| Here are some tips to help you develop a | | | | sense. He did not shut extraneous matters out |
| dynamic mental approach to improve your golf. | | | | of his mind; he merely shut them out of his |
| When a match grows to a climax the great | | | | golf. While he was playing he would talk |
| player is apt to become slower and slower. It | | | | intelligently about any subject that cropped |
| is not that the putt on the last green is | | | | up, stocks and shares, eating and drinking, |
| more difficult than that on the first; | | | | politics or puritanism. Nothing, neither wind |
| probably his experienced eye tells him all he | | | | nor weather, bad greens, tight corners, or |
| needs to know about it at first glance. But | | | | unduly chatty opponents, ever made the Hage |
| he potters about, sometimes to the annoyance | | | | tense. Consequently golf never exhausted him; |
| of uninitiated spectators, until he has | | | | he was as fresh at the end of a Championship |
| pushed all that the putt means out of his | | | | as he was at its beginning. Incidentally this |
| mind, until all he is conscious of is the | | | | mental limberness was not left behind on the |
| feel of the stroke that will hole the ball. | | | | last green. I remember talking to him at |
| The pupil, let us say, is making good | | | | Sandwich on the day he won the British Open. |
| progress. He is beginning to co-ordinate his | | | | He had finished and we sat and chatted for a |
| game and build up his controls, when he | | | | long time while waiting to see if George |
| suddenly takes himself off for an afternoon | | | | Duncan would deprive him of the title which |
| in an entirely different atmosphere-that of | | | | otherwise he had won. Well George very nearly |
| competitive golf, in which style means | | | | did it, but Walter Hagen never batted an |
| nothing and immediate results everything. Of | | | | eyelid. He was as chatty, as cheerful, and as |
| course his budding style and incipient | | | | untense as ever-at the end of a week's |
| control go overboard and end-gaining | | | | competitive golf with the whole issue of a |
| dominates. Everything is subordinate to | | | | three thousand mile trip in the balance. I |
| getting the ball into the hole. It is only an | | | | suppose everyone would agree that |
| intentionally established set of controls | | | | "self-control" as effective as that possessed |
| that can resist the temptation to force and | | | | by men like Hagen and Harry Vardon is a |
| guide the ball when much is at stake. The | | | | priceless quality. But how achieve it? It can |
| general verdict is that the Hage had a | | | | only be done by building one's golf into a |
| "marvellous temperament for the game." And | | | | closed, self-controlling circle, and then |
| what do we mean by that? My own | | | | keeping extraneous matters outside that |
| interpretation is that the Hage had perfect | | | | circle. The reason why the neophyte and the |
| psycho-physical equilibrium, that his mind | | | | player needing re-education find control so |
| and body were perfectly balanced and | | | | elusive is simply that their golf has not yet |
| perfectly correlated for the purpose of the | | | | been built into ouch a closed circle. And if |
| game of golf. Walter Hagen had found by trial | | | | they only knew it they make things far worse |
| and error, as most of us do, how he could | | | | by trying to learn golf and play golf at the |
| best hit the ball. He had got the feel of his | | | | same time. When that happens, pity the poor |
| shots thoroughly into his system and could | | | | teacher! Then, and not until then, he can |
| pull them out whenever he wanted. While he | | | | hole it. If you want my idea of the ideal |
| was playing he inhibited any extraneous | | | | mental attitude to the game I will give it |
| matters in the most effective way possible he | | | | you in two words-Walter Hagen's! Walter Hagen |
| refused to let them into that part of himself | | | | was not only one of the greatest golfers, he |
| that was concerned with his golf. So he could | | | | was one of the most buoyant. Wherever he |
| play his best in circumstances that would | | | | played he simply oozed with the joy of life. |
| have turned gray the hair of any less | | | | The more he was up against it the better he |
| perfectly adjusted player. Please note that | | | | played. He really enjoyed a fight and the |
| the Hage did not concentrate in the accepted | | | | harder it was the more superb his confidence. |