Managing the Highs and Lows of Life on the PGA Tour

Coping with those highs and lows, I am learning, is one of the most difficult things to master when you play on the PGA Tour every week. The golf has been hard over these last few weeks but it's even harder when you're low on sleep and high on the excitement of winning a tournament. After I won the Greenbrier Classic, I was on the road the very next day to play two huge tournaments in a row. After the first one, my buddy Kenny Perry called me to see how I was holding up. "You sound dead," he said. That was exactly how I felt.

Not exactly the best state of mind when you're heading into your first major. (In an ideal world, I wouldn't have played at all for a few weeks before the major.)

For much of the time over the last month I've been on a constant high, then all of a sudden I'd need to force myself back down to earth to play again.

When I played in Akron, Ohio, I met one guy who has to be one of the best examples of a PGA champion who's learned to handle the highs and lows gracefully -- which might explain why he's the top-ranked player in the world.

I was paired with British golfer Luke Donald. For being the No. 1 player in the world, Donald doesn't have the flashiest game out there; in fact, he doesn't even hit the ball that far, though he is an unbelievable putter. But he plays a smart and consistent game. He's strategic in everything he does -- right down to his practice routine -- and that's what helps him stay grounded.

While we were playing I talked to Donald and his caddy about what they do to warm up before a tournament. It goes something like this: His caddy arrives first to draw a diagram of the location of all the flags on the range and the distance to each of them. When Donald gets there, they go over the diagram and then move to the driving range where his caddy has set up 13 piles of five balls. He works his way through each pile, chips and putts for a few minutes, and then they're done. It's almost as though they have it timed down to the exact minute. According to his caddy, ever since they switched to a short but intensely focused practice session, Donald has been better able to get -- and keep -- his head in the game. Plus, he's also learned that when it comes to dealing with things off the course, he needs to schedule them on his time rather than on someone else's schedule.

So now I'm trying to do the same. My practices have become shorter, more precise and more consistent during the week. And I no longer do media interviews in the middle of the day, which was having a serious effect on my practice schedule and my ability to focus.

You can't predict the highs on Tour -- that's part of what makes them so exciting -- but you can temper them by sticking to a set of practices and habits no matter what else happens.

Of course, there are only so many things you can control. You have to know that some things are totally out of your hands -- like when a tournament is so crowded that it takes 40 minutes to drive the three miles between your hotel and the course; or when there are so many people and players on the course that it takes three and half hours to play nine practice holes.

Learning how to deal with those unpredictabilities is still a work in progress.

Flickr photo courtesy of Andreia, CC 2.0