Top five tips for mentally preparing for the golf links

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This week the Irish Open visits Royal County Down, one of the best courses in the world.

The Northern Irish links have only hosted the tournament four times, including the 2007 Walker Cup, but it is as highly regarded as any GB&I course and represents the best class on this year’s DP World Tour.

The challenge of communication doesn’t come often and mental performance coach Duncan McCarthy highlights what it will take to improve this week.

1. Learn to be patient

As with any process, once you have made your decision it is very important that you follow through with commitment because the wind will be blowing and it may be wet etc. Shooting without commitment is unlikely to be accurate, and commitment is a big deal. thing like you’re playing a links course and there’s a lot of external distractions going on.

But if you are there and, unless there are calm conditions on the links and bad weather, one round of golf will not hurt you. And patience at that.

Week in, week out, the top players can shoot between 15 and 20-under to win a tournament so they’re about five-under on average. Although at a venue like this, it’s not – Soren Kjeldsen won here in the play-offs in 2015 by two over. Basically, making pars is the same as making birdies sometimes on standard tour courses.

So being patient with the score and being patient with yourself and being patient with your game is really important, because you tend to make birdies every few holes if you’re playing decently, when it could be nine pars in a row which would be huge. And that’s really, really good golf.

So just be patient. Even if you drop a few quickly, be patient. Once you try and add some pressure, that’s as far as you can go without getting stuck. And all of a sudden you turn an easy par into a bogey and the frustration builds from there.

2. Simplify your short game

These guys are great with the short game, with an array of shots, but they’re also great at finding what an easy playable shot is. What is the easiest way to get it closer to the hole? And sometimes that might be a 3 wood, sometimes that might be a 7 iron. Sometimes it can be 58˚ out and take out the whole slope. But it’s the easiest shot to play and I think that’s probably the biggest lesson for those who are learning to read.

It’s not often you hit an 8 or 9 iron on tour courses but when you get to a challenge like this and you see players try all kinds of different shots and it doesn’t take them long to learn. that ability has reached an acceptable level.

Then you have a player like Shane Lowry who plays everything with his high wedge and will be free to put it back in shape or open the blade. The key is to play the shot you know you can play rather than the shot you think you can play.

3. Make wise decisions

This is true every week but this is very important at a course like Co Down because, every week, every week, you can take aggressive lines and there are very dangerous shots. But this week there will be a few boring decisions and you are playing far from where you would like to go.

But part of your good decision is understanding and knowing where to miss the good. And that’s what the players will be looking at this week; there are places to miss and places not to miss. You don’t want to leave it on hard because it’s going to be hard up and down so you want to leave it on those easy or medium criminals. That is an important factor.

A strong point is obviously not always a strong point as that depends on where the pin is but if the pin cuts well, and you miss it well, it is a strong point. So you have to know those places where it is not easy. And there are some key areas around the green where the rough may be light and not thick, but then there are other areas where it’s really rough, and you’re going to get some horrible lies.

And you learn that by looking and walking around the green and seeing where the ball might not roll into the bunker. The caddies will do a number of walking lessons at the beginning of the week and will highlight where you can and cannot go.

4. Control what you can’t control

Some years the draw will play a big role. You’ll get an afternoon where it’s wet and windy, then you’ll be out early in the morning and it’s still wet and windy. But Thursday morning and Friday afternoon are the best sunshine. This sounds like a big deal but it goes down the list of uncontrollables. And we don’t pay much attention to that as it is out of our hands.

What you can do is control your energy levels. There will be a lot of noise and big crowds and there will be a lot of energy hitting. So you have to manage yourself well and make sure that your time is used well, and you are not dragged to get there at 8am, because you want to soak up one of the best courses in the world, and then you don’t leave until six in the afternoon.

Then you crash after the first day, and you do that for three days, and then suddenly you get a 4pm appointment and pull a day, and you roll out of the course. at 9 pm.

5. Exit the course

I used to follow Tiger Woods for four or five years at the Open and you rarely saw him in the afternoon. He was there at 5 in the morning on the course preparing, doing his things, but then he left there and you didn’t see him. Tiger was very good at soft skills, such as managing his energy, getting in, getting his work done and getting out.

I was saying to the Scottish Open player this year that most of your preparation should be done on the course, not on the range, because the range is flat and unlike what you’ll find on the course. Get out of the field and throw the ball in a difficult area. What iron can you get out of the rough? Can you get a 6 iron out of it or is it actually an 8? What are your lines without strings? Place more balls next to the greens, get a cut and put, get a feel for the speed of the greens.

So have most of your preparation in the course. I would actually say to a player, maybe Monday, Tuesday would be good to go out in the morning, go play 18 holes both days, come in, do a little short game work. If your swing isn’t there, maybe half an hour, 40 minutes, but then get out there. And then on Wednesday, it might just be six holes or nine holes or whatever, but just have half a day and take the afternoon off, relax.

About Duncan McCarthy
Duncan works with golfers across the tour including Marcus Armitage, Erik van Rooyen and women’s British Open winner Ashleigh Buhai

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