Meadow: Sticking to the process didn’t work. I need to be fired up

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 16: Stephanie Meadow of Northern Ireland watches her putt from the 1st green during day four of the 2020 ISPS HANDA Women’s Australian Open at Royal Adelaide Golf Club on February 16, 2020 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by Sue McKay/Getty Images)

“A strong mind is one of the key

components that separates the

great from the good,” Gary Player

ALL professional golfers will struggle with the mental side of the game throughout their career. Whether it be focusing the mind, the mechanics of their swing, or the putting yips, it affects all of them at some stage. It was the same for Stephanie Meadow.

After arriving on the scene in 2014, finishing third at the US Women’s Open in her first professional start, her career didn’t take the upward curve many thought it would.

The death of her father to cancer in 2015 was devastating, and it’s been a difficult loss to overcome. Her game suffered for a long time, as her focus wasn’t there. Also, a back injury didn’t help matters.

However, Meadow did play her way back onto the LPGA Tour for 2019, and managed to retain that place for 2020, although on a nerve-racking final day at the Volunteer of America Classic in Texas.

Having put herself in contention after two rounds, a poor third saw her needing a low round on the Sunday. She ended up shooting a superb 67 to secure her tour card.

“It was one of those weeks where I learnt a lot about myself. It was a case of, my job at the highest level was on the line again, it’s a lot of pressure. It’s different from being in second place and trying to win a tournament, you’re still gonna make a nice chunk of money, but when your livelihood’s on the line, it’s a different feeling. It felt like I really stepped up.

“On that last day it was pretty apparent that the more I looked at leaderboards and the more I knew what I needed to do, the better I played, which is a bit different to what I would have been taught for the last 10 years. It was interesting to me to experience that and I’ve drawn a lot from it,” said Meadow.

Confidence is a very fragile thing in golf, it can vary from week to week, but last summer Meadow decided to do something about it and enlisted the help of sports psychology consultant Dr Debbie Crews from Arizona State University. She credits Crews when we talk about that particular weekend: “She’s the one that got me into the, what I like to call the ‘fiery mindset.’ I’m not so blind anymore on the golf course, a bit more hyped up, it’s something that I had been working on prior to the event in Texas, but it really came out there to the max because obviously that was the highest pressure situation I’ve been in. It really helped and I’m just continuing to do that. Everybody can hit it good and putt and chip out here, it’s the 1% extra mental toughness that makes so much difference.

“She just tried to take me back to my old days of playing Irish Ladies Golf Union (ILGU) events, and what was different. We came to the conclusion that I used to be super competitive and fiery and had all these goals and people to beat, and that’s how I operated. Then you get on the LPGA Tour and it can be a bit intimidating and scary and all of a sudden, you don’t want to think about beating people, you just want to be like ‘oh I just want to make the cut.’ I’m just going to stick to the process, and that just doesn’t work for me at all.

“I couldn’t get anything going. I missed cuts by one or two shots for like seven events in a row. When that’s happening it’s pretty apparent that something’s in your head.

“I have to have a goal. I have to have an outcome goal too, not just all process, and I enjoy looking at leaderboards. We’re all competitive people and that gets me going, that kind of high intensity. I would love to never be in that position again but I’m glad that I was able to learn so much from it. I’ve really carried that through. It just shows you how important the mental aspect is.”

With the golf season put on hold for the foreseeable future, how is she coping through all this upheaval: “It puts life in perspective. Obviously, I’d love to be out there playing and competing, but at the end of the day when you see what’s happening around the world, doctors and nurses putting their lives on the line every day. You see these stories constantly, doctors leaving their families because they don’t want to endanger them and things like that. I’m just trying to stay busy at home.

“My Mom is out here with me, which is great. My aunt is still at home, along with my cousin and her family who I’m very close to. Her husband’s in the NHS, so it’s a worrying time for everybody. It’s a lot of stress, they have two kids under five. It’s hard, sometimes I wish I was at home. It just shows you. We think Rory McIlroy and the rest of them are heroes, and then I start to wonder, wait a second; they are, but in this situation, it seems pretty obsolete.

“We cancelled our LPGA Tour events in Thailand and Singapore in February, so this has been a reality for us for quite some time, but maybe not a reality for the general public here. Our golf courses are still open, which is great. It varies from state to state, even county to county.

“The list of essential businesses is quite extensive. I was a bit shocked by that, to be honest, like hair salons and nail salons are still open, which is very bizarre to me. Obviously, it’s not New York, we haven’t become a hotspot yet, but I would expect more and more closures to come. It seems like we’re a few weeks behind the UK and Ireland and how our quarantines are progressing. I wouldn’t be shocked if in the next week or so if everything gets much tighter.”

Meadow is using the break to get herself fully healthy for its return. Having struggled with injury over the off-season she says her health and fitness are a big motivating factor: “I need to stay healthy. I’ve had a few injuries in the last five months, so that’s probably why the fitness aspect has been so big for me.

“I had a really tough off-season with a shoulder injury, and it ended up not panning out the way I wanted it to. I think that’s what’s motivating me, because I’m tired of being in pain. That’s key for me.

“I know that if I put in a good 3-4 months work, it can really pay off. I’m one of those people who practices to compete. It’s odd, because there’s no deadline. You don’t really know, and that in itself keeps you motivated because you don’t want to get caught off guard. If for some reason a switch flips and we’re playing again and I’m not ready. That’s keeping me on my toes a little bit. At the end of the day, I just try to mentally be okay through all of this and take care of myself, as everybody has to do, and just be ready to go when the time’s right.

“I can’t wait to get back out there, but I just want to make sure that when we do get back out there that it’s safe for everybody. We’re a global tour, we have players absolutely everywhere in the world, that makes it even more of a challenge for us to get back up started when we can.”