Rory McIlroy completed the Grand Slam and answered a decade’s worth of questions, but it was a volatile trip around Augusta National on Sunday afternoon. In his post-round press conference, he was quick to admit: “I didn’t make it easy today. I certainly didn’t make it easy.” Two doubles, three bogeys, six birdies, a playoff. He had the lead, lost it, and reclaimed it, lost it again. He missed a short putt for the win on 18, but then hit an approach shot in the first playoff hole that will never be forgotten and knocked in the two-and-a-half footer for the win.
There were many moments when he could’ve lost the Masters. But he didn’t. He responded to the doubles by stacking birdies on top of them. He followed poor shots with heroic ones.
But, how?
Dr. Deborah Graham, a sports psychologist who has worked with many professional golfers, including Freddie Couples, has insight into how exactly the pros are able to bounce back when it looks like their rounds are about to come crashing down in front of them.
“Every player has their own distinct ‘gift’—a mental strength, and a ‘shadow’—a mental weakness, that influences their game and their ability to bounce back,” Dr. Graham explains. “Knowing their shadow and preparing for it provides go-to mental tools for regrouping under pressure. It must be practiced like any other skill and requires the player to remain self-aware rather than give in to the shadow.”
Dr. Graham has studied golfers and their behaviors, grouping them into different categories depending on their temperament.
“For example, if I test a player and find they are what I call a ‘Challenger,’ their gift is that they are super competitive, they love competition and a crowd, and they hate to lose,” Dr. Graham said. “Their shadow under pressure is that they try to control too much, making overly aggressive swings, and mistakes that increase tension, and then anger. Their best way for them to bounce back is to use the bad hole as a cue to quickly, consciously relax and emphasize focus on something they truly can control, like deep breaths and great tempo.”
Photo by JD Cuban
Dr. Graham’s studies have explored many other types of golfers.
“One I believe the champion brilliantly managed this weekend was what I call an ‘Enthusiast.’ Their strength: Generally very talented and can easily achieve great success once they become less scattered,” Dr. Graham says. “Their shadow tends to be a built-in tendency toward negative forward thinking. After a bad hole, their brain wants to instantly look ahead, imagining the worst possible scenario, sometimes feeling it will minimize more mistakes, but it does the opposite, with resulting anxiety. To manage, they commit to catching the negative quickly, no matter the situation, consciously relax, then flip the imagery to a very positive scenario, then bring thoughts back to present.”
In McIlroy’s post-round press conference, it’s clear that he knows his tendencies and has put in the work learning how to manage them. Without knowing how you react when you have a bad hole, you won’t know how to keep bad holes from compounding. Without practicing the skills to manage your reactions, you won’t be able to help yourself become a player who can bounce back.
McIlroy spoke about No. 13, where he laid up, hit his third shot into the water, leading to a double bogey.
“To make a double there, when it’s a birdie chance, and then seeing what Rosey was doing, and also what Ludvig was doing at the time, as well,” McIlroy said. “But at the same time, I knew I had 15 to play. The bogey didn’t help on 14, either. But I still felt after the tee shot on 15 that I was still in it.”
He gave himself a moment to be negative: He admits he ruined a good birdie chance, right in the middle of a charge from two of his competitors. But instead of continuing with negative thoughts or worrying about what bad shots might happen next, he switches to a positive mindset quickly. Instead of ruminating, he looked ahead to the 15th hole, where he knew he’d have another opportunity.
Later in the day, he did it again, with an assist from his caddie.
After missing the short putt for the win in regulation, which forced a playoff with Justin Rose, McIlroy didn’t have much time to go from devastation on the 18th green to needing to tee it up on the 18th tee again.
“After scoring, Harry and I were walking to the golf cart to bring us back to the 18th tee, and he said to me, ‘Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely we would have,’” McIlroy said. “That was an easy reset. He basically said to me, Look, you would have given your right arm to be in a playoff at the start of the week. So that sort of reframed it a little bit for me. I just kept telling myself, just make the same swing you made in regulation. And I hit a great drive up there, and yeah, the rest is history.”
McIlroy could’ve gone into the 18th hole thinking about how much he didn’t want to play 18 again, where he’d just missed a short putt. He could’ve stood on the tee worrying that he’d get to the green and miss a short one yet again. Instead, he reframed his thinking to the positive: He was in a great position to win the Masters. He was heading back to a tee box where he had just hit a great drive. This thinking reduced his anxiety and allowed him to swing freely.
During the post-round press conference, McIlroy talked about 2011, when he had a four-shot lead and squandered it by shooting 80 in the final round. McIlroy admitted that back then, “Maybe I probably didn’t understand myself.”
As Dr. Graham explains, therein lies the key to being able to have a bad hole, put it in the past, and stand on the next tee, ready to have a good hole: You must know yourself. You have to know what you need in that moment, and have practiced the skills to help yourself become the person you need to be in the moments that matter the most.
McIlroy had long proven that he had the game to be one of golf’s greats. On Sunday at the Masters, he might’ve also proven that he now has the mind, too.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
