Love Golf? How to Qualify For the US Open – A Case Study

This time of the year, I get calls from many golfers who want to qualify for the US Open. Many of the golfers who reach out to me are club pros, teaching pros, college coaches and assistant professionals. For the most part, they are talented players, but only a few have the physical and the mental skills to succeed at this level. Remember,one bad shot or one bad hole can sometimes kill a great round.

Qualifying for the US Open is made more difficult because many of the rounds are played on some tough courses. I have seen many fine players humbled by these difficult venues.

The golfers who come to see me for help are all looking for more confidence, focus and for some kind of mental edge for this big event.

To help golfers prepare for this kind of challenge, I like to watch them play a round on a tough course. I tell them that they need to shoot a sixty nine for the day. This is a respectable score and this number places some pressure on them.

This helps me to see how they handle this kind of challenge. It makes no sense to watch golfers at this level play a leisurely round. They will not learn anything and nor will I learn anything about their game without some pressure on them.

Several weeks ago, I watched one of my clients, Pedro Benenati, a golf pro who teaches at Drive 495 in New York, play the course at Ridgewood Country Club in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

I have known Pedro for about eight months. He is a talented player and a wonderful person. He is not as long a hitter as some players I have coached, but he has a very good short game and he knows golf very well. In fact, I am trying to help him to attract some additional sponsors as his mental toughness improves.

I watched Pedro carefully. He wound up shooting a 75 on aerated greens. This was not bad, but he needs to make a few adjustments to reach that magic number of 69.

After the round, we spoke in great detail about how he can improve mentally. To remind him of the key points, I e-mailed Pedro ten tips after the round in New Jersey.

These guidelines had to with his confidence, his self-talk, his breathing, his level of aggressiveness, risk taking, pre-shot routine, goal setting and his focus on his putting.

There is very little that he needs to learn about the mechanics of the game. At his level, at this point, in his career, winning is about what is going on between his ears.

Pedro, who is from a family of golf pros, is very cooperative and compliant and he told me he is now integrating these techniques into his game when we spoke this week. He is feeling comfortable and playing well.

Another key issue is peaking at the right time. You do not want to over train or to under train prior to a major event. This is a delicate balance and the right level of training is different for each professional. Sometimes, it can be hard to find the right training time, energy and regime.

The qualifying events are a few weeks away, so Pedro and I are hopeful that he will achieve his goals and his dreams in 2009.