“I’m not sure I am capable of going more than a couple of holes without hearing the voices piping up. On some days I have no issue quietening them, on others it can be quite an exhausting experience. I’ve heard the voices for a number of years now.”
This person plays off +2.
For a multitude of reasons – his general golfing ability, his capacity to save par from sand at least 90 per cent of the time, his clothes, his demeanour on the course and his pencil bag with just one sleeve of balls in – he is my amateur golfing hero. He is everything I’d like to be and everything I’m not. Smiles greet the very occasional bad shot and he’ll then get going again with a string of birdies.
Then, after a recent trip to Scotland, he revealed the noises of his inner chimp to me. My personal feeling is that we’re all the same, tour pro or otherwise, and that we all spend four hours every time we play wracked by self doubt. And as much as we love the game and being out there it’s generally an exhausting process.
Or maybe I’m just tarring everyone with my own mentally messy brush.
He goes on: “When playing well I can step away and gather myself and consciously insert a positive thought which will help me to get away with it. When things aren’t going well it’s always harder to stop.
“Like in many things if you are playing well, it’s because you are in a bit of a groove and following some sort of process which will enable you to flag up the issue or voices. When things aren’t going well and I’m tired/hungover/not focused, the voices have a field day and bring in shots I’ve never even thought about hitting.
Advertisement
“They came on particularly strong on the par-5 12th at Dornoch when they inserted the knifed 6-iron into my consciousness which, even after stepping away and shouting at them to shut up, I duly hit.”
If I’m being honest I’ve had The Fear since 1988 when I was shown a very different side to the game. Arriving at Kenilworth for the Golf Foundation national finals I was a happy-go-lucky and horribly self-conscious 17-year-old boy. Leaving there a day later I was broken.
I was fairly fragile on arrival when it emerged that half the field had come straight from the British Boys, then a starter appeared in front of me and insisted on checking the way our balls had been marked. The final nail in the mental coffin came when my playing partners were at least three shots better than me. It was all three medal scores to count and I should have stepped aside after the London qualifier for someone in the year below. But we had won by 13 and I was shown a misjudged show of confidence.
After four holes everything was fine, two pars, two bogeys. All I wanted to do was score very close to 80 and ideally under it. I had practised every day for a month and was secretly quite hopeful.
Standing in the middle of the wrong fairway at the 5th I then piped a sand iron into a bush. I’m sure I had hit the odd hosel rocket but nothing of note for a few years and not on such a grand stage.
The organiser, I think he was called Hugh Squirrel and had played for Wales, gave me a weak smile as I approached the green and I missed a 12-inch putt for a seven. I trebled the next and then proceeded to shank six pitching wedges all from the middle of various fairways which, by the middle of the back nine, were almost going behind me.
Advertisement
Four of those were unplayable, I barely knew the rules so had to keep asking my playing partners what to do and where to drop and, come the close of the longest four hours of my life, I signed for a 91.
It was the round that I wish I had never played and 30 years on one that I can still recall shot by shot.
From there on to now the game has scared me.
Read on for more twitching, yipping and generally going to pieces at the business end of things..
One of the members of that three-man team was also in Scotland recently and remains one of my oldest and trusted friends.
He is also one for the box marked ‘scarred’. His troubles, much like mine, revolve around any club with loft and any ball near a green.
On his day he’ll whip it round in something very impressive but, when the wheels come off, it can be fairly spectacular.
“I couldn’t get a single putt to the hole for 45 holes – and this after feeling quite confident with the putter after the first round. I have no idea why this happened, beyond appalling technique, but had no power to stop it. It culminated with a lifetime worst total of putts in the fourth round, which climaxed with taking a sizeable divot on the 18th green.
“I also could not make myself hit through any shot. It felt like my body was collapsing from under me under the strain of hitting any shot and I was about two feet tall at impact.
Advertisement
“I could, however, still call shots. On a short downhill par 4 on the back nine I hit my one good drive of the day, took out a rescue club to hit a pathetic little bunt from 70 yards but then thought better of it and told my playing partners that one of two shots would follow: dunch or knife.
“Taking out the sand wedge I promptly hit the ball eight yards and walked off with a seven.”
Which brings me to the conclusion of the annual trip and the final fourball who were battling it out to become the Champion Golfer of the Year.
I was one quarter of this party and I had very gladly wilted just before the turn to score one point in three holes to take myself out of the running which meant a relatively stress-free back nine on Sunday – or, in this case, a Friday afternoon at Castle Stuart.
Player B – it’s only fair to keep their names out of this – had drunk three pints of Belhaven before his tee time to settle the nerves and continued to chip away at a hip flask to keep the voices at bay.
“Getting the balance right, drinks-wise, is very tricky. I have a general level of anxiety and fear induced by always considering the worst possible outcome. This results in severe tension and, just like Rotella, the outcome is exactly what was visualised but never in a good way.
“The loudest voice within will be saying ‘don’t shank it’.”
Right at the top of the tree was Player C who, much like our +2 friend, is on a different level. His backswing belongs on tour, he was a genuine schoolboy sensation and, despite not playing from 1998 to 2015, he is now a very good 4-handicapper.
Advertisement
He reached the turn in level par, playing off 2.
His closest challenger – we’ll call him Player D – was off 4. He reached the turn in 17 points.
We were all set for a battle royale and two of us would have the best seats in the house.
And then, enter stage left, the heebie jeebies…
A lost ball, with a shot, on 13 got the ball rolling for Player C while Player D then played the wrong ball to keep things as they were.
Player C then rather lost his pitching game.
“My fist real memory of a full swing yip was, unfortunately, at The Links at Spanish Bay on a trip to Pebble Beach about six years ago. It came out of nowhere, completely unexpected.
“My knees dropped and my right hand picked up pace in attempt to scoop the ball in the air, generally resulting in a 150-yard knife rather than a 115-yard wedge.
“It was so bad that by the 18th hole I tried to punch a soft 9-iron, had another full swing yip and the club was in two pieces before the ball had landed. It was the first and last time I’ve ever broken a club in 25 years of playing golf.
“Each time it happens it feels like a strong electric shock or a bolt of lightning shoots through my body, making it bend and move in ways I didn’t know were possible.”
He then bladed one from distance at 14, blobbed the next and, walking up the 16th to a 100-yard wedge, backed off several times, saying out loud ‘I haven’t got this shot, I haven’t got this shot.’
Meanwhile Player D’s right hand was now threatening to steal the show with a quite sensational yip at 15 which was the equivalent of a shank with an iron which was followed by three more putts at 16.
Advertisement
Thankfully his sublime long game was still on and his ability to hit a 3-iron to 15 feet was rewarded with a two-point lead over Player B and myself who had unwittingly backed ourselves back into contention. Walking off the 18th tee we quietly agreed that, in the unlikely event of a playoff, we would refuse to take part given that it would mean hitting more shots in front of more people.
Thankfully Player D hit a driver and 4-iron to the front edge of the par 5, chipped up to six feet from a bare lie (incredibly the rest of his game remains, for now, unafflicted) and missed his putt 18 inches short and right.
“The fear rating was 100 per cent on the back nine with zero chance of holing a putt. It started the previous day when I couldn’t control the swing of the putter – no matter how many practice strokes, hand presses, short backswings, long backswings, open stances or out-to-in swings that I would take my hands would just go off like an out-of-body experience and I had no control. I put it down to excess alcohol and fatigue.”
Meet the man with the most interesting job in golf
Are you a negative golfer? How to put an end to first-tee nerves
