Dr Ed Coughlan: How champions keep it simple

Sport is the greatest platform for making excuses to deflect attention from failings in preparation.

None more so, maybe, than golf, where without hesitation or a hint of humour, a golfer will suggest they would have won a tournament ‘if only they didn’t bogey three of the last five holes’.

Such a seemingly harmless statement of delusion is the beginning of a defence mechanism destined to take the player further away from executing correctly the next time they’re in contention.