Michael Jordan describes golf in 4 words. And ‘heaven’ in Kenya | Weekend 9

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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“Golf is a game played by human beings. Therefore, it is a game of mistakes. Successful golfers know how to respond to mistakes.”

I’ve always liked that thought. It comes from “Golf Is Not A Perfect Game,” the well-read book from Dr. Bob Rotella, the famed sports psychologist. And over the past week, we saw some of that play out — from three golfers, interestingly. One rebound has been seen over the past few weeks. Another played out over a few years. The third, even longer.

Let’s look, then, at what Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa and Anthony Kim did. And let’s try to learn. Can’t hurt.

Scottie Scheffler’s slow-start struggles 

What the struggle was: Slow starts. Two weeks ago at the WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler opened with a 73. Last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Scheffler opened with a 72. This week at the Genesis Invitational, more of the same — Scheffler shot a 74 in the first round.

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What followed: At Phoenix, Scheffler tied for third, and at Pebble Beach, he tied for fourth. On Friday, he shot a second-round 68.

How he responded: Scheffler said he stayed calm. And calm is not panicking. And panicking is blowing things up.

“I think these are some of the weeks when you look back,” Scheffler said Sunday, “I’m very proud of sticking with it, not giving up even when I felt like things were going against me this week. Just kept fighting, kept trying to hit shots, kept trying to execute.”

He added this, too: “Sometimes it’s just scoring stuff. Like we came around here the first round and I looked at Teddy [caddie Ted Scott] about the 15th, 16th hole and I feel like I’m doing kind of good and I’m 10 shots back. It’s a funny game. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes things don’t.”

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Collin Morikawa’s two-plus-year winless drought 

What the struggle was: Morikawa won the 2023 Zozo Championship. Then he searched for two-plus years.

What followed: Morikawa won last week at Pebble.

How he responded: Morikawa said when he was young, he played golf. Then he got older, and he went fishing, looking for new methods. All of it was in good spirit — he wanted to win more. But one thought, he said, helped him win again: Just play golf, man.

“I think I’ve been trying to make golf so perfect trying to hit these shots and trying to make these putts in a certain way,” Morikawa said Sunday, “that maybe others are doing it that you forget how to play the game of golf.

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“I think looking back when I was 10, 12, 15 growing up on Chevy Chase, playing 10 holes, dropping three balls, like I played golf.

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“And I’ve gone so far away from that, that creativity that I think the last two days, I went to go play golf. I caught myself today even after the bogey on 5 — I was like, man, I love being in this position. Like I hadn’t felt that in such a long time. And you feel that in the team events, you feel that here and there, but I just told myself like, man, like it just felt so good to be in that position.

“And I knew when I was able to convince — not convince myself, but just talk to myself in my head that way that I was ready. Whether it went great or it didn’t go great, I was ready to go execute the shots, play golf and not worry about the wind, not worry about the rain, not worry about, man, if I make bogey on 8 and I go try and make pars on 9 and 10 — it was very in-the-moment stuff. But I think it all comes back to how you start the day. I started the day this morning telling myself, yeah, let’s go out and win this thing.”

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Anthony Kim’s 12-year absence from golf 

What the struggle was: Anthony Kim returned to pro golf in 2024 following a 12-year absence. His last win came in 2010.

What followed: On Sunday at LIV Golf’s Adelaide event, Kim won.

How he responded: I learned this from my interview this week with Matt Killen, Kim’s swing coach. Much like Scheffler, they didn’t deviate from who he once was. They just worked to find that again. Ahead of an event in early January where Kim needed to finish in the top three in order to play another season with LIV, Killen and Kim had this conversation:

“I don’t think either one of us was like, ‘OK, I hope you play good.’ We were like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go do this. Like, how are you going to do it?’ And he said he’s going to do it. And so then backtracking, like what shots do you need, how are you going to manage that, what information do we put in that is helpful but doesn’t take away the ability for him to be an athlete.

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“And what that means is letting subconscious take over. You don’t even think about positions or complex swing thoughts when you need to hole it. … You’ve got to play golf.”

Another instruction tip for your weekend 

2. Let’s stick with instruction. I thought the video below (in the second slide), shot after Morikawa’s win, was good.