This past weekend Adam Scott won the EDS Byron Nelson Championship in extra holes by draining a 48 footer for birdie. It was an incredible shot, one of the best of the week. However, it is also completely illogical. How do you miss 12-15 footers all day and then drop a interstate bomb?

There are many ways to read a putt. You can pick a line, aim for a point, find the apex, etc. Each method works as long as you accurately see the contours of the putting surface. Unfortunately, for most amateurs they never get to see if their read was correct because they do not put a good stroke on the ball.

The hole is approximately four and a quarter inches wide. It is a little wider than the width of your hand. That is pretty wide. So here is the current problem in mindsets for just about everyone not getting paid to play. The hole is fairly wide but the fixation during putting is on a point or a line. Essentially, the golfer takes a small target and makes it smaller.

It all comes down to the visualization of the putt. How wide is the line or how big is the point you aim for before you commit to the swing. Chances are the putt you are about hit has been made more difficult due to the restriction placed on the desired path. Next time you putt, allow for a little more room for error. If you focus on a line to the hole, imagine the line is 4.25 inches wide. That is probably a nice big boulevard compared to the razor line you normally visualize. This will relax your stroke preventing pushes or shorts.

Everyone knows practice makes perfect. Some may argue only perfect practice makes perfect but I think everyone agrees that repetition builds skill sets. Most coaches operate under the philosophy if you want to get better at something do it more. For example, if you want to run faster then run more, to get stronger lift more, etc. Yet, this does not seem to apply to all facets of competition.

Take for instance the free throw. Other than screaming fans waving whatever they can get their hands on, the shot is totally uncontested. The distance to the basket is always the same, height of the basket is always the same and size of the basket is always the same. Which brings up the conundrum.

One of the greatest active players is Kobe Bryant. Love him or hate him, his skill set is exceptional. He can control his body and the basketball with surgical precision but lets focus on his foul shooting. He has a career average of about 84%. By all accounts this is a great percentage. However, if repetition was the sole reason for improvement than one would expect year after year his free throw numbers to improve. Unfortunately, this is not the case. During the 1998-99 season he shot almost 84% but the following year he shot 82%. Clearly, factors beyond mechanical repetition are at work.

The key to improvement in a controlled situation like a free throw or 3-foot putt is to go beyond the mechanical requirements and simulate the situation. A free throw in an empty gym is no big deal just as a gimme putt on the practice green is automatic. However, what about a free throw with seconds left and your team is down by one. Or a short putt that will force a playoff in a major. Therefore, to maximize the repetition of practice an athlete must visualize the most stressful situation they will encounter. This is what creates perfect practice, the attention to details you will be subjected to during competition.

The human body is very adept at protecting itself from physical harm. That bump on your head will automatically swell up to promote healing. In order to be successful in team sports you have to untrain the flinch when a ball flies at you. Through years of evolution these reactions have been planted into our central nervous system to protect our well being so we can continue our species. However, the mind is far more fickle.

If you have ever had food poisoning you know how thoroughly the body will purge the toxins in an effort to protect itself. Yet the mind seems to work in the exact opposite manner. Ask an athlete to recall an error or instance of choking and they will produce a recollection with amazing clarity. On the other hand, an instance of triumph seems to be a giant blur. There are several theories as to why the mind does this but the important thing to know is you can break the cycle.

Everyday we support habits that largely go unnoticed. From signing your name to putting on your right shoe first we engrain common tasks to the point where they are completely on autopilot. Just for fun try putting on your left shoe first or step into your pants with the opposite leg you normally do. It feels weird. That is the way the mind works. Neurons that fire together wire together. When you depart from that path you are in uncharted territory. It feels weird because it is unknown and the next step needs to be thought through, it’s no longer automatic.

You can apply this from tasks to your overall manner of thinking as well. Most people find it very easy to recall embarrassing moments. This is because most people have not taken the time to train their mind. They just cruise through on autopilot and moments that created the greatest negative emotional reactions plant themselves firmly in the memory. Fortunately, it does not have to be like that.

First, you need to be aware of the thoughts swirling through your head. Just like being aware of which shoe you put on first you need to know exactly what you are thinking. Then you need to identify the thoughts. Are the thoughts in your head helping you? From there you can begin to make changes.

Every Sunday on the PGA Tour you see athletes succumb to their own thoughts. A player will begin the round a few shots back and by the end of the day they have played themselves completely out of contention. They allow their thoughts to run on autopilot and paid the price.  Instead, use your mind to your advantage. Be aware of your thoughts and the resulting actions so you can develop positive thinking habits that will eventually run on autopilot.

The game is on the line and the coach calls for a flea-flicker. It’s the bottom of the ninth and they signal for a hit and run to get the winning run into scoring position. Or, there’s a par 5 and your going for the green in two. Constantly, situations in sports present themselves in which a little risk will carry a big reward.

As it happens, you or your team takes the risk to gain an advantage. Departing from normal behavior immediately increases anxiety levels and stress but something must be done to turn the odds in your favor. Obviously, whatever task or series of maneuvers you attempt is possible to some degree. It all comes down to the flawless execution.

Execution of this risk comes down to the belief that what you are about to do will yield positive results. This belief is called self or collective efficacy depending on whether it is in the context of a team or individual sport. You build efficacy through one of three avenues: individual, vicarious, and collective.

In an individual sport, such as golf, you believe you can make the shot because you have either made the shot before or someone with an equal skill set has made the shot. The best situation is if you have already done something similar and it turned out positive. Therefore, you know you can do it because you have done it before. Now, if you have never attempted it before then you can rely on other people’s experiences to guide you. Lets say you have a teammate or friend with the same handicap (again, in the context of golf) and they just hit the shot. You know that their skill set is very similar to yours and if they can do it so can you. This is vicarious efficacy and should give you enough confidence to attempt the task and then you will have your own data to verify your belief.

For a team, individual and vicarious efficacies remain true but collective efficacy also comes into play. If you have never attempted a flea-flicker in a game but the people around did it last season then you rely on their confidence to increase your belief of success. Individuals in a team setting feed off of the confidence around them through verbal and non-verbal cues that are highly subconscious but very effective.

Knowing that efficacy is the greatest determinant in behavior gives the player and coach a foundation for their training. Achieving desired results stems from a practice plan built around increasing the individual efficacy through mastery as well as using more skilled players as examples to create vicarious efficacy. More important than building up physical conditioning or memorizing tactics is building up efficacy in each player so they believe they can accomplish their task in any situation.  

In 1985, Gilovich, Vallone and Tversky produced a paper outlining the probabilities of a basketball player making a shot after making several before. The idea being once a player has made consecutive shots then they have the hot hand and will be more likely to make the next shot. While intuitively this seems to make sense, they found that each shot is an independent event.

If a player has a field goal percentage of 55% then every shot they take has a 55% chance of going in. Regardless of the previous misses or makes their shooting percentage will converge to their average. Even though this appears to go against the fabled zone so many great players say they experience, Gilovich et al. produced the data to prove it.

Applied to real sporting events, this data and research has done little to change the perception of athletes. In an intricate motor sequence like shooting a basketball, pitching a baseball, or swinging a golf club the participant does not worry about the probabilities immediately before action. The focus is on their belief of being able to accomplish the task at hand. If a player has data from the immediate past that shows they are capable of producing desired results they will carry that confidence with them. Observers and/or teammates will see their confidence and feed off of it.

One of the greatest shooting performances in recent history was Kobe Bryant’s 81 points against the Toronto Raptors. When the dust settled, Bryant had shot 60% from the field compared to his average of about 45%. It was an incredible game but as the season progressed his numbers converged to his average like Gilovich et al. predicted. However, what their report did not measure was the confidence gained by the team knowing they had a teammate that could completely take over a game. So while the cold hard numbers tell a tidy story it does not address the unquantifiable beliefs the team has of each other.