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BEN Hogan was one of the five golf Grand Slam winners that existed prior to Sunday night.
Famed for his work ethic, Hogan also leaned heavily on his self-confidence.
His British Open success came at Carnoustie in 1953.
When he arrived, he told the media that he was there to win it because he didn’t plan on ever returning.
That was what was in his head.
Hogan won the Open.
And then he never played in it again.
Did he win it just because he believed he would? No.
First, he had to be at least close to good enough.
That’s the bit we so often miss when it comes to sports psychology.
Hogan’s story is recounted by Bob Rotella in one of his books, How Champions Think: In Sports and In Life.
If you haven’t already heard of Rotella, you will know of him by the end of this week.
Rory McIlroy is the newest member of the Grand Slam club and the latest success story for golf’s pre-eminent psychologist.
His clients in the sport have claimed more than 75 Majors between them.
It’s not all him, far from it, but if what he does wasn’t valued then Rory McIlroy would not be talking to him day and daily.
The fullness of time will reveal the part that he played in McIlroy’s Masters success.
Over the weekend, Rotella was interviewed on both Sky Sports and BBC Radio 5Live.
He talked in pretty generic terms, steering away from the details of his conversations with the Holywood man.
Rotella often references Mark Twain’s quote that ‘the inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember’.
He said on Sky that he and McIlroy never talk about the scar tissue of previous Masters meltdowns.
Rotella’s entire philosophy is grounded in one simple concept: positivity.
McIlroy’s opening round had ended in near disaster.
He double-bogeyed at the 15th and 17th.
When he spoke to Rotella that evening, they talked about how well he had done to par the 16th and how great his lay-up on 18 was.
He’d still finished the day on par. Nothing more, nothing less. Three more days to go.
The second chapter of Rotella’s book on champions is entitled ‘Learning to Be Optimistic’.
“I don’t believe that people are born either optimistic or pessimistic, the way they’re born right-handed or left-handed. Optimism is an attitude that people can choose to have,” he wrote.
Bob Rotella didn’t teach Rory McIlroy how to swing a club.
He didn’t coach LeBron James how to shoot a three-pointer.
At the end of his rookie year in the NBA, he was lamenting that his less-than-one-in-three ratio from behind the three-point line was something that opposition teams were only too happy to remind him of.
“Other teams know I can’t make the three, so they won’t even guard me. They just look at me and talk trash to me and say ‘go ahead and take it. We know you can’t make it and you know you can’t make it’,” LeBron once said.
Rotella didn’t teach him to shoot.
Nor did he psycho-analyse him to death.
His prescription was a shooting coach, endless repetition and self-belief.
LeBron is seventh on the NBA’s all-time three-point list.
Bob Rotella is the centrepiece of a 1,000-part jigsaw that people like Rory McIlroy and LeBron James tear the house apart looking for, only to find it had been lodged in the box the whole time.
The rest of the jigsaw has to already be built for its absence to matter.
Saturday’s Ulster Championship game between Antrim and Armagh was the perfect example.
In the first half, buoyed by Corrigan and the new rules, Antrim’s positive approach saw them lead the All-Ireland champions.
It was just that the other half of the puzzle was missing.
They just weren’t at the same level in so many ways, as the second half displayed.
A good mindset will only carry you so far.
Negativity is a weed.
In a team environment, it can spread so fast.
All sport is individual in a way but people like McIlroy and Daniel Wiffen and Ciara Mageean have to be so admired.
They have no safety blanket. If Wiffen has a bad turn or Mageean times her charge wrong, there’s nobody to bail them out.
Same with McIlroy.
In his 14-year pursuit of the green jacket, he’s been labelled a bottler, a choker.
But he kept on coming back, holding his heart out to be smashed to pieces again.
“The world says if you come close to winning and you don’t win, you get a lot of grief, and the guy who comes in 40th, no-one says anything about. There’s a whole lot of good stuff you do when you get in contention. I think he’s really good at that,” the American told Sky.
It was an incredible achievement of the mind.
“He’s worked on his wedge game, he’s worked on his mind” 💬
Dr Bob Rotella, Rory McIlroy’s sports psychologist, provides insight on working to build a winning mentality 🧠 pic.twitter.com/UBZ5ix0fSN
— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) April 13, 2025
There’s certainly never been an Irish athlete in history that has faced the continual pressure and expectation, and taken the kicking that McIlroy has taken at Augusta since his final day collapse in 2011.
The storyline made its way into every home in Ireland every April. You became invested whether you follow golf or not.
It’s impossible for any of us to countenance what it’s been like to walk around with that weight.
But in Bob Rotella’s simple messaging, there is something for everyone.
Optimism and positivity might not make you win, but their absence will definitely make sure you lose.
And if you have to pick yourself up to go again, always remember to forget.
