What makes the pros so damn good?

[Rick Sides]

Golf is a funny game.  For the average person, it can be so frustrating. I wonder what makes the pros so good?  Do you think that they are born with natural athletic ability, or is it it the hours they put in, or the fact that they have swing coaches that follow them everywhere.  You look at a golfer like Charles Howell III. He weighs a 155 pounds soak and wet and can hit the ball 300 yards.  How does this happen?

[Joe Bausch]

All of the reasons you give are in operation Rick, I believe, but sometimes I think the first you gave (natural talent) is sometimes minimized.

[Phil_the_Author]

Three things:

1- Practice
2- More Practive
3- A Lot More Practice...

The bigger question is what separates those who succeed at the game at the top level from those that don't...

The answer to that lies in the gray matter between the ears...

[Mike Sweeney]

I recently saw Ray Floyd playing #7 St Andrews at National a short par 5 of 478.  I was playing the back nine coming the other way. He was about 50 yards short in two in the fairway. Did not see his first two shots, but his drive may have been in the rough.

Earlier, I was in the greenside bunker on the right in two. The hole was downwind. I leave one in the bunker and then 2 putt for bogey 6.

Ray Flord popped a little wedge about 8-10 feet and made the putt for birdie after what I assume was a bad drive.

In a nutshell, short game and consistency in that order.

[Michael Moore]

Also, Ray Floyd was grinding and concentrating and not peering over into the next fairway wondering "I wonder how that tall chap is doing."

[Jordan Caron]

Mental Game
Short Game
Practice
Talent
Course Management

[tlavin]

The thread mentioned Howell, so my questions would be:

What makes Charles Howell III so damned average?

Why is he 95th on the money list?

[Kenny Baer]

I think Talent is so under-rated.  I think if I was given all the time in the world, the greatest coach, Bob Rotella, etc....I would never be good enough to be a pro and my index is 3.0.  Talent and the ability for your muscles to do something the same way over and over is what makes them so good.

[Paul Stephenson]

Mental Game
Short Game
Practice
Talent
Course Management

Ah Kenny you read my mind.

I like the list but would move Talent to #1 and then leave a couple of spaces.  I could do the first three until the cows came home and still not turn my 1 handicap into a game that I could live off of.

I wish it was that easy.  I'd buy a G10 and give up my job.

[Ken Moum]

Mental Game
Short Game
Practice
Talent
Course Management

Ah Kenny you read my mind.

I like the list but would move Talent to #1 and then leave a couple of spaces.  I could do the first three until the cows came home and still not turn my 1 handicap into a game that I could live off of.

I wish it was that easy.  I'd buy a G10 and give up my job.

I totally agree w/ you re. the talent component--it's very much under-appreciated

Our club pro doesn't play or practice--except for the occasional inter-club match where there's a Pro vs. Pro match.

So a few weeks ago he goes out and hits 10 balls to warm up and drops a 69 on the guys he's playing.

I couldn't do that if I hit balls like Vijay.

Ken

[Tom_Doak]

I agree with Jordan's list but I would put it in a different order:

Talent
Short Game
Mental Game
Practice
Course Management

Agree that talent is hard to pick up through practice ... but so is the short game!

[Rick Sides]

i used Charles Howell III as an example because he is so small and can hit the ball so far.

[Joe Bausch]

The thread mentioned Howell, so my questions would be:

What makes Charles Howell III so damned average?

Why is he 95th on the money list?

Without looking at the stats, I believe the Thin Man is an average putter at best.

But I would add the following:  having worked the Pennsylvania Classic tourney a handful of years ago as a marshall around the scorers tent, I got to see CHIII in action after his rounds.  He was so darn nice and accommodating to people wanting to see him and get autographs.  I was surprised b/c although most were kids and well meaning, many of the adults were pushy and just rude.  My read is that he is a fabulously nice guy.  And I wonder if he just doesn't quite have the intensity needed to reach into the elite level of his group.

[Ronald Montesano]

You great minds are forgetting the most important element, as expressed by Paul David Hewson, aka Bono:   DESIRE.

These guys want it more than you and I wish to breathe.  I guarantee you that if 99% of average golfers asking this question were given the opportunity to play and practice as much as needed, they would be done after one week.

The higher the stakes, the more the "pro" wants it.  Down to my last nickel?  Gimme more.  Spent my last nickel?  Gimme more.  Guy gonna shoot me with my last nickel?  Gimme more.  Desire is a sour witch; by the time many reach what they feel is what there is, it's not.  See David Duval for more.

Desire, desire, desire.  That comes first, before the other sirens and muses.

[Rick Sides]

You could put the 250th man on the money list and it doesn't matter. If anyone has ever played a course beyond 7,000 yards in tournament conditions and factor in the stress, its amazing that these guys can shoot the scores they shoot and do it consistently.

[mike_malone]

They are able to consistently hit the ball on the sweet spot with alot of clubhead speed.

[Bruce Katona]

CH 111 #96 on the Tour of perhaps 250 professionals.
What does #96 in the NBA, MLB, NFL, EPL Soccer make ?
If I were to guess, I would refer to be #96 on the MLB salary list for a few years rather than #96 on the PGA Tour.  More competition for comparibly less $$$ on the PGA Tour plus in most other professional sports if you get hurt, you still get paid.  Professional golfers are independent contarctors - no work, no pay.

[Rich Goodale]

The game of golf decieves in that all of us can drive a ball 250+ these days and hit more than the occasional approach shot close and sink the odd 30-ft curling putt, and we can even shoot close to par from time to time if we are single-figure handicaps.  If any reasonable player had a match with Tiger, the chances of being beaten 10 and 8 would be minimal (unless you name is Steven Ames....).  So, how many of us could:

1.  Get a game off Roger Federer, or even a point.
2.  Throw a baseball 50mph, or solidly hit a baseball thrown at 95mph.
3.  Touch the ball if substituted into an NBA game

The pros are damn good, but we are crap.  We just think we are good because we can hit a good shot from time to time.

[Sean_A]

Forget these guys being so damn good - we all know why they are.  I want to know why these guys stink it up at times?  That aspect is more amazing to me. 

Ciao

[Jim Nugent]

We have a few pros here on GCA.com.  Hopefully they will give their thoughts. 

[Jeff Spittel]

Talent has to be the most essential ingedient.

I could practice ten hours a day for the rest of my life and I still wouldn't have my name on my bag.

[David Panzarasa]

I agree with the short game, practice and more practice.
You have PGA pro's and other pro's like the one at your local club. I think the mental game and hunger are different with them.
To me, everyone keeps saying short game (which I do agree with), but long irons and hitting them like they are wedges is amazing to me. Being able to play long par 4's, long par 3's, using 5-4-3-2 irons at their ability and ease  is mind boggling to me.

I set camp on the first hole par 5 at Riviera for the Nissan Open this past year, and watching these pro's second shots was just so eye opening. They simply do it with ease, and thats a huge part of the game that gets overlooked. Not the driver or 3wood, but the long irons.

Their recovery and knowledge of hitting out of the rough (if the ball will spin or not, a potential "flyer", adding appropriate yardage out of the rough, knowing if the iron face will close or open etc...) is also big.
  

[Chuck Brown]

I heard a great line the other day, that is apropos here.  It was said,"The best players know how to hit their long irons high, and their short irons low."  I love that.  That is the thing that strikes many middling recreational golfers when they see really elite players up close.

[John Moore II]

They have natural talent, but they also work a lot more. I have played with guys with enough talent to play on tour. I have played with guys who have been exempted for a few years on tour. Hard work is a big part of it. I shot 32 on the front nine this past Saturday. I lost it on the back because I made one bad swing and couldn't recover. Thats what practice does, one swing doesn't kill the round, when I am practicing like I need (like) to, I can recover from bad swings, if not, I can't. Thats what makes these guys so good, they can recover from bad swings and bad shots better than the normal 1 or 2 handicap.

They also have 'it' between the ears. I once played with a guy who shot 64 goofing around with his son one afternoon. He never hit a bad shot and ran putts in from everywhere. We were playing the back tees, about 7200 yards. I watched him play at TPC Wakefield for the Rex Open Nationwide event, and he shot 79-75. He just doesn't have the mental toughness to play at that level.

The two keys: Mental toughness and hard work. Talent is certainly big, but I think a good number of people who worked as hard as Tiger or many other guys out there could be successful on some professional tour (not necessarily the PGA, but Euro, or Japan or somewhere).

[A.G._Crockett]

1. Anybody that you see playing a sport on TV has been touched by God, and given a talent level that the rest of us just cannot understand.  Much of that talent is physical, but there is a mental component as well; the two CANNOT be separated.

2. Incredible practice habits, at least in most cases.  Now and then you read about an exception, but the work ethic of great athletes in any sport is not understood by most people, either.

3. In the case of golf, next would come the ability to get up and down from anywhere.  Some guys make a living hitting the ball normal distances, but nobody survives in pro golf without a great short game.  Even the 150th ranked putter on Tour can putt the lights out by the standards that we mortals are used to.

4. The ability to hit it a long, long way with at least some accuracy.