Steve Bann

In 1988 as a club professional and part time playing professional I was leading the prestigious Australian Masters by two shots after sixty nine holes. Six of the world's top ten players were included in the field for this event at the time, headed by Norman, Langer and Faldo. Three pars and I would fulfil my golfing dreams. Winning the tournament meant automatic invitations to play several USA and European tour events.

So there I was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime whilst standing on the tee of the 70th hole at Huntingdale Golf Club in Melbourne. I felt like I was on the brink of a major breakthrough in my career-however I didn't anticipate how the next 30 minutes would end up impacting my golfing future. My game fell apart. I finished double bogey, double bogey and par. Seventh place was all I could manage.

In the locker room afterwards as I sat feeling sorry for myself, Jack Newton (2nd in 2 majors and TV commentator) came up to me and said that "There are not many people in the world with enough talent to get into a position to choke as badly as you just did. So I suggest you don't waste the lesson and learn from it". No loss in translation there- no matter where you're from, I think you know a backhanded compliment when you hear one.

The following morning I was back in my pro-shop cleaning members' golf clubs- my assistants hadn't cleaned them because they were too busy watching me play the day before on TV. Cleaning someone else's golf clubs can be a humbling experience- it has a knack for making you focus on what you need to do to get out of the back room and be where you feel you belong. I was determined to learn as much as I could from my disastrous finish the day before and create a new strategy that would better prepare me and my students to play their best golf under competitive pressure. Pressure had affected my golf game and sadly in my case for the worse. I realized that this was a problem common to most golfers. Back in 1988 as a coach and a player, I was working with many promising players including teenager Robert Allenby and wanted to solve the problem not just for myself but also for my students.

It became abundantly clear to me that my practice and teaching methods at the time were not adequately preparing me or my students to play under competitive stress. Since then the main focus of my coaching has been to develop better training and practice methods aimed specifically at conditioning golfers to play to the best of their ability under the pressure of competition.

Firstly please let me define what I believe competitive pressure is. It can be the pressure faced by a golfer trying to score in their first ever round of golf, to breaking 100 and every step along the way to having a chance like me to win the Australian Masters.

My research and experience has led me to evaluate how golf is practiced in general and it is clear that most golfers in the world would love to take their practice game on to the course. But for some reason this very rarely happens. As a result I have identified ten problems that my training methods now target with a more effective and proven approach to taking your practice game to the course and playing well under competitive pressure.

10 Problems:

1.No assessment - Most golfers don't have a very good idea of their true strengths and weaknesses.

2. Lack of a target - Most golfers only have a vague idea of their target if any when practicing.

3. Favourite club and shots - Most golfers spend the bulk of their practice time with their favourite club and practicing their favourite shots.

4. Golfers don't like exposing their weaknesses. Subsequently they avoid putting their ability on the line and truly testing their games when practicing.

5. Wrong shots - Most golfers practice the long game almost exclusively. They appreciate the value of the short game but don't find it enjoyable to practice.

6. Too technically orientated - Most golfers seem nearly always to be working on their technique and rarely practice playing the game. 7. Wrong routines -- Golfers have very different hitting routines while practicing as opposed to when playing a round of golf.

8. Lack of concentration - The mind set and attention used in practice is different to that needed for play.

9. Golfers put more emotion in to their bad shots than good shots when practicing. Because it is easier to remember the bad shots, the result is that a negative self-belief develops.

10. No strategy for golf improvement. Golfers are mostly in a reactive cycle, i.e. always trying not to repeat the last bad shot or swing. Rather than identifying an area of their game that needs improvement, setting a strategy to achieve that goal, and working at that process to a satisfactory result.

The final 3 holes of the 1988 Australian Masters taught me a lesson that transformed my teaching and playing philosophy. I took Jack Newton's advice- I didn't waste the lesson, and since then, many students of mine have benefited as a result of that experience.

My overall philosophy is one of a holistic approach, it includes the technical, physical, mental and strategic training factors that all contribute to our overall ability to play the game. I look forward to expanding on these training factors in greater detail in future articles. Enjoy your golf and play well!

Steve Bann co-founded the Victorian Institute of Sport, Golf Program in 1990 with his business partner and fellow Pure Golf Training coach Dale Lynch. The Pure Golf Training program is based on all their collective research and experience, alongwith the expertise of Dr. Gio Valiante and Vern McMillan.