This week sees the Irish Open visit Royal County Down, one of the very best courses on the planet.
The Northern Irish links has only hosted the tournament four times, as well as the 2007 Walker Cup, but it is as highly regarded as any GB&I course and represents the finest stage on this year’s DP World Tour.
The challenge of a links rarely comes along and mental performance coach Duncan McCarthy highlights what will be needed to prosper this week.
1. Learn to be patient
Like any process, once you’ve made your decision it’s really important that you follow that with commitment because the wind’s going to be swirling and it could be wet etc. A shot without commitment is probably going to be quite inaccurate, and commitment’s a big thing as you’re playing a links course and there is a lot of outside interference going on. But when you’re out there as well, unless it’s calm conditions on a links course and the weather’s half decent, par golf is not going to hurt you. And it’s being patient with that. Week in, week out, top players might be shooting between 15 and 20-under to win a tournament so around five-under on average. Whereas at an Open-type venue such as this, it’s not the case – Soren Kjeldsen won here in a play-off in 2015 with a score of two over. Actually, making pars is the equivalent to sometimes making birdies on regular tour courses. So patience with the score and patience with yourself and patience with your game is really, really important because you’re used to making birdies every few holes if you’re playing pretty decent, whereas it might be nine pars on a row which would be great. And that’s actually really, really good golf. So just be patient with yourself. Even if you drop a few early on, be patient. Once you try and add some pressure, that’s when you can come unstuck. And all of a sudden you turn a potentially simple par into a bogey and then the frustration rises from there.
2. Simplify your short game
These guys are so good anyway with the short game, with an array of shots, but they’re so good at working out what the simplest shot to play is. What’s the simplest way to get it close to the hole? And sometimes that might be a 3-wood, sometimes it might be a 7-iron. Sometimes it might be the 58˚ that comes out and you take all the slope out. But it’s just to play the simplest shot that you can and I think that’s probably a massive lesson for amateurs. It’s very rare that you’re going to hit an 8 or 9-iron around the tour courses but then you come to a challenge like this and you see players trying all sorts of different shots and it doesn’t take them too long to learn that skill to an acceptable level. Then you have a player like Shane Lowry who plays everything with his most lofted wedge and he’ll be comfortable popping it back in the stance or laying the blade open. The key is to play the shot that you know you can play rather than the one that you think you can play.
3. Make some smart decisions
This is true every week but this is especially important around a course like Co Down because, week in, week out, you can maybe take on more aggressive lines and there are more potentially riskier shots. But this week there’s going to be quite a few boring decisions and playing away from where you’d ideally like to go. But part of your good decision-making is to understand and know where a good miss is. And that’s what the players will be looking at this week; there are places to miss it and places not to miss it. You do not want to be leaving it in the hard position because it’s going to be a tough up and down so you want to be leaving it in those easy or medium misses. That’s an important factor. The hard spot is obviously not always a hard spot as that depends on where the pin is but if the pin’s cut right, and you miss it right, then it becomes a hard spot. So you have to know those no-go zones. And there are certain key areas around the greens where the rough might be lighter and not as thick, but then there’s other areas where it’s really thick, and you’re going to get some shocking lies. And you just learn that by looking and walking around the greens and seeing where a ball might not roll into the middle of a bunker. The caddies will do a lot of walking the course early in the week and they’ll just highlight where you can and can’t afford to go.
4. Control what you can control
Some years the draw will play a massive factor. You will get an afternoon where it’s wet and windy, and then you’re off early the next morning and it’s still wet and windy. But the Thursday morning and Friday afternoon is beautiful sunshine. This plays a big factor but goes down on the list of uncontrollables. And we don’t really give that too much attention as it’s out of our hands. What you can do is to manage your energy levels. There will be a lot of noise and huge crowds and there will be a lot of energy banging around. So you’ve really got to control yourself well and make sure that your time up there is well used, and you don’t get suckered into getting there at 8am, because you want to soak one of the world’s best courses in, and then you don’t leave till 6pm. And then you’re shattered after day one, and then you do that three days, and then all of a sudden you’ve got a 4pm tee time and you’re dragging the day out, and you’re knackered coming off the course at 9pm.
5. Get out on the course
I used to track Tiger Woods for four or five years at the Open and it was rare that you saw him after midday. He was there at 5am on the course prepping, doing his thing, but then he was out of there and you never saw him. Tiger was so good at the softer skills, like managing his energy, getting in, getting his job done and getting out. I was saying to a player at the Scottish Open this year that most of your prep should be done on the course, not really on the range, because the range is flat and doesn’t really resemble what you’ll get on the course. Get out on the course and drop the ball in the rough. What iron can you get out of the rough? Can you get a 6-iron to it or is it actually an 8? What are your lines off tees? Drop a load of balls around the greens, get chipping and putting, get a feel for the pace of the greens. So have most of your prep on course. I would actually say to a player, probably a Monday, Tuesday would be great to get out in the morning, go play 18 holes both days, come in, do a little bit of short-game work. If your swing’s not quite there, maybe half an hour, 40 minutes, but then get out of there. And then on Wednesday, it might just be a case of six holes or nine holes or whatever, but just have half a day and then have the afternoon off, resting.
