Fighting for peace of mind
The US Open was a psychological turning point for two of Bob Rotella's clients, says Dermot Gilleece
The tinkering is at an end. According to his mental coach, Pádraig Harrington is ready to turn his back on recent experiments and re-focus on making a worthy defence of the Open Championship at Turnberry next month.
"Sometimes you do things that work out and sometimes you try things that don't," said Dr Bob Rotella. "And though I think Pádraig got a little bit lost trying to get better, I absolutely loved where he was at the end of last week, even in missing the cut."
Rotella also made some fascinating observations about another of his clients, David Duval. Among them was the vision of last Monday's joint runner-up at Bethpage Black, sitting with the Claret Jug in his Lytham hotel room as the newly-crowned Open champion of 2001, thoroughly desolate and bemused.
Both players had the American psychologist by their side at various times during US Open week, telling him their innermost thoughts. And after one such session, Rotella found himself remarking to a TV pundit: "Duval is going to play great this week. He's back."
On reflection, his assessment of Harrington was less specific. "Pádraig and I felt good that he was finally back to being totally committed to just going and playing golf," he said. "And stopping. . ." There was a pause before Rotella added: "You know he has that analytical tendency which is part of his strength and also part of his weakness. And every once in a while it's going to get him."
He explained: "After achieving great success, it's not uncommon for players to tell themselves 'Now I want to get really good'. Gradually, however, they find out that they're already good enough and that they should stay with what they've got.
"But Pádraig is not the type of player who would see this quest for change as a mistake. Rather would he view it as part of a process. Either way, I think he left Bethpage looking forward to the next couple of weeks and being where he wants to be by the British."
In a golfing context, nobody knows Harrington better. He shared a house with Team Harrington in 2007 during the week of the memorable Open breakthrough at Carnoustie. From that experience, Rotella gained so much respect for the Dubliner that an entire chapter of his latest book Your 15th Club carries the title 'What I learned from Padraig Harrington'.
So he had no problem in telling his notoriously analytical client that his recent experiment was something he pretty much had to go through. "I told him, 'Pádraig, it's going to happen to you every so often and you now realise it's not a switch you can just turn on and off'," he said.
Rotella added: "It's probably the case that he has to try some things to find out that he shouldn't have tried them. But by the British, I'm sure he'll be right, mentally and emotionally. There will be no more fiddling around. Whether he gets the result he wants remains to be seen, but when it's all over, he'll be able to look in the mirror and know whether it was his turn to win again. That's what he chases."
Turning to Duval, I recalled his admission in 2003: "You figure winning a major might make you feel on top of the world for a long time, and then you realise it doesn't." And I suggested the player's thoughts on that fateful night in Lytham were captured beautifully by the evocative Peggy Lee ballad, Is that all there is?
"That's it exactly," enthused Rotella. "After giving a nice speech, David went back to his hotel room and somewhere during the night it hit him. Where he should have been the happiest person in the world, there was nobody to love and to share his success with.
"Having sacrificed everything, he was on his own with this cold, inanimate trophy. In that instant, he decided he wanted more from life. On his return to the States, he would go find love and have a family and get his life together. Which is exactly what he did over the next seven years."
So it was that Duval married Susan, who already had three children, Deano, Nick and Shalene, and they have since had two further children together, Brayden and Sienna Violet. In the meantime, the player averaged a modest 15 tournaments a year from 2004 to 2007, giving serious thought only 18 months ago to getting his golf game back. All of which brought him to Bethpage without a top-10 finish since 2002.
"On the Monday at Bethpage his confidence shone through for the first time in a long time," said Rotella. "During the previous week in Memphis, he found he was totally trusting his driver again and generally feeling good. All he had to do was sharpen up his putting and he was ready."
Though it is widely known that Duval had a difficult upbringing, which involved the death of his brother through leukaemia, there is another, more general reason behind the emotional void he felt in Lytham. As in the fact that Jack Nicklaus, for instance, was a devotee of American football before turning exclusively to golf.
Rotella made the point that Duval's was the first generation of elite American golfers to spend virtually every waking moment practising the game, to the exclusion of all other sports. This dramatic social change was fuelled by the growing financial attraction of tournament golf.
"You see it fairly often these days, golfers suddenly realising they want to have a life," he said. "I've talked to many athletes who work their tail off, sacrificing everything to chase this Holy Grail. And when success is achieved, they find it's not what they thought it would be. Though it probably changed the way they were perceived by the world, it didn't change the way they felt about themselves.
"It's a very healthy aspiration to want to be happy and have peace of mind. And I think David has that now. When he played his best golf, there was nothing in his mind only the trajectory; the target. He was back thinking that way at Bethpage, which I have to say surprised me. And he almost won the thing.
"The next step will be whether he's interested enough to compete every week or to peak just for the majors. Up to now, with his family as a priority especially during the school year, he hasn't wanted to play more than two weeks in a row.
"Perhaps his motivation may come from a desire to prove to his family that David Duval is a great golfer. He has never shown them videos of his British Open win or Ryder Cup win. Now, rather than talk about what he once did, he can show them what he can still do. That was part of what he achieved last week."
Rotella concluded: "A really lovely image for me from Bethpage was to see him standing on the 18th green during the presentation ceremony holding his little kid. That pretty much said it all in terms of what's important to him right now."
Harrington and Duval . . . sharply contrasting characters with a shared trust in the same psychologist. And travelling fascinating routes in pursuit of further, major glory.
Footnote: Those who wondered at the soggy nature of Bethpage Black should know that it was essentially defenceless against the elements. Greens superintendent Craig Currier admitted there is absolutely no sub-soil drainage and that when surface water gathered on the first and 18th fairways the only option was to pump it onto the Green Course, 750 yards away. Which would suggest that American course managers are ill-prepared for the type of persistent rain more common to these shores.
