Having played in the NFL for over two decades, Tom Brady developed a natural instinct for throwing a football. Nowadays, the retired quarterback is trying to cultivate the same instinct in golf, but the transition has been much more mentally challenging for him.
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“In golf, I’m totally messed up. (But) in football, I had it so grooved I knew exactly what I was doing,” Brady said during his appearance on the season finale of ‘Break 50,’ hosted by professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau. “When I came out to this sport, I realized how incredibly difficult it is.”
Brady is absolutely spot on. Golf can be a challenging game for newcomers. It requires a lot of practice, patience, and skill to strike the ball at the right spot and angle to get it exactly where you want it to go.
Moreover, a sense of “feel” is the most important thing in golf, Brady argued, and if someone loses it, he thinks the player will struggle to play well.
“It’s very much between your ears here, and it’s all feel. So, if you don’t have the feel, you get totally messed up, and then you question everything.”
Anyone who’s played golf will tell you that, in this sport, your biggest enemy is yourself. The brain and body tend to tense up before a shot, and it’s easy to get confused in your own head. This is something Brady never experienced in the NFL.
“I need to think less out here. Part of my problem is that I think too much. In football, you just react to the situation, and I trained so much that my body would just naturally do what I asked it to do. But in golf, because I don’t play that much, it’s like [I’m] always guessing.”
Later in the video, Brady was asked if there’s a difference between football, a team sport, and the more individual approach in golf. In response, Brady explained that in golf, one has to be mentally tough and come to terms with the fact that nobody is coming to help. While in football, you have a team around you to fix your mistakes and sometimes turn them into successes.
“I think in golf, you have to be very mentally tough and very resilient. It’s similar to football, but nobody is bailing you out in golf… I could make a bad pass, and a receiver could make a great catch (in football). But (in golf) that pin is never moving.”
Brady then went on to describe a time in his career that emulated this example. “Sometimes as a QB, you’re getting pressured, and you throw it, and it’s kind of a part throwaway, but you’re going to try and give your guy a chance,” he explained.
The guy in this scenario is, of course, Randy Moss. “I threw this ball, and I was like that one is gone… I’m lying on the ground opposite and hear the opposing crowd go ‘nooo’ and I was like, ‘He caught that?'” Brady continued.
A great memory to describe the difference good teammates can make in a game. Brady has appeared in three installments of ‘The Match,’ held between professional golfers and current/former NFL players. He has also appeared in many celebrity golf tournaments. Only time will tell how his golf skills will develop.
