Bob Rotella - Your 15th Club: The Inner Secret to Great Golf

Y our 15th Club is about believing in yourself when you play golf. Its about self-confidence rather than swing confidence. Its about seeing yourself as a winner. Its about trusting yourself when things are falling apart as well as when theyre coming together. Its about letting yourself go low when you have a chance to go low, about letting yourself win when you have a chance to win, about scoring and getting the ball in the hole regardless of how you are hitting the ball.

This book is about respecting your game and your talent. Its about winning the battle within yourself. Its about never wandering and never wavering during a round. Its about never giving in and never giving up. Its about having pride in a strong, tough mind. Its about loving the challenge of playing the game.

Im going to be demanding of you. Im going to ask you to take an honest look at the self no one else knows. Im going to ask you to face the challenge of the game and decide to believe in yourself. Im going to ask for a commitment to a regimen. This regimen will allow you to develop the sort of mind that wins in golfand to maintain it.

In return, you will find new joy in the game you love.

The commitment I speak of is not easy. Not everyone is up to the challenge. But if you think you are up to it, youre just the sort of person I love to work with.

Welcome.

P adraig Harrington helped crystallize my reason for writing this book. Padraig is a very thoughtful, analytical man. Hes been a client and a friend for ten years, but I wouldnt call myself his mental coach or his sports psychologist. Padraig and I have conversations. My role usually amounts to listening to the things hes figured out and nodding my head. I learn as much from Padraig as he learns from me.

Not long ago, Padraig mentioned that he recommends the book I wrote in 1994, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect , to the people he plays with, including fellow pros. I was intrigued, and not just because word of mouth is the best advertising. I know that Padraig is a friendly, generous fellow, but I also know that hes a competitor down to the bone. I know he thought Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect had helped him, so I was curious as to why hed recommend the book to players who were trying to take away what he hasthe top ranking among European players.

Im not worried if someone reads it, he said when I asked him about it. Thats fine. Its an easy read. Theyll enjoy it. Theyll gain from it. But they wont get the real benefit unless they live itand thats the hard part. So I can tell my competitors to go and read Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect and I know Im not giving anything up unless they actually do the work.

Padraigs statement meshed with thoughts Id been having for a while. As a sports psychologist, I go to my clients as often as they come to me, especially after Ive been working with them for some time. Since many of them are tournament golfers, I see them at tournament venuesgenerally on the putting green or the practice range. Players who have worked with me often need only a quick conversation to clear up a specific question and prepare their minds for a competitive round.

Frequently, as I move down the range or around the green, I chat with players who arent clients, at least not in the traditional sense. They may not have worked with me personally, but theyve read Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect or another of my books on golf and the mind. Theyre generally complimentary. Increasingly, though, in recent years, Ive heard something like this:

Doc, I read Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect eight years ago, and it really helped me. I was able to play my best golf in the clutch, coming down the stretch. In fact, I won a couple of times right after I read it. But lately, it doesnt seem to be working as well. I think you ought to write another book.

This is that book. But its not going to be another iteration of Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect or any of its sequels.

Im afraid I may have been inadvertently misleading in those books. Its not that they contain any misinformation. They dont. When I wrote Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect , I conveyed the truth about the mental side of golf under pressure, truth Id learned working in several sports and field-tested over fifteen years with professional golfers. Those years of field-testing have now stretched close to thirty, and Im more convinced than ever about what works for golfers. Youve got to follow your dreams. You will become what you think about yourself. Youve got to train your swing, then trust it. Youve got to accept the mistakes that inevitably happen on the golf course. Youve got to manage your temper as well as the course. Youve got to fall in love with the short game, the part of golf that most heavily impacts scoring. Above all, you must be confident.

But in my previous books, as Padraig and other pros have helped me realize, I failed to stress one very important aspect of the mental game. I may have left the impression that mastering the mental game was like riding a bicycle, something you could learn and then always be able to do.

Its not. The fact is that having the sort of mind that stands up to clutch situations and wins golf tournaments is much more like having a fit body. Yes, you have to work to reach a desired level of fitness. But, once youre there, you have to work to keep it. Your body will slide back into softness and weakness if you dont continue to work out. Your mental game, too, will become soft and weak if you dont continue to monitor it and work on it. Thats the work Padraig was talking about.