Golf and tennis routines
Keep it simple: the use of cue words
Golf and tennis are individual sports: you are alone against the course, or you are alone against another player. In these sports there is a lot of time between shots, so in both you need a specific type of thinking - routine thoughts - to make sure you get back to the present moment.
In 2014 after winning the British Open Rory McIlroy revealed his key mantra that led him to his tournament victory. His secret formula turned out to be two words: ‘process’ and ‘spot’.
‘It’s going to be a big letdown for everyone. It was `process’ and `spot.’ That was it. With my long shots, I just wanted to stick to my process and stick to making good decisions, making good swings. The process of making a good swing, if I had any sort of little swing thoughts, just keeping that so I wasn’t thinking about the end result, basically. “
The spot was about his putting:
“I was just picking a spot on the green and trying to roll it over my spot. I wasn’t thinking about holing it. I wasn’t thinking about what it would mean or how many further clear it would get me. I just wanted to roll that ball over that spot. If that went in, then great. If it didn’t, then I’d try it the next hole.” (https://www.golfchannel.com/article/golf-central-blog/mcilroys-keys-victory-process-and-spot)
Even though on the surface it may be very simple, there is tons of sport psychology research behind these two words. Interestingly enough, the lesson can be easily applied to tennis psychology as well. Another thing about these two words is that it may be easy to learn them by heart, but to use the approach systematically throughout the whole session or a tournament is a different story. It takes a rigorous attitude and tremendous mental discipline to obtain such a type of narrow focus.
So what hides behind the ‘process’ word is the pre-shot routine, taking pressure off result thoughts and calming down the mind to accomplish more accuracy. Pre-shot stress makes players lose their normal precision, so finding a way to dissociate from the score seems key. Keeping the mind within a narrow focus and a small goal to concentrate on is what both tennis players and golfers try to achieve through daily mental work. A skilled performer will avoid overthinking at every cost. In tennis an example of the ‘process’ routine might be bouncing the ball before serving or serve visualisation.
The cue word ‘spot’ makes the golfer think about his closer target, a way to get to the end result instead of the end result, meaning the hole in this case. So it is more about what to do in the preparation stage, finding one clear process goal to help him get to his outcome. In the context of tennis, a case in point would be keeping height over the net and playing with margin.
To sum up, there is a wealth of insight that can be taken from Mcllroy’s cue words, not only for better golfing, but also for tennis mental trainings. Generally, in theory we know we need to follow the process to optimally perform, but what Mcllroy does is actually helping how it can be done in practice. And that it works, his 2014 trophy proves the point well:)
