Expect some misses, and don’t get derailed:
I was leading the 2003 Jeld-Wen Tradition—a major on the Champions Tour—in the last round when I hit my second shot on the par-5 16th hole into the water. It was just a terrible shot. A lot of the time something like that would ruin a player’s confidence and result in more bad shots or tentative play. How do you forget a bad hole and not let it bring you down? It’s a challenge at every level of play.
I had learned from years of experience with this intriguing little game of ours to simply put it out of my mind. There was nothing I could do to replay the shot, so why worry about it?
Walter Hagen said he expected to hit seven bad shots a round. I told myself that this was one of mine. I’ve always tried to bounce back from a poor hole with a good hole. “Bounce Back” is even a stat on the PGA Tour now.
After bogeying 16, I parred 17 and then birdied the final hole to win by a stroke over Tom Kite, Gil Morgan and Jim Ahern. I didn’t allow the bad hole to spoil my attitude the rest of the way.
SEVEN SINS — Walter Hagen (above) said he never let bad shots drag him down. In fact, he allowed for seven miscues per round.
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