I Want Charley's Mindset!
I hope you managed to catch the action at the AIG Women’s Open, especially on Sunday, as it turned out to be an exciting final round at Royal Porthcawl. The quality of golf in windy conditions on such a challenging links course was incredible.
Fair play to Japan’s Miyu Yamashita, who led from day one and managed to keep her cool on Sunday, despite England’s Charley Hull making a late charge. Such a shame that this was the fourth time that Charley has been a bridesmaid in a Major championship. Miyu celebrated her 24th birthday on Saturday, so the coveted title and a cheque for $1,462,500 was some present!
Single figure golfer Jess Ratcliffe watched the final round and she shared the lessons she learned in this piece for Golf Monthly. It is fascinating to watch how the best players in the world can somehow stay in the zone, not worry about the bad shots, manage to hold their nerve over the longest of par putts, and the ability to trust their swing. I suppose the latter comes from hours of practice, but we could definitely all learn something from their processes.
I couldn’t imagine playing golf or any other sport for that matter in front of thousands of people. Just last weekend I messed up a hole in front of three people watching. I’m going to digress slightly because the reason this came about is because we have a ridiculous rule in place on Saturdays. If there is a men’s medal, women can only play in threeballs.
For years, we have happily slotted in amongst the men, whether it be a couple of fourballs or threeballs, depending on numbers. The thing is, there are never that many of us. For example, on Saturday there were eight of us, but this meant we had to play in two threeballs and one twoball instead of two fourballs. It doesn’t make sense to us. I would love to hear what rules you have in place at your club at the weekend.
Anyway, we stopped at the halfway house, and one player dropped out, which meant two twoballs and a threeball. I was in a twoball, and as I approached the 10th tee, three men who had decided not to stop were hoping to play in front of us. We had a conversation, I explained why we couldn’t join the twoball in front, which incidentally they thought was ridiculous as well, and they politely told me to play ahead. I turned around and said, “I bet I’ll hit it in the pond now.” This is a pond that’s no more than 50 yards in front of the tee and one that I’ve never even considered to be a potential hazard. But what did I do? I topped the ball into the water!
My previous nine holes hadn’t been that great, but I dwelled on this topped shot, and was cross that my mindset let it happen! So, I’m going to take note of all the lessons that Jess learned and try really hard take them into my next round!
