Take It Easy

University of Illinois golf coach Mike Small leads the contingent of PGA Professionals into the field at Baltusrol this week with his own philosophy. Success, he says, is attained by believing in yourself but not getting caught up in expectations.

By Marino Parascenzo, PGA.com Contributor

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. -- Mike Small, the golf coach at the University of Illinois and tops among the 25 PGA Professionals in the field, revealed the secret he'll try to follow in this 87th PGA Championship.

"You try easy, you don't try hard," said Small, thereby reversing everything everybody ever was taught about effort in athletics since at least the very first Olympiad.

So in the fourth and final major of the year, with Tiger Woods going for his third of them, and with the world watching, it will be easy does it for Small, an easy-talking 39-year-old who got into the field as the PGA's 2005 Club Professional Champion, winning that prestigious title on the spectacular Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in June.

And under the circumstances, how does one get into that beachcomber frame of mind while going toe to toe with long, demanding, historic Baltusrol?

First thing:
no expectations.

"I tell my players that expectations can get you in trouble," Small said, once again seemingly contradicting a keystone of athletic endeavors. But wait.

"You have to believe," said Small, sweating on Baltusrol's practice tee. "You have to believe that you can hit that shot, you have to believe that you can play. You have to believe that you can win. But when you expect to do them -- that's when you're in trouble."

In a word, disappointment hurts. It's deflating. It undermines confidence, saps the will.

"If you go out expecting to shoot a good round, and then bogey the first two holes," Small said, "you're dead."

Small does not have any chants or secret signs. This is part brain and part experience talking. In such matters, he has an edge over most of the PGA club professionals in the field. He's played in two U.S. Opens, the 1994 at Oakmont and the 1998 at the Olympic Club, and missed the cut at both. He also played in the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits last year, and missed that cut with 75-76--151.

And then there's the insulation of tour days. Small also played in 39 PGA Tour events, winning nearly $145,000, and competed all told in 134 events from 1990 to 2000, his peak year being 1997 when he won the Monterey Open and the Cleveland Open on the Nationwide Tour. He became the golf coach at Illinois in 2000, and started to apply the principles he'd acquired like so much scar tissue under fire on tour.

He breathed the rarefied air in the 2004 Cialis Western Open. Rounds of 69-70-69 left him sixth going into the final round. Then a closing 76 dropped him to a tie for 27th.

"Sometimes you get all wrapped up in the moment," Small said.

Maybe thoughts of a high finish, and maybe riches, are sitting out there, beckoning even the hardiest of souls. Perhaps the mind wanders, the breath comes shorter.

"Yes, I got all wrapped up in those," Small said, meaning the two U.S. Opens, the PGA Championship, and for sure in the Western Open last year. And most especially a guy can get wrapped up in a major.

The majors are still golf, he said, but there is a seductive quality about them.

"They are different," Small said. "It's the atmosphere. It's the pressure -- pressure from the media, pressure from the fans. It's the pressure you put on yourself.

"You have to tell yourself these tournaments are still just golf, but it's very hard," he added. "The great players of the world, they know now to handle it. It's part of what separates regular players from the great players.

"The great players can sense that bad things are going to happen, and they can deal with it. It doesn't always work completely, but they can handle it. It's like a switch. They get that feeling, and it's like they can reach down and throw a switch."

And no expectations. Expectations limit you, he said. Goals, on the other hand ...

"Sure, you can have a goal," he said. "Your goal should be one shot at a time."

And about trying easy?

"Trying hard adds to the pressure," he said. "Try easy -- try to make it fun."

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