Colin Byrne: Top golfers are like the All Blacks

So Jason Day was supposed to win the FedEx Cup and New Zealand are supposed to win the Rugby World Cup. Jason didn't but the Kiwis still should.

Was it pressure and expectation that pushed Day back to third place and what is it like in the All Blacks dressing room before they go out to play another team they are supposed to beat?

Carrying a lead is probably the most difficult position to be in for the majority of sportspeople; being in the chasing pack with hope and realistic aspiration is a much easier place to win from. Of course this is not the philosophy of real winners.

Real winners want to be in the lead for as long as they can, they thrive on the pressure of realising expectation. It’s a tough space to occupy and I don’t know many who honestly enjoy being in that position.

When we are listening to unprecedented amounts of barroom guff during this drawn out Rugby World Cup about who should, could and will ultimately prevail it is important to clarify how uncomfortable the feeling of expectation really is. It is not such a cosy place to be.

If you think you should win then there is unlikely to be a celebration when you do so, more a sense of relief. So there is no real upside. For those who expect to win there is only a downside; losing.

The trouble with an inflated sense of expectation in golf is that even if you are outrageously successful, like Jason Day of late winning four out of his last six starts, it means obviously he didn’t win two of them. Did he fail in two and succeed in four or can you even use this analogy of success and failure in golf? Probably not. Because being realistic if you win once a year on tour which means you don’t win in the other 25 or 30 events you play in, it will still be a successful year.

Mental prowess

The most onerous responsibility that comes with winning is that it raises expectation and that can be fatal in many sports but particularly in golf.

This is when mental prowess is tested to its limit. Although all players have goals and benchmarks to reach over a year the only way you can achieve anything in golf and really all sports at a high level is by sticking to the process and staying in the present.

It is what all of us amateurs should be doing but even if we do stick to an effective process we are still limited by diminishing talent.

The talent of all tour players and particularly the top ones is exceptional but what distinguishes them is their mental fortitude. Justin Rose, eventually finishing second in Atlanta last week after hitting his ball out of bounds on his 64th hole, cited that his ability to stick to his task unwaveringly had improved dramatically of late.

Please don’t yawn. It sounds trite and already flogged to within an inch of its life but this is the essence of golf and every other sport. If you want to compete and do so consistently you need to be able to wipe out the past and ignore the future and stick rigidly in the moment otherwise you are not going to compete consistently or effectively. It really is the fundamental of competing. If we did a post-round analysis and honestly cited when we had a fully focused mental approach during our four hours of play the chances are it was only for a few seconds and that may well have been in the car on the way to the golf club.

As this year's most successful golfer Jordan Speith admitted after rounding off his best year on tour by winning at Atlanta, missing a few cuts actually helped him get better. He worked hard on what he needed to work on, in his extra 'days off'. That's what these incredibly gifted top players do and then they bring a mentally superior attitude with them to the course which works exponentially when they are under the gun and when they are in the lead and expected by the world to win. They simply stay in the present and stick relentlessly to their process.

Their expectation and desire is sub-conscious and their conscious is filled with process.

High hopes

I know we all have high hopes for our rugby team in this year’s World Cup. The question we need to ask ourselves as responsible supporters is, is our expectation realistic or are we simply patriotically hopeful?

As an innocent and ignorant observer of rugby I am deeply impressed by the ball handling of the men in black. They look far superior to any other team. I am realistic about the level and skill and rugby nous in the All Blacks. I really do expect them to win the World Cup. But naturally I hope Ireland win. Our best chance is if we as responsible citizens don’t expect them to win, while tacitly believing that they can.