Today's Top Players Have Learned to Play Imperfectly to Get Perfect Results
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — You don’t have to be perfect to succeed.
It seems obvious but for most professional golfers it’s something they must experience and embrace, sometimes more than once, before success can follow.
The next two weeks, at the Scottish Open and the British Open, will test the theory of perfection versus inadequacy as weather, turf and the draw can take a perfectly grooved swing and turn it into shambles.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has played a lot of near-perfect golf this season, but it all started with a bogey-filled start in Phoenix.
Malcolm Mackenzie/Golffile
Experiencing links golf is exactly that, converting varying conditions into harmony, controlling your golf ball in some of the most difficult and potentially hazardous conditions and creating a proficiency that is hoped for.
Bottom line: These two weeks will be the true definition of links golf.
“So, it's just golf, it happens.” Jon Rahm said of the issues with links golf. “And champions have come through that weather, so it's not impossible. It's just what is expected. It happens. It happens in a lot of tournaments we play. There's always a difference one wave to the next.
"But out here, the difference is quite a few strokes, and it is what it is. As a player, you have to adapt and sometimes it's just out of your control.”
Rahm has won 13 times on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, including the 2021 U.S. Open, all while at the tender age of 27.
Known as a player who could easily get red under the collar in college at Arizona State University and early in his professional career, Rahm learned to take results as they come, either shot-by-shot, hole-by-hole or round-by-round.
Rahm learned that the idea of perfection being unnecessary to succeed came to the Spaniard earlier than most, but perfecting his imperfections of temperament on the course still took a little time.
“A long time ago,” was Rahm’s response when asked when he learned about not needing to be perfect. “I wasn't a good ball striker, even remotely good, until my junior year in college. My whole life, I would describe myself more as a competitor to where you go to the course with what you have, and you have to try to shoot the lowest score you can ... Spanish golf.”
Rahm, like many players from Spain, grew up with a short game that bailed him out when necessary.
Current U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick is another that used his short game to bail him out of poor ball striking.
Winning the 2013 U.S. Amateur at The Country Club, the Sheffield, England, teenager used that short game to announce his arrival in championship golf.
At the time, Fitzpatrick wasn’t aware of the perfect theory, but just ran the tables at a golf course that fit his eye.
Jump nine years later and Fitzpatrick wins another major championship on the same golf course, but with nine more years of knowledge and experience.
Oddly enough, Fitzpatrick won his U.S. Open with the best part of his game — the putter — not perfect, but good enough.
“I think probably certainly early in my career, to win a golf tournament, I had this image in my head, you've got to hit every green and make a couple putts, and everything's got to go smoothly,” Fitzpatrick said. “But realistically, there's some bad holes in there. Everyone makes bogeys. Everyone makes birdies. It's about just having the patience to just keep trying to hit the good shots and play smart and take your chances and take your breaks when you get them.”
Most players talk about what they learn from losing and hopefully apply that experience or information successfully at the next opportunity.
Scottie Scheffler started the year 12th in the world but had not won. At only 25, it seemed just a matter of time that the Texas native would breakthrough.
Now, with four wins, two runner-ups and a Masters championship before turning 26, Scheffler is the top-ranked player in the world and he looks back to his first win in Phoenix for learning about playing perfect.
“I've learned from winning golf tournaments that I don't always have to play perfect,” Scheffler said. “I usually kind of look back to my experience in Phoenix, my first win, where I made like four bogeys I think in the first 12 holes on a golf course where you have to shoot under par to win, and if you told me a year ago that I could win coming from behind in the final round in Phoenix making four bogeys, I wouldn't have believed you. I just hit the right shots at the right time and was able to win the tournament.”
For Scheffler, perfect and focus are linked. If he has a high level of focus, he gives himself more opportunities. Naturally, if he takes shots, holes or even rounds off, then his results are less than ideal.
“I viewed things as being — too easy is a terrible way to put it,” Scheffler said of how he lacked focus dependent on difficulty of the shot. “But sometimes you get up there and you're like, 'oh, this is an easy shot, pin is in the middle of the green and I don't have to focus as much.' But oh, wait, that's golf and it's still really hard, like I have to be extremely tuned into what I'm trying to do with the golf ball. I need a shot.”
Golf is not a game of perfect. If it were, rounds in the 50s would be commonplace and not extraordinary.
Instead, at the professional level, the game is truly 99% mental and words like "focus" and "perfection" are hard to attain. But it’s when you’re not on your game that the best find a way to overcome.
“That's the life of a golfer,” Rahm said. “You're not always going to be feeling your best and on those days when you're not at your best, somehow, somehow, try to post it under par.”