Last weeks Carrus Open was a pretty clinical performance by Luke Toomey who if any of you were lucky enough to witness would attest to but rest assured while he made it look simple, the process was anything but.

The purpose of this article or blog is not to pump Luke’s tyres up but to show some of the factors the top players consider, Luke is by no means the finished product and nothing he does would be different to any other young player trying to master this game.

With golf development in young players we often refer to the 4 pillars when it comes to performance; Physical, Technical, Tactical and Mental and each pillar receives an equal amount of attention, and Luke is no exception.

Luke’s typical day will start at the gym at 6am in a training week and even this week during the event he still went to the gym a few times and did his daily maintenance exercises at home which involves stretching both pre and post round among other things.

It can be easy to be lazy with your preparation on an event at a course you know so well, but Luke kept his standards high, in particular with his tactical game plan. As an example, he occasionally hit driver off the first tee and other times he hit an iron, so what were the factors that would mean he hits driver.

If the wind was a SW, the pin was further on than 20m or within 8m of the right-hand side of the green it would be an iron. If the wind was a northerly and or a flag within 20m of the front of the green and more than 8m from the right-hand side, it was a driver.

Most holes would have such a game plan, so pre round it would be a check of the wind direction and forecast and grabbing the pin sheets pre round to go through them over a coffee and sort the plan for the day. For those unaware every player gets a “pin sheet” which says how far every pin is from the front of the green and either side.

It would be easy to believe that Luke was super aggressive to get to a score of -22, but the reality was he was very measured in his approach, some would even describe it potentially as defensive.

In the 72 holes he made 1 eagle, 3 bogies and 23 birdies, I suspect that there wouldn’t be many players in the field who had less dropped shots than Luke, which is due to some obvious technical skill but also a very precise tactical plan. This plan had him aiming in precise spots off the tee and trying to hit it certain distances as well as very rarely aiming at flags, his main goal was to put the ball in position to give himself the best chance.

For those who watched in the last round would have seen a big drive down the 13^th hole which left him around 170m to the flag for his second shot from the first cut of rough on the left hand side of the fairway, it looked impressive off the tee and to be fair it was, a high draw starting down the right and drawing back with the fairway. However Luke was aiming to hit that ball at the right rough, if it went straight he was sweet, if he pushed it he was on 17 and if pulled it a touch (like he did) he was fine just down the left side, almost rendering the out of bounds irrelevant. If he had of aimed that down the centre of the fairway that ball would likely have ended up in the racecourse, same execution just poor management.

There is also a mental discipline that comes with this plan and that was evident in each round, not least the first round where he was desperate to play well in front of his home club members and found himself one over par through 6 holes. After the round I said “nice comeback mate” to which he replied “there wasn’t a comeback, I stuck to my plan all day and felt I played solidly all day”, meaning that he knew what he was doing he just needed to stick to his process and be patient, not panic or ‘try’ to make birdies or putts.

Even in the last round where he was leading by a few shots and the temptation was to try to make birdies to take it away from the field, he stuck to his plan and in this case, unlike the first round, he played the first 6 holes in 3 under par and the front 9 in -5 essentially locking up the tournament.

Even though when you look at the leaderboard you see a lot of birdies it was actually his bogey avoidance that was most pleasing and his mental toughness to stick to his plan and trust his process.

His mental game was allowed to be good because he had clarity over what he was trying to do tactically, so there was minimal “noise” in his head.

He was able to have a good tactical game plan because technically he is very good, he moves the club beautifully (I might be a bit biased) but this technical skill allows him to be able to stick to his game plan. His plan off the first tee is great but if you can’t achieve it technically the plan is not much use, so to have a good mental game you need a robust tactical game and to be able to execute your tactical game you need good technique.

He is afforded this technical skill because physically he is very fit and I don’t mean cardiovascular fitness (though he is) I mean he is fit for golf, he is super strong where he needs to be and has excellent mobility, meaning that he can achieve the movement in his swing we are after, which enable him to execute his game plan with mental discipline.

In summary there are a lot of factors that make up a good performance like Luke’s and as I said at the top this isn’t to pump Luke’s tyres up I just think that it is worth mentioning it is not just showing up hitting it good and holing putts. Luke prepares this way every week of the year and he doesn’t always shoot -22 and win in fact sometimes he can do everything exceptionally and miss a cut, but each time he does he learns something new to help him sharpen his sword.

So if there is one takeaway that you can learn from Luke without the 5am wake up call for the gym and the hours of beating balls, it is simple this; have a plan for what you are doing and accept that it may not happen this time, but be patient and just get a little better every day.