Putting Under Pressure
Q:
How do I make more pressure putts or putts I need for a win?
A:
This question reminded me of a passage from "Dead Solid Perfect" by
Dan Jenkins. I'll quote that passage here. I suggest you read the entire
book. It's quite funny.
"He said to me one day, "When you're standing over a short
putt, Kenny, do you pretend the cup's a bucket?" Of course not,
I said. He said, "Do you pretend it's a thimble?" I said ...
no. He said, "Do you ever find yourself standing over a putt and
looking at your shoes, wishing you'd worn another pair? I would only
squint. Grover said, "Have you ever stood over a putt and wondered
how many microscopic bugs were looking up at you?" I glanced down
at the ground. And he said, "I had an eight-inch putt today Kenny
and as I was getting ready to tap it in, I thought to myself that right
there where I was standing -- right there underneath my brown and white
Footjoys -- I was probably crushing to death a whole civilization of
living things. You know what happened?" I said I didn't. Grover
said, "This impulse came over me as I took the club back, and instead
of tapping the ball in, I took the club back some more, and I hit myself
in the right foot with it. Hard as I could. My caddie said he thought
he heard me mumbling "Murderer, murderer," to myself, under
my breath. I asked him what happened to the eight-inch putt. "I
don't know" Grover said, "I withdrew".
I hope your pressure putts don't drive you as stark raving mad as
they did poor Grover! But now back to the question. How can you sink
more pressure putts? The simple answer is, "It depends". It
depends on why you miss them in the first place. It may be that you
miss as many non-pressure putts as you do pressure putts. If that's
the case then you don't possess the requisite skills. Your putting stroke
may not be as simple as possible. If it's not you will miss any number
of putts, especially under pressure where complex movement patterns
break down quickly. You may miss putts because you don't read greens
well. This too will be exaggerated under pressure. Do you miss short
putts, especially under pressure? If you do, you don't have the appropriate
visual and mental focus control. In Geoff's December, 02 PuttingZone
Newsletter I wrote about how to improve your visual and mental focus
control so you can sink more short putts. Do you miss putts because
your distance control is suspect? Geoff will reprint an article I wrote
about how to improve your distance control in a later newsletter. I
refer to this method as "Putting by the Numbers".
However, if you putt well except when you need to then it's your inability
to handle pressure that's the culprit. Working on your stroke, green
reading, focus control, and distance control won't do you any good because
you already are skilled in each of these areas. What you need to learn
is what and how to handle pressure. Pressure occurs because our assessment
of our ability to succeed is in doubt. This can be a conscious or unconscious
assessment. We refer to situations when important outcomes are uncertain
as Stress/Anxiety.
Stress is a physiological response to threat. In prehistoric times,
our bodies were designed to react to perceived dangers -- say, charging
animals with big teeth -- by either running away or fighting back. This
is known as the fight-or-flight response. That primal system is still
in place today. While it's not the same kind of threat to life and limb
that cavemen experienced every day of their lives, threats to our ego
produces the same kind of response. Let's say you're on the 18th green
and need to sink a 4-foot downhill putt that breaks a foot left to right
to record your best round. Let's say you just missed a similar putt
on seventeen to save par. In response, your brain releases Corticotropin-Releasing
Hormone (CRH), which puts your body on alert the same way it did for
the caveman. Your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration increases
as you go through your pre-putt routine. CRH also triggers the release
of adrenaline and cortisol, hormones that help mobilize carbohydrates
and fats for quick energy to deal with the threat. The release of these
chemicals create a number of problems for golfers.
First, our muscles can become tense and/or jittery. This occurs because
our minds don't distinguish between threat to our life and threat to
our ego. It assumes the threat is to life and limb. As such, we need
extra energy to fight or flee. The tension and/or jitteriness is just
an indication of extra energy being supplied to the muscles. This is
very detrimental for execution of fine-motor skills, like putting. The
tension or jitteriness can occur anywhere in the body. Since each of
us is different you must determine which, if any, of your muscles become
tense or jittery in stressful situations. If they do, you can shake,
massage, or exercise the tension and/or jitteriness away.
A second problem created by the release of excess adrenaline and cortisol
is the dilation of our pupils. Cavemen needed to see more when they
were threatened, so they could see the danger better and to determine
the best way to get away if they chose to run. In golf, it's necessary
to eliminate as much visual feedback from stimulating the brain so we
are not distracted by that visual feedback. Once you're standing over
your putt at address it would be best if you were blind so as not to
be distracted by anything going on, including the movement of the putter.
I wrote about this in last month's newsletter. If you notice that you
look all over the place or that your eyes are darting all over, then
you are being distracted by the excessive visual feedback the brain
is being stimulated with. If so, close your eyes for about 15 - 30 seconds.
Doing so will cause your pupils to constrict, providing less visual
feedback to the brain and therefore, less information from which to
be distracted
The third problem created by an increase of adrenaline in the body
is an increase of oxygen supplied to the brain. More oxygen is supplied
to the brain to increase the number and speed of neurotransmitters that
are processed. For the caveman this was necessary so they could very
quickly assess all their options and come up with the appropriate response
to the danger. In other words, the mind starts racing. In golf we need
to make very deliberate decisions about what actions to take. And while
you don't want to take all day coming to some decision, you don't want
your mind racing through your options. Typically, when golfers experience
stress, they can't seem to control their thoughts or limit them to a
single task. If your thoughts also include fear of failure and so on
you are experiencing anxiety, another destructive force. Getting yourself
to focus on a single task is imperative to eliminate the excessive thoughts
and anxiety. The good thing is that an increase in stress also affects
our breathing. Typically, our breathing will become more rapid, shallow,
and erratic in the face of threat. Controlling our breathing will not
only get our minds to slow down and help eliminate the anxiety but because
there is a symbiotic relationship between the respiratory system and
the circulatory system, breathing properly can eliminate, to some extent,
the excessive chemicals from our system that's responsible for the poor
performance.
I refer to this kind of deliberate, focused breathing as "Performance
Breathing" because it can dramatically improve performance rather quickly.
If you find yourself in a pressure situation where you have failed in
the past, close your eyes. Slowly inhale through your nose to the count
of four (four seconds). Hold your breath for two seconds. Now exhale
slowly and completely to the count of eight (eight seconds). If done
properly, you will have to forcefully expel the air from your longs
for the last couple of seconds. It's like completely deflating a balloon.
You want to completely deflate your lungs of any air before you inhale
again. Breathing as I have just described above removes many of the
toxins created by the excess adrenaline and cortisone that are responsible
for your performance problems. Hopefully, it may only take one performance
breath. If you are under a lot of pressure it may take more.
However, you must take to eliminate the excessive destructive chemicals
from your system action as quickly as possible. They are released into
your blood expecting some kind of rigorous activity. These chemicals
are only used up through vigorous activity' like fighting or fleeing.
I don't remember the last time I saw golfers sprinting down the fairway
or doing jumping jacks while waiting to putt. Without vigorous physical
activity the chemicals will remain in your body for some time, dissipating
very slowly, and of course, continue to destroy your performance.
If you've ever had a retinal eye exam where the optometrist checks
the health of your eyes you'll know what I'm talking about. The sympathetic
nerve fibers are activated with a synthetic form of adrenaline. This
drug dilates your pupils so the doctor can get a better view of the
back of your retina. You are told to bring dark sunglasses to wear afterwards
because your pupils remain dilated for several hours. It's very painful
and difficult to see in normal sunlight when your pupils are dilated
this long. While your pupils don't get this dilated when you experience
stress, the adrenaline released into your bloodstream remains just as
long and will affect your performance until the adrenaline dissipates.
This is not to say that you need to be a robot on the golf course
and can't show any emotion after performing poorly or in the face of
stress. Anger, frustration, disappointment, and stress/anxiety are all
normal responses to poor performance of pressure. However, you must
deal with the emotion as quickly as possible and then eliminate as much
of the toxins as possible through performance breathing.
Research also shows that the release of these chemicals into the body
affects our mental processing. Superior performance is associated with
a balanced use of the brain -- left-to-right and top-to-bottom. Some
golfers become more left brained -- more analytical thinking -- under
pressure. Other golfers become more emotional -- right brained. Neither
situation is conducive to good performance. The use of the brain must
be balanced top-to-bottom, meaning the proper use of the conscious,
subconscious, and unconscious minds is also imperative to peak performance.
Memories about how to perform correctly are stored in the subconscious
and unconscious minds. Thinking too much or responding with too much
emotion restricts access to these memories, destroying performance.
Performance Breathing goes a long way to helping balance the brain
top-to-bottom. There are a number of other simple physical activities
that golfers can do to help rebalance the brain top-to-bottom after
having experienced pressure. Collectively, these activities are referred
to as applied Kinesiology. There is neither time nor space to share
these activities with you here. However, these activities are very powerful.
In fact, as I watched telecasts of PGA tour events, I noticed Tiger
woods performing one of these exercises a number of times. If you are
interested in learning these activities you can contact me at drtee1@aol.com.
Finally, if you've failed to perform up to your ability and/or expectations
under pressure in the past for any length time, it will take sufficient
time and effort at the right things to remove the self-doubt that is
only natural when one fails at an important activity. That means that
you can't expect immediate success just because you know what steps
to take. Initially, you will have to emotionally separate yourself from
any immediate failures until you have sufficient skill at removing the
symptoms of stress and keep applying the techniques I have described
until you start experiencing success making putts under pressure. Once
you do, your confidence to succeed under pressure will increase. An
increase of confidence reduces the amount of uncertainty or fear of
failure. As uncertainty is reduced so is stress and/or anxiety. Without
stress and/or anxiety the body won't go into the fight-or-flight mode
so excessive adrenaline and cortisone won't be released into the bloodstream.
It's the release of these chemicals that creates the problems.
*****
*****
Dr Tony
Piparo is
one of the very few sports psychologist to concentrate on putting.
Winner of the
prestigious American Psychological Association Award for his dissertation
on the Effects of Chronic Fitness on Putting, Dr Piparo has attracted
a wide following with his recent book with optometrist Dr Steve Kaluzne,
Master
the Art and Science of Putting: Training the Eyes, Mind and Body (Sports
Performance Centers of Am. 1999). Dr
Piparo has studied the physiology of putting extensively (with a Masters
in Kinesiology to complement his Doctorate in Sports Pyschology), and
combines this knowledge with his vast understanding of sports psychology
and his experience of over twenty years teaching elite golfers. His
1Putt Golf School is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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