The golf media have loudly and universally declared “MeltDown” and “Collapse”, about Jordan Spieth’s poor play for three holes on Sunday at the Masters in 2016. Never mind that he reached a five shot lead after four consecutive birdies to finish the front nine. They ignore his immediate bounce back birdie on 13 and excellent birdie on 15.
This is typical golf media hyperbole trying to get you to pay attention to their stories and opinions. It is false on it’s face. It will lead you astray if you believe and accept it.
First of all, there are no gimmes in tournament stroke play golf. The player has to hit every shot and make their putts to post a score. Most of the field at Augusta struggled with the conditions and set up.
Ernie Els made a quintuple bogey on number one on Thursday. Was this a meltdown for Els? Was it a collapse? NO to both. He did not continue to do it.
A “Meltdown” in my opinion is when the player loses his game, his swing, his putting stroke so completely that it gets ugly and they do not recover immediately. A “Meltdown” is soul shaking. It leads to questions of ever playing the game again. It is completely mysterious and uncontrollable. Most competitive golfers have experienced it at least once in their history.
The media love to hype everything. They know that by declaring a catastrophe that we will pay attention. Their headlines are designed to get us to pay attention. So they over state and over describe with little regard for the truth or fair descriptions. Their goal is eyeballs and ratings to make money. Their purpose is not to tell you the truth.
The swing experts also saw an opportunity. Immediately they rush in to say those swing problems finally caught up to Jordan. He had been swinging poorly all tournament. Just this time, on 12 tee shot, it hurt him. His swing guru said, yes that block right or cut happens when Jordan does not turn his body fully to the target.
The swing gurus and experts always want to point at a physical swing flaw or mistake as the cause and correcting it as the cure. If only Jordan had turned fully to the target? If only his swing flaw had been corrected, this could not have happened and he would have won the Masters. As if we are machines and just need a little adjustment to play perfectly.
This keeps you and me from looking further than our swings, our fundamentals and alignment. Worse, this thinking leads us to concentrate on making perfect swings when the outcomes are important. Pay careful attention to your swing keys if you want to hit a good shot.
Dr. Graham and I know from long experience and research that trying to control your swing and focussing on your swing keys cannot work well. It takes away your athletic ability and leads to frustration and poor outcomes. It is the most likely cause of a true “Meltdown”!
Now I am going to speculate about what happened and why because I do not know and have not been able to talk to Jordan directly. But I am going to refer to his words and comments after the round and since for the clues to what happened. I am also relying on my observations of what he was doing during that three hole stretch and over 25 years of experience and research with competitive golfers at all levels.
Jordan Spieth and Jake Owen
I consider Jordan Spieth to be a natural for stroke play competitive golf. I base that on his amazing success at such a young age. I base that on his attitude and comments about his golf. I base that on our research that discovered that the top professional golfers in the world have 8 Personality Traits in common and the other Tour players do not. Natural selection determined this through survival of the fittest for stroke play golf. He was born with a lot of his ability. He has avoided a lot of the nonsense in golf that could lead him astray.
Many have described him as a young man with an old head for the game. His attributes and approach have made him amazingly effective at Augusta.
In my opinion he stumbled at the end of the third round and after the turn in the final round, both times for the same reason.
To play golf well at the highest level you have to accomplish several critical things at the same time. You have to be very clear in your decision making and fully commit to those choices. You have to manage the course and yourself to play your best, play to your strengths. You have to bring intensity to your focus without becoming too intense or hyped up for optimum golf performance. You have to trust your choices and swing freely and athletically without focussing on your swing or putting stroke.
Jordan did all of these things well for most of the tournament.
The first mistake was recognizing a lead that he considered sufficient. He thought about his position in the tournament and allowed himself to relax a bit, to lower his mental effort level a bit. I am not saying that he relaxed and went to sleep. I am not saying that he no longer cared. I am not saying that he went into defensive or protect mode. He is aware of these mistakes and usually manages himself well.
I think he relaxed in his decision making and proceeded to play shots that he was not fully committed to. I don’t think he simply got lazy. I think he let go of the push, the strong effort he was making and the mental clarity he had achieved and so ended up over the ball without full commitment. This produced those shots to the right that the swing gurus are talking about.
This happened at the end of the third round when he dropped three shots to par on the last two holes and let the field back into the tournament.
This happened again the final round after those remarkable four birdies in a row on the front side to get back to a 5 shot lead.
The best evidence of this was the discussion we heard over the mike on #12 tee shot with his caddy, followed by Jordan’s comments after the round about that first shot. He had two different shots in mind going into that tee shot. When he executed he had not fully committed to the slight draw left of the pin. In his mind he was still seeing and feeling the fade to some degree.
When this is happening we believe it is the player’s Left Brain trying to avoid a mistake by making sure they are playing the perfect shot. But the Left Brain is still considering which shot is right while over the ball. No fully committed decision has been made.
This is the problem that Jordan experienced. On many other shots he backed off because he realized he was not fully committed to the shot he was about to play. He was not clear on the shot he was about to play. He was adamant about being clear. This desire to be clear was what he let down on during these three holes and at the end of the round on Saturday.
It is classic and it is not a meltdown, only a slight mental error that produced painful results.
I agree with his caddy. Jordan will learn from this and he will get better. He is a natural and tends to make the right decisions for stroke play golf. It is the way he is made.
For the rest of us, please try to get fully committed to your shots before you get over them and celebrate when you trust yourself all the way through impact. Make that commitment and swinging freely super important in your game, more important than the score, and you will play better.
If you want to raise your awareness and instill these principles in your mental game, the first step is to get our Mental Game Builder Package. The two online assessments will measure your current mental skill level and compare your personality to the “Naturals for Stroke Play Golf”, the Champion Tour players. Work on the recommendations and try them in competition. Our Weekend Mental Game Schools are a more intensive way to start the process of building your strongest mental game.
