Chapter 1
Introducing sport and exercise psychology:
discipline and profession
I think a lot of the game is how you feel upstairs and that’s confidence. It generates your
persona, your aura, your whole body language. And that comes out on the table. If you’re
giving off signs, it shakes the other person. (Ken Doherty, 1997 world snooker champion
and runner-up in 2003, cited in Watterson, 1997, p. 8)
Eighty per cent of this game is about confidence. It’s in the mind. (Glenn Hoddle,
manager of Tottenham Hotspur football team and former manager of England, cited in
Lacey, 1998, p. 24)
The key to my game in recent times has been my attitude. (Darren Clarke, Ryder Cup
player, cited in C. Smith, 1998, P.
Darts is in the mind and you need to be under pressure to throw your best. (Phil “The
Power” Taylor, ten-times world champion darts player, cited in Kervin, 2001, p. S6)
The myth has to be dispelled that you are mad to go to a psychologist. You have to get
the best out of your mind to get the best out of your body. (David James, West Ham and
England goalkeeper, cited in Winter, 2002a, p. S3)
IntroductionAs the above quotations show, many prominent athletes and coaches believe that
although sport is played with the body, it is won in the mind (see Figure 1.1). If this
belief is correct, then psychologists should be able to help sports competitors to enhance
their athletic performance by providing them with practical advice on how to do their best
when it matters most. Influenced by the potential benefits of such advice, increasing
numbers of athletes and teams are turning to sport psychologists in an effort to gain a
winning edge over their rivals. Although this trend is apparent in virtually all competitive
games, it is especially evident in mentally demanding individual sports such as golf. Not
surprisingly, therefore, world-class golfers such as Ernie Els (Davies, 2002), Pádraig
Harrington (Gilleece, 2002), Retief Goosen (Hannigan, 2001a), Phil Mickelson (Browne,
2000), Alison Nicholas (St John, 1997) and Colin Montgomerie (Fleming, 2003) have
acknowledged the contribution of sport psychologists to their success in recent years.
Indeed, according to D.Davies (2003), Davis Love III, who won the 2003 Players’
Championship at Sawgrass, consults not one but three sport psychologists on a regular
basis! It would be wrong, however, to assume that athlete—psychologist consultations
are always about performance enhancement. Thus Keefe (2003) suggested that one
reason why so many professional golfers hire psychologists is simply that they “need to
tell their story to someone” (p. 73) who has little direct involvement in their lives.