Archive for PGA Championship
Putting psychology and golf hypnosis into perspective at PGA Championship
Posted by: | CommentsPutting was clearly very difficult for all the players at Hazeltine in the 2009 PGA Championship, especially in terms of putting psychology. Now we all saw Tiger Woods missing a lot of mid-range putts that we’d normally expect him to see and I’ve already written about how those were the result of his uneasiness about the swirling wind. I’m more concerned here with a number of really crucial putts missed by Lee Westwood and the massive number of short putts missed by Vijay Singh.
In my humble opinion, Lee Westwood is striking the ball as well as he ever has, especially in the major championships. As a result, he keeps getting himself into contention in the last round before throwing away the opportunity in the last nine holes on Sunday. How many times did he miss apparently easy putts at Hazeltine, including a three putt from not much more than 3 feet? At the Open Championship we saw him three-putt the 72nd hole after recovering well from a few bad putts earlier in the round. The same sort of thing has plagued him for such a long time that it can’t just be coincidence and I keep reading about Lee working with golf psychologists, so it can’t be that; or can it?
Well, I’ve seen Lee’s name mentioned as a client of a number of high-profile golf psychologists here in the UK, like Dr Karl Morris and Jamil Qureshi, the official psychological performance coach for the European Ryder Cup team last year. I also noticed, in the Westwood Academy page on Lee’s website, that the list of sessions participants will receive includes psychology.
Imagine my surprise when I heard about Lee’s comments about golf psychologists in an interview at Hazeltine. "Look at them all," he said, "They all look a bit odd …
Click here to read the full post »
Windy golfers and windy golf psychology blown away at the PGA Championship
Posted by: | CommentsSo, were you blown away by the golf at the 91st PGA Championship at Hazeltine this weekend? With 8 hours of TV coverage on Saturday and again on Sunday, I was just riveted to the screen and amazed by both the spectacle and the windy golf conditions. The TV commentators also contributed to the windy feeling with all their hot air and false hopes for a certain golfer named Tiger Woods. Didn’t they just love Y.E. Yang’s quote about how the odds against him beating Tiger must be 70 to 1, based on Tiger having just won his 70th PGA Tour event last week while he had won his first earlier this year.
Although I’ve never played there personally, I vividly remember Tony Jacklin telling me, and our other two playing partners at Brookmans Park Golf Club, all about Hazeltine’s challenges, just a week or so after his US Open win back there 1970. The course certainly seems to have got even harder and so more picturesque since Dave Hill’s scathing comment back then that "all it really lacks is 80 acres of corn and a few cows." …
Click here to read the full post »
Get your FREE “Your Own Virtual Caddy” Article and the amazing FREE 25-minute Golf Hypnosis audio session.
