WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE US OPEN?

Wow, another rollercoaster night last night watching the football. They left it late enough that we can all agree it was more luck over judgement. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who has had any interest in watching England play so far in this tournament has been massively disappointed with their performances overall. I’ll be the first to admit my own frustration at the style of play and seeming lack of energy on the pitch. But I want to ask two questions this week: Should you suit your strategy to play to your strengths? Do you know how to “win ugly”? Now, I will admit that I am far from an expert in football. I enjoyed playing it, and sometimes (being a Wolves and England fan definitely prevents it from being always) enjoy watching it. I was, however, recently speaking with a member of the coaching staff at a big club and he suggested that we will always struggle trying to fit an attack minded team into a defensive style. It’s not that it can’t be done, but it makes life a little more difficult. We have been lucky so far in this tournament, but we cannot rely on that forever. You see, looking through the lens of a golfer, it is crucial that we are aware of our strengths and weaknesses and strategise accordingly. Rory McIlroy is arguably the best driver of the golf ball on the planet, so it would be foolish of him to start taking irons off every tee in order to “play safe”. It would also be foolish if he came to a hole with a bunker at 280 yards out and decided to lay up short instead of going over, “just in case I hit it terribly”. This, I would suggest, is an unwise strategy. The opposite is true for someone like the two time major winner, Zach Johnson. Zach really had no right to win at Augusta; he doesn’t hit it very far and his stock shot is a 30 yard draw. Yet he managed victory by playing to his strengths. He never went for a par 5 in two, laid up every time and wedged it close. His strength was his accuracy into greens with a wedge in his hand and he used that strength perfectly. So what is your biggest strength? I promise, you’ve got one. You’ve also got a biggest weakness. What is that? Now, how often do you play away from your strength and into your weakness? How many shots could you save per round by being a little more disciplined with your strategy and shot choice? If you currently hit a big draw or a big fade, play for it. If your driver is misbehaving, leave it in the bag, if you’re dreadful with long irons off the tee, hit driver and if you’re an absolute stud like Zach from 120 yards and in, make sure you leave yourself those yardages as often as possible. Now, this is not a free permission slip to stop working on your weaknesses; you absolutely need to do that, but while you are working on them you still need to play golf and shoot good scores, which can be achieved with a little thought and intelligence (which I know you can manage, right?) So what does “winning ugly look like?”. Well, we are all human and golf is hard…really hard. So what happens when we don’t have our best stuff? (Which, by the way, will be most of the time). We firstly need to have a set of tools at our disposal that we can use to get the ball around the course in the fewest shots possible. This could come from a “ball back, punchy type shot”, or perhaps a ball slightly forward, aim left and fade the living daylights out of it. The choice is yours, but one thing is for certain, the best players in the world are rarely playing their best golf, they simply have more tools available to them to rely upon when they aren’t swinging great. This is something that they work on day-in-day-out and even play entire practice rounds using to help them train it better. So, what shots do you feel comfortable hitting that you can rely upon when things aren’t going great? What are your strengths that you can use to influence strategy? If you answer these two questions and get to work on at least one of these areas, I promise you’ll be a better golfer by next week. If you don’t have a reliable shot, that is something we can work on, so don’t panic. Just contact me and we can get you on track. So when we look at England, are they playing with their strengths? Probably not, but let’s call it what it is…if they win ugly, we’ll all be happier than if they lose beautifully, but that is a chat reserved for another day.