I am reminded of Jean Claude. Winning on the PGA Tour is hard enough without that albatross in the back of your head.
I am fighting past failures myself right now, so I feel for him.
If I were in his inner circle, I would say this.
“Boss, you messed up. BFD. You proved you were good enough to win and everyone knows it. You will be an even bigger hero next time you are in this position and you win. The good news is, you have a high 6 figure check to help the sting. Winning is not about the money, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Go buy yourself an Aston Martin. There are thousands of dorks on the mini tours and millions of chops out there who would have loved to gag away a PGA Tour event and be exempt for all of 2013 even if you don’t make another cut. There is a long winded gas bag out there who thinks he hits it far who wishes he had made 13 on the last hole to lose by one. You only made an 8. Take $50,000 and have a Tiger Weekend in Vegas.”
Streaming Video Series
You are not good enough to win until you win
Golf is a mental game!
That was compelling TV. Found myself rooting for Snedicker because he was hitting it so solid in the stretch. Stanley hit the ball well also in the stretch, just wrong clubbed it. Stanley looked tense. Snedicker looked zoned. You could see Stanley’s hand trembling when he teed up on the last couple of holes and placed his ball on greens.
Stanley was not prepared for the pressure. But how do you prepare? Monte?
I don’t think you can really “prepare” other than to play it out mentally. Then hope you make it through. Some do some don’t & some get other chances & some fade away.
To be tempered one has to go through the fire. After the fire you get to find out what kind of metal you are.
Rock handled it & Stanley didn’t……….
http://rojoass.com/
It’s not like he missed by a mile on those putts–maybe one short-ish one down the stretch? Snedeker just didn’t miss anything on the greens, and looked very confident when facing adversity.
Drive for show, put for dough.
Snedeker was trying to win, Stanley was trying not to lose.
I feel horrible for Stanley, but I hope he read that post Monty; that would definitely make him feel better.
I’m a little surprised by Tiger’s final round but I probably shouldn’t be. His confidence just isn’t to the level it used to be yet. You can tell that he is getting anxious on Sunday now when he has a chance to win. He just wants it soooo bad. His timing was just off for the entire round.
Still T3 in a strong tourney is definitely progress. I predict Tiger will win at least 3 times this year. Hopefully with a major.
I hate to see these train wrecks. The other two i recall were the British Open and Garriges a couple of years ago, in memphis I think. The thing about Stanley though is that, unlike those other guys, he really didn’t do anything terribly wrong. He had a wedge spin off the green. It happens. Yes, it retrospect he should have just hit a no spin Stricker pitch u there instead of trying to wow the crowd by driving it in low and backing it up next to the hole, but he’ll learn. It’s ironic that if he had just hit a 3 wood from the fairway, ie the dumb play, he would have won easily.
I know what your saying meat but you can’t really say that if he would have hit the 3 wood he would have won…. hits the three wood into the rough at the back of the green, chips is to aggresive and goes in water… etc etc.
Then you’d be saying today… if he would have laid up to the water he would have won easily…. you just never know.
There is an old saying ” second place is first loser
I felt exactly that way after the two times I finished second at the long drive.
However, if you want to give me over half a mil and call me a loser…I’m in for that deal.
Holding the title “SECOND LONGEST HITTER IN THE WORLD” is not what I’d consider “first loser”.
There are lots of old sayings… I’d prefer “great job for being the second best golfer in the field yesterday – better than a lot of guys who are Top 10 in the WORLD” or “Great golf for 3 rounds and 15 holes. The trend line on your performance is clearly looking up”.
If you want to consider that being “first loser” – that’s up to you. I hope KS doesn’t see it that way.
Believe it or not, it is possible to be afraid of winning.
Who knows what demons lie inside of us
Haha, am I a bad person because I was rooting for Snedeker to pull out the win? He played a great final round and made big putts in the playoff.
I like seeing good strategy and short game be rewarded and Stanley didn’t exhibit either, particularly on the 72nd. Assuming he made the swing that he intended on his 3rd shot, it was terribly stupid to play a yardage that could possibly result in getting wet. He had the right idea with his 2nd approach after the drop by playing to the back level. If he had done that on his first approach, he could have 4-putted to win.
The sad thing is that Stanley is clearly really, really, good but he doesn’t have anything but bad memories to fall back on next time he is in contention on Sunday. Monte, in the past you have written about young American golfers becoming overly mechanical and focusing too much on hitting shots versus simply playing the game and relying on feel. Could this make a young player like Stanley more likely to struggle under pressure?
It’s possible, I haven’t watched him play to know.
When I’m lucky enough to be in contention in the last few holes on Sunday, I inevitably feel like puking my guts out.
The only thing that has helped me is going into every hole focused on making a birdie and before every shot imagining how great it will feel to show those watching how good I am.
It’s a really cocky attitude and not one I display normally but I seem to see this type of thinking from all the best finishers in any sport.
What kind of thoughts do you contrive in that type of situation Monte?
On another note, what amazed me, was that they were playing really fast it seemed!
Both of them didn’t take long to pull the trigger.