The Wisdom of Dawn Mercer, PGA

Director of Golf Instruction, Innisbrook Spa and Golf Resort
Home of the Valspar PGA Tour Event

Article by Herb Rubenstein based on an Interview

Introduction

I attended a four-day golf school with Dawn Mercer, PGA and I am a fan. Dawn improved not only how I hit the ball, but how I think about the golf when I am on the course. I carry a three handicap and because of the great instruction by Dawn, I am now a PGA member at the age of 67. I passed the Players Ability Test when I was 65.

All of Dawn’s teachings are driven by one basic premise: those who want to improve at golf want to shoot better scores. Scoring better = improvement in Dawn’s eyes. So, with the idea of scoring as her central thesis, here are the three essential principles she discussed with me in the interview.

Make Good “Business” Decisions on the Golf Course

Dawn is not talking about making business deals on the golf course. That area has been brilliantly covered by Connie Charles and Dave Bisbee, PGA, in their new book, Back On Course. What Dawn is talking about is since you goal is to shoot the lowest, best score possible when you play golf, before every shot a golfer needed to assess the following:

1. Assess your situation. Including following:

a. The wind

b. Your lie, level, uneven, good, bad

c. The distance

d. The best area for landing

2. Assess your capabilities as you identify all of the possible types of “shots” that you could hit that will likely help you reach a good goal with that shot, (Note: Most pros use an 80% rule. If they are not 80% confident, they will achieve a good result with the shot they are considering selecting, they will eliminate or screen out that shot and attempt a different type of shot where they are 80% confident a good result will occur.

3. Third, eliminate very dangerous shots from consideration. Even if you are confident you can hit a particular type of shot well, you still have to identify the risks associated with attempting that type of shot, and “pay heed” to the harm/disasters that could result hitting each of the types of shots you are considering. Tom Kite has said, for good golfers, “A double bogey is a bad shot followed by a stupid shot.” Therefore, quickly eliminate any shot that could produce a disastrous result, including a penalty stroke or lost ball.

4. Now that you have narrowed down your shot selection to one or two types of shots that will not gravely penalize you if do not hit the shot well, focus on the reward that you can get from the shot.

5. Then select the shot you plan to hit which you believe you can execute well enough to improve your chances of a good score and eliminate the chances of a very bad score. Be precise. Think about the precise landing area where you want the ball to land. For example, when you are hitting a shot from inside 30 yards and can go for the hole, focus on “holing the shot.”

6. Once you have selected the shot and the club, then your “pre-shot” routine begins. At this point you decide:

a. How you will grip the club

b. How you will swing the club

7. Visualize the perfect shot and the perfect result.

8. Commit to hit exactly the shot you have envisioned during your pre-shot routine. No second thoughts or doubt.

9. Address the ball with perfect alignment, and all “swing thoughts” should stop. Think only about a great result. Remove all doubt (as Arnold Palmer used to teach).

10. Hit the shot with a smooth swing and a good follow-through.

Items 1-5 above represent “making a good business decision and items 6-10 above represent executing that business decision. Dawn says, in business if all of your money was at stake, you’d study the situation carefully and be wary of “going for broke” because that is exactly where you might end up. In golf, one must have the same level of discernment, acumen, and thoughtfulness, as you would with high-stakes business decisions.

This does not always mean playing conservatively. Sometimes this means being bold as Dawn had me go for a Par 5 in two, from 236 out (as far as I hit my “3” metal). I hit a great second shot, landed in a bunker (but not a really penal bunker) and I hit the sand shot one foot from the hole and made the putt for birdie. (Dawn does not give “gimme’s”).

So, be sure to explore bold and conservative options and ask yourself, “What is the right business decision to make here?” “Managing risk” as Dawn likes to say, keeps you, as Yogi Berra use to say, “from making the wrong mistake.”

Dawn emphasizes you will never hit every shot perfectly in a round. The key to scoring well is to avoid disasters and the best way to do that is to evaluate risk and reward properly. Dawn warns against being the golfer who hits a drive 50 yards off line and then while in the trees tries an aggressive shot with only three feet of room between two trees going toward the green when he could have hit it away from the green back in to the fairway easily with no risk of the ball hitting a tree and being lost or sent back into the trees. (I admit I tried to hit a shot from pine needles between two trees ahead of me recently in Atlanta, hit one of the trees and made double bogey)

This leads to the second great principle Dawn teachers.

Don’t Try to Fix A Bad Round Or A Series of Bad Shots By Taking Huge Chances and Don’t Try to Protect Your Score In a Good Round by Being Conservative

This looks like two separate points. It is not, but rather is actually one simple point. When you are playing great, you try to “protect” your score. Maybe during the round you are under par or near par, or with a few holes left you have a chance to break 80, or 90, or 100 or have a score which is very good for you. You want to “end” the round with a good score.

So, you start playing “conservatively” or trying not to make a mistake. You stop taking even reasonable risks, although you have been playing well. By doing this, you actually reduce your chances of keeping up the same good play and good score because you just interjected the opposite golf strategy that was really working for you and getting you well into a round with good results.

Recently I was one under par after two holes. On a long par 3 against the wind, I did not want to be short because the green was very elevated, and hit too much club. I hit a great shot and went over the green, had a terrible lie, and made double bogey. Too conservative.

Dawn also talked about Anika Sorenstam’s 59. Sorenstam started off making lots of birdies and then tried to “protect” her score by playing conservatively and made a string of pars. Her caddie told her “Let’s make a birdie here” and she got back on her aggressive game which was working brilliantly for her and made history that day.

Similarly, when you are playing badly, don’t try to hit a high-risk great shot to “make up” for previous bad scores. Recently, I bogeyed the first three holes, and come up to a tight 320-yard par 4. I thought, I needed a birdie and hit driver. That was a huge risk as I could have hit four-iron into the fairway, and then a wedge to the green. I hit drive and hit it out of bounds. I then hit my tee shot, which was my third shot, down the fairway, knocked it on the green and had a 30-footer downhill for bogey. I said to myself, I have to make this putt and ran it 8 feet by, missed the comeback putt, and triple bogey. Disaster.

Every Hole is a New Hole

Dawn says every hole is a new hole. And every shot is a new shot. I ruined hole number 4, by trying to use it to fix my bogeys on hole 1-3. Now, I am six over after four holes due to my failing to make the right business decision on my tee shot (and failing to hit a decent tee shot). I let my past mistakes dictate my current golf strategy while I was on the tee on number four. Dawn would not only give an “F” for my thinking and my execution, she would say, play the hole in a way that minimizes your risk while still giving you a shot at a good score on the hole.

Ultimately, Dawn teaches improvement and success in golf is all about scoring the lower possible number in golf. Don’t let the previous bad shot make you do something risky, too risky, on the next shot. And, when you are playing great, just keep up the same strategy that was helping you play great and don’t try to manage the score or protect the score. Some call this “being in the moment” (Zach Johnson and many others), some call it being in the “zone.” Dawn would say, play smart and take risks when the likelihood of disaster is very low, and play “smart” when danger is staring you right in the face.

You Can’t Get Mad or Feel Bad When You Hit a Great Shot and The Result is Terrible-Focus on the Present Shot ONLY

Unless you play a lot and are very good, the distance you hit a club will vary somewhat from shot to shot. While you normally may hit a nine iron 130 yards, sometimes when you really swing well, transfer your weight perfectly, have a great lie, and boom, the ball goes 140 yards, over the green, in the junk and double bogey is staring you right in the face.

This even happens to the pros and it happens to Dawn Mercer. She is able to play the hole out without any anger over the result and she knows that to hit the next shot well, there cannot be any residue, bad thoughts or anger, left over from the previous shot that will negatively affect either your thinking about or the execution of your next shot.

And how does she respond when she does not hit the ball well and the result is bad. Very quickly, and without a lot of anger. Immediately, Dawn is thinking about the next shot and she is thinking: Make a good business decision regarding this shot. Peyton Manning said this is the greatest lesson his father, Archie Manning, the great quarterback taught him. Getting Back to Zero. Whether you throw an interception or a great touchdown pass, that play is over and when the next play comes, you have to get back to that calm state where what you think about is only that play that you want to make right then.

The Birdie Bogey Syndrome

Learning this lesson gives us great insight into what Dawn Mercer calls, “the birdie–bogey syndrome.” How many of you regularly follow up a birdie with a bogey? Admit is, most of us amateurs do this a lot. Why? There are a million reasons and a million causes, but one is that you have not gotten back to zero like Peyton Manning’s dad, Archie taught him. Peyton know that if you are thinking about the great pass you just made, when you are trying to make the next pass, thinking about that previous pass will keep you from seeing the defender and, “whamo,” interception.

Keeping your focus only on the present shot, is Dawn’s third key principle. It is the principle of every great golfer and should be the principle of every golfer who wants to shoot low scores. So, when you make that birdie or a bad score, or hit any great or bad shot, be sure to get back to zero before you hit that next shot.

On the first tee in Florida when I was playing with two pros, father and son, I hit a great drive, about 280 to a “domed” fairway. The father pro and I drove up to my ball, which rolled off the dome to the left (OK, I drew the ball off the tee five yards, but it landed in the middle of the fairway, for Pete’s sake). The ball was two feet in the first cut of rough, with a perfect lie. I had never seen the course before and had not studied the course before I played it. So, I checked out my lie and looked up at the green for the first time, about 160 yards away. I then noticed water in front of the green, and then I noticed an overhanging limb in my way.

I said, “I can’t believe this shot ended up behind this limb and I am blocked out from the green.” The pro immediately responded: “We are not going to talk about shots we have already hit, are we?” I looked at him, having known him for about 12 minutes and said, “That is why you are a pro, isn’t it?” And he responded immediately, “That is one of the reasons.”

Key Takeaways

So, Dawn, like Zach Johnson or Ram Dass, would say, “Be in the present.” That lesson, when combined with Dawn’s other principles makes her not only a great student and teacher of the game, but also makes her a great student and teacher of life itself.

Dawn teaches golf swing techniques and other mental strategies as well including:

• Putter head flat on the ground, not toe up.

• Having too many moving parts or being two “handsy” or hinging your wrists too much on short shots will kill you.

• Be aggressive to hit your lay up shots to exactly the spot or target from which you want to hit the next shot (Tom Kite wants to be 93 yards from the pin on nearly every par 5 he plays where he does not go for the green in two)

• Hit balls with your feet together

• Have good rhythm and swing at 80% effort to help maintain control of the direction of the ball

• Know your distances of your 7:30, 9:00 and 10:30 backswings with your wedges (Dustin Johnson has three distances he hits every club in his bag with three different swing lengths)

• Get your hands in the right position at address away from your body especially with your putter and short shots

• Good, athletic posture, angles not curves

• “See and feel the Inside Move the Outside” by Michael Hebron, PGA Master Professional

• Hover the club off the ground so as not to get it caught in the grass

• Hit your short putts firmly especially late in the day as footprints mount up during the day (maybe 500 footprints will be near a hole at the end of a busy day) and these footprints can throw a short putt hit softly off course, but will impact a putt hit firmly a lot less

• When you hit lag putts, get them to the hole

• Chin up at address, (even if you wear bifocals - use spot bifocals)

• Body must be rotating throughout the entire swing, but shoulders and hips rotate at different times and in different amounts. At the top of the backswing, as the shoulders are still rotating back, the hips have completely stopped rotation and may even be rotating forward.

• Some students walk fast, talk fast and are wired whereas some move slow, think slow, etc. as they do in their daily life. The personality definitely shows up in their golf game. If I have someone uptight, thinking too much or moving too fast then I will speak lower, slower and ask questions irrelevant to golf about themselves as a distraction to gain less effort with better performance. I’ll stray from getting too mechanical or technical and go more visual. On the reverse, if someone is lethargic, I will speak louder, faster and possibly more technical.

• A 1 inch putt costs the same on the scorecard as a 300-yard drive.

• There’s great education from failure, if you don’t like a shot you just hit, immediately think of what you would have done differently if you were to do it over, then move on. Don’t drag a garbage bag full of negatives with you the whole way around the course, get amnesia!

Conclusion

Dawn feels the average golfer thinks too much and tries too hard. To some degree, adults are so smart that we’re stupid, if they could find the child inside and learn to have fun and keep it simpler, the performance would show through much faster because it would eliminate the “pressure” we adults put on ourselves.

Once you visualize the line and set-up for a putt, just free-flowing the putter unrestricted with the shoulders…Most players’ tendency is to get deliberate, follow the putter with the eyes or move body…it’s more about trust & instinct to roll the ball in the hole than perfection of motion Eyes closed & looking at the hole is always a great drill

In all, Dawn Mercer teaches that golf is as much a thinking or perceiving activity as a physical activity, but not too much thinking. Trust the shot is one of her mantras. When you know how to execute a shot or even a short or long putt, don’t think about it over the ball, just do what you know how to do. The best way to mess up an easy shot, one you have successfully executed over and over, is to think about the mechanics of the shot during your execution of the shot.

Bobby Jones said that the true length of a golf course was the 5 and ½ inches between his ears. Moe Norman said don’t overcomplicate things on the golf course. Dawn says “play smart.” They are all right.