No cure for fear in gurus' toolkit

Strange isn't it how despite the best efforts of the body the mind still keeps its hands on the steering wheel. There we were on Saturday night eating out when somebody inquired how Westmeath had got on against Mayo. Phonecalls were made. Details of a famous victory elicited, nods all round. Very good. Fair play. That's great.

Now if Westmeath had beaten a team from Leinster, who punch at Mayo's weight, league champions, home of club champions etc, etc, it would have been a sensation. Indeed, there are many in Dublin still getting over the shock of Westmeath beating the Blues in the GAA's centenary knockout competition. Had that happened in the championship I think Gaelic football in Dublin would have been abolished.

Yet liberated from the 1,000 years or so of oppression which they have endured at the hands of robust neighbours in Leinster, Westmeath are holding their own as a damn fine football team.

Why wouldn't they be?. They have a sharp manager, they have Ger Heavin, they have a respectable pile of recent underage success. Yet, if it wasn't for the back-door system, one feared all those things would pass without Westmeath ever being blessed by success.

No one has quantified the extent to which mental attitude and preparation effect performance but you see instances of it every weekend. In the collective sense some teams always feel an obligation to lose to other sides. It takes a long time for this to change.

There are no teams left, for instance, who are afraid of Dublin any more. For 20 years or so teams came to Croke Park and assumed they were three points down before the throw-in and that it would be reasonable to trail by that margin at the end. Meath, on the other hand, have developed the knack over the years of never being truly beaten until the match report appears in the newspaper.

The relationship between Dublin and Meath has altered inexorably, too. Kevin Heffernan used to say that Dublin never beat Meath, they struggled past them. There were days in the 1970s (remember the league final of 1975?) when it looked as if Meath would emerge to put an end to the Dublin revolution. Never happened.

Once Meath made the breakthrough, however, in 1986, they left all the hang-ups behind them. Dublin are almost a source of amusement to Meath teams now. I think perhaps that started back in the epic 1991 series when Dublin famously left their top midfielder Dave Foran in at full forward for half a game because "he was keeping Mick Lyons (a full back!) quiet".

When Dublin beat Meath by 10 points in 1995 I remember one Dublin player describing the experience as being akin to the Dubs saying to their rivals - "Okay lads, this is it, we're putting you away for a few years now." Of course Meath won the next year's All-Ireland and the player who made the comment, Paul Clarke, Dublin's top scorer from play in 1995, watched the Leinster final from Hill 16. That assurance in Meath brains that Dublin are nothing special has endured.

Offaly and Longford may have got themselves all excited when Vinnie Murphy barrelled into the action this summer. Darren Fay and the Meath defence permitted themselves wry smiles. Vinny where have you been? We've missed you!

This stuff was running through my head as I watched the British Open this week. Sports psychology is the flavour of the month on the tour at the moment. Next month it could be aromatherapy but right now it's head mechanics.

The poster boy is Reteif Goosen, who, with the Belgian Jos Vanstiphout whispering in his ear, won the US Open last month. Then another of Jos's clients, Darren Clarke, won the European Open and suddenly the guys are clamouring for Jos to get his tool kit out and fix their heads.

It all raises the question of how far one can go with this sort of thinking. Getting back to Gaelic football. Charlie Redmond was a sports psychologists poster boy in his playing days. A wonderful footballer who could do most things instinctively, Charlie's challenge was to slow his pulse to the speed of that of a golfer when it came to dead-ball situations. When taking free-kicks he fell back on the comforts of routine. Two steps sideways, eight or nine steps back, licking his forefinger twice, even if wearing gloves, a glance upward and then the run up, follow through, etc.

I don't know if Charlie used a psychologist but his technique worked time after time. Penalties though were different. Then Charlie stood naked before the world. All the routine, all the courage to keep stepping up and taking the damn things, it meant nothing really, not when you were standing there with a headful of doubts.

I think of Charlie everytime I hear a golfer talking about the work he has done with Vanstiphout or Bob Rotelli or some other guru. There is much that can be done in the course of Thursday through Saturday golf to improve a good player's game. At the end, though, the player is going to have to stand on the 18th green at a major tournament and make a putt and at that moment I believe everyone reverts to their true character.

There are some people for whom in those circumstances they see everything with perfect clarity. For other people, it's fear that governs. The voices in the head say, "Hey you're a Westmeath footballer and you are about to beat Meath. It CANNOT be done." Or you are Reteif Goosen and everything you have been taught about the circumstances evaporates. You three putt on 18 and the next day in the play-offs you finish bogey-bogey to win. Have you conquered your fears or merely shaken hands with them for the first time?

The most fascinating thing about an Open which played itself out like a Grand National with fallers everywhere was how the Fear has almost become self-perpetuating, how the lead or the smell of it has become enough to make grown men tremble and forget the simple mechanics of their business.

In the end it's positive experience which counts. And yesterday, as at Lock Lomond last week, Retief Goosen played like a guy who had been there. He had struggled past, as they say, he had seen his worst fears and was keen for the rollercoaster ride to begin again. Woods had that look, so had Langer, so had Meath back in 1985. No spanner can buy it for you.