Some of the best golf advice comes straight from the winner’s mouth. After closing out the Bank of Utah Championship on Sunday 4 October, Austin Smotherman summed up his week in a sentence every club golfer should write on their glove: “It didn’t have to be pretty.”
What happened at Black Desert
According to the Associated Press report on the PGA Tour site, Smotherman closed with a 3-under 68 to win by two shots at 26 under, breaking the tournament’s 72-hole record. It was his first PGA Tour victory, in his 100th career start.
He never trailed. He built a three-shot lead early, but on the par-4 13th his approach plugged near the lip of a bunker and he made a double bogey. Suddenly his lead was down to one, after Trace Crowe holed a 40-foot eagle putt on the 14th.
Smotherman’s response was excellent. He drove the 14th to six feet, then hit his approach on the 15th to six feet again. He missed both birdie putts but birdied the 16th from just inside 12 feet. Golf Post reported his rounds as 63, 62, 65 and 68, with Doug Ghim two back in second.
The AP report added that the win gives him a two-year exemption. “We won on the PGA Tour. That’s insane,” he said.
“This game doesn’t have to be perfect”
Here’s the full quote from the AP report: “It didn’t have to be pretty. I got some nice bounces. Made some poor swings, but this game doesn’t have to be perfect.”
We think that’s one of the most useful things a tour winner has said all year.
Perfectionism costs club golfers more than bad swings
Many amateurs carry a picture of the “perfect” swing in their heads. Every shot that doesn’t match it feels like a failure, and that frustration bleeds into the next swing. In reality, even tour winners make poor swings. What separates them is how quickly they move on.
The double bogey isn’t the story; the next swing is
Smotherman’s double on 13 could have derailed him. Instead, his next two swings were among his best of the day. A reliable routine and a simple swing thought give you somewhere to go after a bad hole.
Practise “good enough” golf
It sounds odd, but you can train yourself to be less of a perfectionist. Here’s how we’d approach it.
Set ranges, not single targets
Instead of aiming for a perfect tempo or a perfect position, aim for a range. If your tempo score sits in a band you’re happy with, the swing is “good enough”, and you move on.
Focus on one habit at a time
Pick the habit that costs you the most, whether that’s hip sway, head movement or standing up through impact, and work on that alone. Trying to fix everything at once is a recipe for frustration. Our Coaching Tips section has drills for each.
Practise your reset
After a poor shot in practice, don’t rake another ball over immediately. Step back, take a breath, run your full routine and hit the next one as if it’s the 14th at Black Desert.
Where DE-SHANK helps
DE-SHANK scores each swing on tempo, head movement, hip sway and posture change from 30 to 100, and it shows you trends over time. That’s useful for exactly this mindset. You’ll quickly see that your scores vary from swing to swing, and that’s normal. What you’re looking for is whether your average is heading in the right direction.
If the light is poor or you’re not fully in frame, we tell you the result is low confidence rather than guessing, so you’re not chasing a number that isn’t reliable.
DE-SHANK gives estimates from one camera view. It’s designed for practice feedback, to help you spot habits and track trends.
Our take
A first PGA Tour win at the 100th attempt, with a double bogey thrown in, is a great story of persistence. The bigger lesson is in the mindset. Stop chasing perfect. Aim for good enough, recover quickly from the poor ones, and let the averages take care of themselves.
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