NO-BRAINER

Until they start putting brains in golf balls, it’s probably going to be up to that person standing there with the club in his hands to figure out how to succeed in the game. And, as we have discovered time and again, that’s a lot of pressure.

Of course, help is available.

Now, there are coaches in all sports, but golf is positively overrun with them. They’re all over the place--swing doctors, putting gurus, short-game Svengalis, iron inveiglers, sand specialists, practice-range pontiffs.

So what is it about golf that breeds these mental gymnastics-translated-into-performance on the course?

“Well, think about this,” said Dick Coop, Payne Stewart’s swing coach and a sports psychologist at the University of North Carolina. “Think about the amount of time between actual shots in golf. If you look at a guy shooting free throws in basketball, the opposing coach can call a timeout on him, freeze him out. In football, the other coach calls a timeout before the field-goal kicker gets a chance to kick, to freeze him out.

“In golf, you have a chance to freeze yourself out before every shot. It’s not a continuous-action game.”

Sounds believable. At the highest levels of golf, there isn’t all that much difference in ability, so something else must separate the most successful players from the others.

It’s their minds.

So why are some golfers better at using theirs than the rest?

“Good question,” Coop said.

There are some answers out there, though. Rick Smith has been Lee Janzen’s teacher since the U.S. Open champion was 15. If there is one swing thought in particular that Smith would like to leave you with, it’s not to keep your elbow in or turn your hips. It’s this: The best golfers learn from adversity.

“Take your anger to a place where it toughens you,” Smith said. “Attack, become more fearless. There’s no question when you try to control it, it controls you. Group pressure increases, your mind doesn’t flow.

“Certain people can’t do it. They’re already thinking about their failure. You have to look forward to the task in front of you. It’s the people who know they can’t learn who fight and grind and learn to accept the negative.

“It’s like a mudder, playing golf in the rain. It might be a lousy day, but this guy says, ‘Great, because I know everybody else will be complaining.’ You take it as a positive and say ‘This is my opportunity.’ It’s just that some people are better at it than others. A great player is one who doesn’t mind when everybody else is complaining.”

Hale Irwin, a three-time U.S. Open champion and recent winner of the U.S. Senior Open, is a great player whose self-confidence probably helped him to his major titles as much as anything. He doesn’t suggest you flaunt your self-confidence, although he says it’s pretty apparent.

“You can tell by mannerisms, through someone’s gait,” Irwin said. “But the real self-confidence is a firm belief in yourself. It’s concentration and focus. It’s tunnel-vision.

“And if you don’t have nerves, you’re dead. What you have to do is take that apprehension and turn it into useful energy. Your performance is reflected by how you handle those kinds of situations.”

The top players in the world have some of the top golf minds in the world helping them. Janzen has Smith, and U.S. Open runner-up Payne Stewart has Coop. Nick Faldo has David Leadbetter. Tiger Woods has Butch Harmon. Gary Player has, well, Gary Player, and that guy is sharp enough to use the same, basic approach as Smith and Coop.

“You have to learn to employ adversity,” Player said. “That’s the key, basic mental element to success in golf, probably in all of athletics.”

Irwin, a former football player at the University of Colorado, said there’s a gridiron analogy working here and it’s all about memories.

“I kind of liken it to being a defensive back,” he said. “You have to have a short memory on bad things and a long memory on good things.”

Sometimes, memories don’t do any good. Some players simply lose it, or at least part of their game. Tom Watson has had problems with short putts for years. Bernhard Langer had so much trouble making putts, he switched to a long-handled putter. Bob Tway was a train wreck for three years, from 1992 through 1994, when he had no idea where his shots were going. But he put himself back together again.

Then there are complete breakdowns, such as the plight of 1991 British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch, who has made the cut in one tournament in the last three years.

Coop said Baker-Finch came to Chapel Hill for some work once and didn’t experience much success . . . any success, in fact.

“He couldn’t keep the ball on the driving range,” Coop said.

Coop is one of the more successful swing teachers, and his clients include Corey Pavin, Larry Mize, Scott Simpson and LPGA star Donna Andrews. When the PGA qualifying school graduates a new class each winter, it’s Coop who gives them a brief lecture on how best to cope with the pressures of making it on the tour.

The week after the British Open, Coop was the keynote speaker at the World Scientific Congress of Golf at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

His paper? “Mathemagenic Behavior of Golfers, Historic and Contemporary Perspective.”

And you thought “Keep your head down!” was complicated.

Smith’s latest book is called “How to Find Your Perfect Golf Swing.” It’s 188 pages long, which is a lot to remember.

Yet according to Smith, the best way to play golf is not to think at all. Do it by reflex.

“You can’t think about six different swing thoughts when you play,” he said. “You play better when you become reflexive. You’ve hit that shot on the practice range before, you’ve practiced it endlessly. Instill those positive things, even though you’re looking at a fairway 12 yards wide. Feel the flow rather than force the feel.

“When Lee won the Open, he said he was nervous, but he was under control. He knew he could close the deal. At every U.S. Open, there are only about 20 players who can win it. The other 130 or so can’t because they’ve psyched themselves out before they even tee it up.”

As far as swing thoughts go, that is not a very good one, and you don’t need a brain coach to tell you that.