Alex is a good listener and an even better player

CADDIE'S ROLE:SOMETIMES YOU can say something in passing to somebody and despite thinking it was a casual comment, the person who heard it takes great heed. Dealing with top performers is a fickle business, you need to choose your words wisely and time the delivery to perfection, writes COLIN BYRNE

I had been chosen through the haphazard but somewhat efficient system on tour that pairs caddies and players together. Through this web I got paired up earlier this year with one of the hottest young names in European golf, Alexander Noren from Sweden. I remember having been paired with Alex a couple of years previously and being deeply impressed by his talent.

Of course natural talent is what you look for in a young player but being a successful professional entails so much more than quality ball striking. Hitting it long and straight off the tee and hitting a high percentage of greens makes the game easy, but the art of the game, assuming a certain amount of talent, is getting the ball in the hole.

Alex is a quality ball striker but his statistics showed that perhaps he was not converting enough of the huge amount of chances he was creating. No golfer is a machine and despite enjoying some weeks where you play pure golf for four straight rounds the chances are you will have at least one round in four where you have to grind and scramble to turn a 75 into a 70. Having observed top players throughout the years this is what they all have in common; the ability to salvage a bad round and return a respectable score when they are playing badly.

This is as much a mind-set as a talent. The frequent reaction for a good ball striker to a bad striking day is to panic and question technique and seriously undermine self-belief. A top player gets on with scoring and not self-examination.

Alex had enjoyed quite a promising start to his year and our first few events together. He finished top 10 in Malaysia and backed it up with a second place finish in Indonesia a few weeks later. He had played good golf tee to green but not really converted the huge amount of chances he had created; his putting averages were quite high.

A wrist injury and a couple of months off saw him almost restarting his season from scratch in May not having been able to practice. Another knee injury after a brief comeback set the frustrated Noren back even further and almost had him viewing the year as a bit of a write-off.

Like most young professionals, he has had a strict work ethic instilled in him from the outset. As much as hours on the driving range can be beneficial it can also be detrimental if you over do it. There is no point in hitting your best shots on the range, the game is about hitting them with a card in your back pocket and ultimately as a professional on the back nine on Sunday when the pressure of winning has narrowed the target to the size of a needle.

Through regular open conversations about where we are and how we should try to get to where we want to be as an aspiring caddie/player team, we agreed we should spend more time on the chipping and putting green. Also our practice rounds should be played as much as possible on our own, spending as long as possible chipping and putting to the four possible pins of the week on each green. With a detailed knowledge of the greens and their lateral problems and a couple of hours of chipping and putting practice daily over the last month, it seemed like the specific work bore fruit last week in Switzerland.

Most people will give different answers when asked about the art of good putting. The more a player practices, not so much technique as habit and expectation of holing putts, the more putts should be holed. I think a lot of players over emphasise technique instead of repetition and expectation. You don’t need a perfect stroke to consistently hole putts. Holing putts becomes a habit the more you work on it and believe that you can hole your fair share.

With a flawless eight-under-par round on Saturday Alex had to sleep (badly) on a lead and the expectation of filling his own and many others’ aspirations for him to win for the first time on tour. It was the first time since I had worked for Alex where I felt he squeezed his round dry, he could not have scored any better.

I had mentioned in passing to my boss about a month ago that he would win before the end of the year. I had also commented that working intensely on his short game would ensure he did. He was obviously paying more attention than I had thought, because his post-win speeches alluded to both comments that I had made to him.

You never know what is going to happen in the final charge for the line in a golf tournament. With talented golfers, anything can happen. Despite stretching to a four-shot lead at one stage of the front nine, a pitch shot of over 70 yards that went in the hole for eagle on the ninth and another chip in on 11 by our main challenger Bradley Dredge meant that we were suddenly tied for the lead.

Great players make it happen when the pressure is on. A holed bunker shot on 15 for eagle probably stopped Dredge’s attack in its tracks.

The fact that Alex hit his lob wedge when I had been encouraging him to use his sand-wedge confirms my belief that the player usually knows best, but it takes a good working relationship to be able to discuss these decisions.

He parred his way back to the clubhouse like an old pro who was used to winning. I think it is the maiden win that will pave the way for much more success from the most amiable person that I have ever caddied for who has finally taken the first step to realising his golfing dreams.