Tuning set for an evening of basketball , a teenage Pickens stared at his TV in amazement as a man chatted with NBA icons Karl Malone plus John Stockton within the Utah Jazz gym.
That same man, revealed to be a sports psychologist for the team, was then shown boarding the Jazz’s private plane as the team jetted off to handle the Los Angeles La lakers, where he sat courtside at The Forum — directly behind the particular bench — eating popcorn and sipping soda.
“As a 17-year-old kid in countryside South Carolina I’m considering, ‘they’re paying this guy? ‘” Pickens informed CNN.
“‘This is ridiculous. I want to do that due to the fact that doesn’t look like a work. ‘”
And so started a journey that has seen “Dr. Mo” help coach expert athletes across a variety of sports — from your NFL to Nascar. But his accurate home has always been on the fairway.
A keen golfer in the youth, Pickens penned a dissertation upon “The Acquisition of Putting Confidence” en route to receiving his Ph. M. in sport psychology from the University associated with Virginia. Since then he’s forged a name as one of golf’s best psychologists, working with some of the game’s biggest celebrities across a 27-year career.
A star-studded customers has racked up 28 PGA Visit victories while dealing with Pickens, headlined along with four major triumphs by Zach Johnson, Lucas Glover, and Stewart Cink.
With the highly anticipated 150th Open up Championship at St Andrews, Scotland, set to start July 14, Pickens is well-placed to offer insight into what it takes in order to lift the Claret Jug.
Mere months right after beginning work with Pickens in 2009, Cink clinched their first major at the 138th edition of the occasion. Six years later on, Johnson — a 16-year client of Pickens — won with St Andrews for his second major success.
Fittingly, both players won via nail-biting four-hole playoffs. For Pickens, trying to replicate game-day pressure is the biggest challenge he confronts as a sports psychologist. Try as he may — talk via it and run demanding drills — there is simply no method for Pickens to simulate the psychological strain of an event, let alone a major-deciding playoff.
“It’s almost impossible — mainly because it’s a physiological point — to get their particular adrenaline going such as it’s going to be going Sunday, ” Pickens said.
However, the psychologist’s attempts seem to get the best out of Johnson, a self-confessed hypercompetitive individual who relishes Pickens’ practice wagers that risk small sums to the outcome.
“I just love to compete, I love something that drives me to try to better myself, ” Johnson said in the video on Pickens’ internet site.
“I’m normally trying something I am just doing in my exercise so that when it comes to the bottom line of competing, week in week out on tour, I know I’ve been there before. We’ve seen it, I have felt it, and I can be successful. inch
Mind management
The ability to train effectively touches on what Pickens believes to be the two critical mental qualities required of elite golfers: discipline as well as the ability to control the mind.
It may seem paradoxical, but Pickens says the biggest emotional challenge facing golfers as they swing is simply that the ball is stationary.
Whereas in soccer or tennis, players’ thoughts and related actions are instinctively occupied by the relocating ball, golfers — forced to consciously fill this mental quiet — must rather train themselves to “occupy their thoughts. ” Cross-sport evaluations can be found in basketball’s totally free throw and baseball’s pitching.
In essence, this is what Pickens’ role boils down to — helping players to manage their mind, especially in the critical five to six seconds prior to the swing. Like a type of meditation, players need to know precisely what thoughts are usually coming through their particular heads.
“Some players count, ” Pickens explains. “Walk in. 1, club behind the ball. Two, ft down. Three, consider the target. Four, back to the ball. 5, back swing. 6, through swing.
“If you have consistency in the insight from your thinking, you do have a better chance to obtain consistency from your result to hit the photo. ”
For Johnson, who had suspected there was something “off” in his game prior to working with Pickens in 2006, the recommendations stuck immediately and has endured throughout his 24-year pro career.
“I thought I had a good routine, I thought it had been consistent, I thought it was repeatable, but it had been anything but that, inch Johnson said in the video on Pickens’ website.
“It was extremely inconsistent, it was not really thought out, it did not allow me to play at my best nor made it happen give me confidence plus consistency shot-to-shot. inch
Similar techniques helped Cink to clear his brain from an over-fixation on results, the American says inside a video on Pickens’ website. At 49 years old, Cink is constantly on the add to his eight PGA Tour benefits, claiming a third RBC Heritage title within April 2021.
Meanwhile, controlling the mind was a training that a hot-headed young Glover — US Open champion in 2009 — picked up quickly when he started working with Pickens after away from Clemson University in 2001.
“I learned immediately that my state of mind was affecting my rounds a little too much, ” Glover said in a video for the psychologist’s website. “Dr. Mo basically taught me that it was ok to get upset plus mad but to let it go quickly and do not let it affect the following shot. ”
Discipline
However , the opportunity to occupy the mind will be nothing without disciplined practice, Pickens claims.
Instead of going out and simply striking some balls, best professionals must be laser-focused in their training. Crucially, as with the pre-swing routine, players need to remove emotion off their practice — not only reflecting on a good or bad day but dispassionately analyzing their overall performance.
For Pickens, this is one of Johnson’s most exemplary — even though often misunderstood — assets.
“It’s not that Zach doesn’t have feelings. Sometimes people misinterpret and think this individual didn’t have them, ” Pickens explains. “He’s just really good on managing them plus focusing on what he wants to focus on.
“And your dog is incredible at going ‘ok, this is what I wish to get done and here’s how I’m going to go do it. ‘
“A wide range of people call by themselves pros but they still just go play golf. The guys that make it, they understand, ‘I need to treat this just like a job. ‘”