Feature
JEEV - PROUD OF MYSELF
by Digraj Singh
The Author is a Golf Entrepreneur and consultant. Has coached and also presented on golf.
Represented India in Amateur golf. Won the National Games and Sri Lanka National titles.
had started an educative exercise many
years back, which I then proposed to
articulate through articles. It’s about
moments from the sporting careers of
sportsmen when they felt proud about
themselves for something that they
did under pressure. The objective
was to draw on those learnings. And while
I was sharing the idea, one of my friends
suggested that I should begin with one of my
own stories which he had liked and had learnt
from. And that article, which appeared last
year received some encouraging feedback.
And through this exercise I also wish to invite
stories from everyone, from whichever ¿ eld
you belong to, because your story will help
someone for sure.
And so I requested my friend Jeev Milkha
Singh for his POM story and here it is, in his
own words...
“I went through a very lean period from
the year 2000 to 2006. I had hurt my wrist
and perhaps in trying to avoid the pain or
perhaps in an attempt to avoid getting hurt
more, subtle mistakes had crept into the
swing. My scores crept up. I tried everything
possible but nothing seemed to be working.
I also got aware of the fact that people in
India had slowly started writing me off and
even the media had lost hope in my ability
to play well and compete. Rumblings that
Jeev is over reached my ears. It was quite a
frustrating period.
I then decided to change my approach and
mapped out a plan. The plan had four things
that I worked on, my mind, my swing, my
practice routine and also efforts to challenge
my fears.
To strengthen my mind, I started
meditating, doing a lot of positive reading
and listening to positive cassettes. I realised
that while I had been doing all this in the past,
I had perhaps become lazy and negativity had
caught up with me. I reminded myself of my
old thought process and my old winning ways
and rewired my mind. I also started working
on my belief system, which in the past used
to be that I would always be teeing up to win
and I started thinking the same way again.
Basically the mental engine had to be retuned
and I started putting a lot of emphasis on it
once again like I used to do in the past.
I also realised that something was
missing in my swing. I started making notes
and writing down things that had worked for
me in the swing. I realised that I had become
careless and would tend to forget things that
had worked for me and so as a discipline, I
started writing down what I was working
on. It was then whittled down to 4 – 5 points
that worked for me under pressure and I put
them down in a diary and started referring to
it regularly.
And I also altered the way I used to
practice. I started practicing in my old routine
oriented qualitative way, imagining that each
Jeev Milkha Singh
50 G o l f P l u s
FEBRUARY
2019
shot that I was hitting was either to win the
US Open or the Masters. My practice which
had become careless then became very
qualitative and result oriented.
I had also realised that I had to kill
fear. I remember that I had lost faith in my
driver. I remember being told by dad that
whatever you fear, you must do exactly that
to kill the fear. I realized that I had started
fearing the driver and then persisted with,
under pressure, till I got it right, and frankly
it wasn’t easy.
And then all these elements fell into place
after ¿ ve really tough years. I then won my
¿ rst tournament of 2006, the Volvo China
Open, in a manner that I felt very proud of
myself. On the last hole I had to make par
to win as I was leading by one stroke. I felt
like hitting a three wood but then told myself
that Jeev you are a world-class player. Take
it on. I took out the driver and hit it. While
I still missed the fairway slightly, I was long
enough and was able to get the ball onto the
green with my second shot. Two putts later I
had won the tournament. I feel proud that I
had been brave enough to still hit the driver
and had taken on the situation that I’d been
faced with real courage.
And in addition to feeling proud of myself
I also experienced a very heightened level
of gratitude that I had managed to achieve
this for myself with courage and blessings.
I then went on to win one more European
Tour event, the Volvo Masters, which is the
Tour Championship for the European Tour, in
Spain, and then two more times in Japan and
that was perhaps my best gol¿ ng year ever”
That was Jeev at his candid best. Not
averse to stating his fears and that he had
become lazy. But then his work ethic and
determination kicked in. And how wonderful
was that comeback? While I reread this article,
I see tremendous learning for myself and I
hope that the readers will get some wonderful
nuggets in it for themselves. Nuggets
which will help you do well in everything that
you do.