Published: October 03, 2009 11:08 pm      

Nerves, our major enemy

All participants in sports experience nervousness at the start of a game or contest. The nervousness usually leaves quickly after the contest starts and there is bodily contact.

In football, the most nervous player is the kickoff return man and the place kicker. I remember a player in my high school days who was so nervous on the opening kickoff that he took off down the field and had not even caught the ball yet.

There have been so many occasions when we have seen situations where it is evident that a last-minute field goal will decide the game. The place kicker has been kicking into the net in anticipation of the inevitable.

Finally the moment arrives and he is called on to kick. He is just getting ready, when the opposing team calls “timeout.” Now he has to calm himself down again.

The kicker is well aware of the people in the stands, plus thousands watching on TV.

The center and the holder are also under as much pressure as the kicker. If one of them fails, and the kick is not good, the kicker will usually get the blame and have to live with it the remainder of his life.

That is a tremendous amount of pressure to be put on any individual.

Those moments I depicted, were the quiet moments of an active sort in which the mind can get active. The kick returner, waiting, and knowing that a thundering herd is about to trample him.

Golf is one of the most difficult of all sports. It is a quiet sport that permits the mind free to imagine just about everything negative.

Standing on the first tee, after taking a few respectable practice swings, you turn and look down the fairway. Where did it go? You now see nothing but trouble, and you feel as if everyone in the crowd around the first tee is watching you.

Chances are that your first swing will be some type of a mad lunge that will not even resemble your practice swing.

There is not a professional on Tour that does not experience some nervousness on the first tee. I know I have wished that I would have been somewhere else than the first tee when I play.

When a player is experiencing a good round, and has momentum going, and suddenly there is a holdup in the group in front because of a player getting into trouble, the player has to stop and wait for a time before being able to continue. This waiting period has not only made him lose his momentum, but he has time enough to become aware of the problems the player in front had experienced, and now negative thoughts have entered his mind.

Momentum is involved in all sports.

Putting is where nerves are the most evident.

If you are gifted as a putter, you can putt with a broom-stick. All of those weird-looking putters we see that are used on Tour, are mainly to give them something different to look at and momentarily make them forget that they are having putting problems.

Next week they will have another style putter. As long as these companies keep paying them to use that particular putter, also helps ease the pain. The long putter, the belly putter, and all of those contortionist grips, are just their ways to control their nerves during the putting stroke.

My dad told me when I was young, that when I missed a straight putt on the left, I was choking. I have spent my entire life missing on the right, but I am not choking.