
'The physical is much harder to master,' Homa said. 'I do think that people like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, rightfully so, get dubbed as the mentally toughest and strongest, but it helps that they're really good at golf.'
In other words, if the mechanics are A+ the mental tends to to grade out highly, too.
Or is it the other way around?
'Is it the chicken or the egg?' Justin Thomas said, shrugging. 'You just never know, but you just hope they're both as high as possible.'
When that happens, well, you just might win the Memorial.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at@rollerCD. Read his columns from theBuckeyes' national championship season in "Scarlet Reign," a hardcover coffee-table collector's book from The Dispatch. Details at OhioState.Champs.com
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