On Concentration
Published July 17th, 2008So the British Open - excuse me, The Open Championship - is happening right now. It’s Tiger-free, which I’m sure most players are glad for. However, it may not have mattered, the weather conditions are positively brutal. Royal Birkdale - the course - isn’t considered a difficult one (compared to some on the British Open rotation), but as always at The Open, weather is a huge factor. Round 1 leaders are only at 1-under par. One player walked off the course halfway through his round, and numerous others (including #2 in the world, Phil Mickelson) have struggled and complained vociferously about the conditions. Which brings me, somewhat obliquely, to the purpose of today’s post: Pro Golfers - whiners?
Everyone who even tangentially follows general sport news knows of how touchy golfers are to noise. Dead silence is required when players are hitting their shots. A cough or sneeze will draw glares of doom. A camera click will cause Tiger Woods to drop his club in disgust after his shot, turn and verbally berate the offender, all the while staring at them with a look that could crack glass. If your click was particularly egregious, Steve Williams (Tiger’s caddy) may just throw your camera in a lake. In other words, these guys don’t screw around with this. You hose their shot, and they lose the tournament by 1 stroke - you just lost them potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. You do this in a major, that’s like screwing with someone’s super bowl victory.
Is this an overreaction? After all, some might say, Alex Rodriquez has to swing at 95mph+ fastballs being thrown at an unknown (beforehand) location - and he’s pretty good at it. All the while, the crowd is going INSANE with noise. Doesn’t seem to bother him. Same with an NFL quarterback, who has just seconds to survey the field, determine who is open and throw the ball with pinpoint accuracy while on the run (him AND the target) before he gets crushed by someone around twice his size. From behind. Again, with crowd noise. Of course, neither of these players is expected to be successful 100% of the time, and that needs to be taken into consideration. Golfers can’t afford to miss even once. That said, even with dead silence a baseball player won’t bat 1.000 nor will a quarterback hit 100% of his receivers. So how is golfing different than those sports?
Only someone who has never golfed will wonder about this. Golf is probably the most difficult mental and physical recreational game on earth. It requires perfect judgement of dozens of conditions as well as pinpoint muscle control and coordination while swinging a stick up to 120mph (at the club face). One mistake - just one, whether of judgement or of coordination - can ruin your score. For example, I played golf with my dad this past weekend, as I often try to do, and I lost to him by 3 strokes over 18 holes - 86 to 83. It was a friendly competition, but it was the first time we’ve been on an even enough skill level to really go head to head. It was fun and intense. And I was definitely trying my best to beat him. Why did I lose? A couple of mistakes. Just a couple. The first was of coordination. I made a swing error, flew over the green, over and down a hill. The lie was not favorable, and I took 2 strokes to get back to where I was supposed to be (one stroke was another physical error). The other major error was one of judgement. I assumed the yardage for a hole was such that I would require a 3-wood. That was too much club, and after a perfect hit, I was over the green. Took me 1 stroke to get back to where I would have been if I had chosen a 5-wood. That was the difference in the game. There were, of course, numerous other close calls and near misses, mistakes - but those were all offset by my dad’s play. He made some too.
The point is, even with silence and concentration, I made significant errors. What would have made it worse was random noises coming at crucial times. I have 4 different swings to think about - short irons, long irons, woods and driver - and different things to keep in mind for each of them. Things I need to do, physically, to make it work. Even more difficult, sometimes, is putting. Reading the green, the slope, the speed - it’s pretty tough. I have to concentrate very hard when I take my putts.
So would random noise make it harder? A camera click, a cough? Yes, it would. You don’t realize how much until you actually play golf - play to win. So I understand that from the pros. Because that’s what’s different between golf and say, baseball - the noise is discrete and random. In a baseball stadium, when you’re down on the field, it’s essentially white noise. It’s background static. I think I could concentrate just fine. Hell I concentrate pretty well (relatively) at work, and I listen to music often. And if you watch golfers practicing on the driving range, where silence is unlikely - many are wearing headphones. Probably listening to music, but I’d bet a fair number might also be just pumping white noise. In baseball and football, those players practice practice practice until things happen without thinking. It’s instinct. That can’t be disrupted as easily. But in golf, it’s never automatic, it’s never instinct. Every shot must be planned, understood and taken as a singular moment. I have 4 swings, but I also sometimes have to take chips, pitches and bunker shots. Those are all different challenges. That’s one reason golf is so fun - every time you play, even the same course, you might experience very different challenges. But, especially on a well designed course, you’re always thinking, planning. And random clicks, coughs, screams and stomps would definitely be disastrous.
To make golf more interesting, I think (among many other ideas) that one stop on the tour should be a non-silent tournament. Happy Gilmore style, fans should be encouraged to cheer. There is one hole at the FBR Open that is like the bleachers in Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, it’s the rowdiest hole on tour - but they go apeshit AFTER the player’s swing. I think at the non-silent tournament, it should be a constant cheer. White noise. It’d be a new and different challenge, and interesting to see which players would do well and which wouldn’t. And it would put a stop to the race to be the first guy to cheer after the ball is hit. A really annoying habit.
So - PGA Tour players, whiners? About the concentration thing, I don’t think so. One small distraction can lead to losing tournaments. But I think they should also be open to one tournament where they should expect constant noise, white noise. I think that would be fun, and fair. Now, do PGA Tour players whine too much about course conditions? Probably. But that’s a different argument…
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