Information to Action
In Part 1, the conversation centred on understanding the grind; the peaks, troughs, sacrifices and discipline required to pursue elite golf. But there was another question that mattered:
But what do players really DO with all the stuff they learn?
Tarun Sir says the pro athletes aren’t just people who get more information. They are people who do something about it.
A player can come to a session, listen, take notes and feel inspired. But if nothing changes after that, the session hasn’t gone very far.
That’s why habits are important.
Developing Wise Habits
Elite performance is often built from small behaviours repeated consistently over the entire journey.
For a golfer, that might mean learning how to warm up before a round, inputting stats right after a tournament, following rehab protocols, maintaining nutrition routines, or staying focused during strength and conditioning sessions.
These are small details, but they add up to a daily standard for the athlete. He also asked the players to be more attentive and active during the journey.
After a round, a player should find a quiet place to do important things like enter statistics and think about how they played instead of joining a noisy group and talking about every aspect of the game.
The same thing holds in the gym.
If a player is doing an exercise, they should be concentrating on the movement, the technique and the purpose of the exercise, not how uncomfortable it feels or how much they hate it.
Awareness helps athletes stay in the moment with their senses and this is essential for improvement.
Language and Its Effect
One of the many memorable themes that emerged from the session was the importance of language.
Tarun Sir brought up an important message that language is not just what the players say, but how they say it and how they respond to difficult situations.
As a budding athlete, you will hear negative comments from competitors, parents, peers and sometimes even themselves. The challenge is to prevent that negativity from becoming part of their identity.
The more a player says to themselves, “I’m not good enough,” the more they start to play that way.
Instead, players need to build positive self-talk.
This does not mean not making mistakes. It means not allowing a mistake to define who they are. You must credit the shot after a bad shot with confidence. Even a bad round still gets the benefit of the doubt for the next round. The aim is to develop an internal language that supports rather than undermines performance.
Create Your Own Reality
Tarun Sir went a step further and urged the players to create their own reality.
Self-belief can influence how an athlete behaves, how they carry themselves and how well they perform. If a player sees himself as a failure all the time, then every setback is proof of that belief. But if they feel they should be at the top level, they are more likely to behave like someone who can be there.
This mentality must be cultivated continuously.
It can start at the practice range, move to the gym and finally reach the tournament play.
Even something as simple as saying before a shot, “This ball is going where I want it to go,” can get a player to approach the shot with more confidence and freedom. The point is not to generate false confidence. It’s to build real self-belief through repeated positive actions.
Good Attitude Toward People
Interestingly, Tarun Sir’s message on positivity was not self-talk either.
He also challenged players to think about the way they talk about other people. The environment of competitive sport can lead to constant comparisons between athletes. It’s easy to criticise another player’s swing, clothing, performance or mistakes.
But this is not the behaviour of a true champion, he says.
Champions don’t have to make someone else feel small to feel big.
He suggested an experiment to the players. They can keep a notebook and write down the positive and negative comments they hear around themselves. They can also observe how often they themselves speak negatively about others. This exercise would show how much negativity exists around competitive sport.
Even on the golf course, a player may choose to admire a good shot made by a competitor. A real “good shot” doesn’t take away from your own game. Rather, it shows appreciation for another player’s effort and helps you keep a positive attitude.
Communication: The Missing Link
Another big takeaway from the session was communication.
The key to a good player-team relationship is that players must be able to be honest with the people backing them.
Perhaps a player finds a particular session to be too difficult. Maybe they don’t understand why they need a nutrition plan. Maybe they are uncomfortable with something their coach tells them to do.
The answer is not to stop going to sessions silently.
It is to talk.
He reminded the players that the whole team is there to help. If something is not working, bringing it up gives the team a chance to find a solution. Poor communication, in contrast, leads to assumptions, frustration and, ultimately, disconnection.
Learning to Filter Out the Noise
Young golfers will be getting a lot of advice as they move into tournaments and tours. Parents, teammates, spectators and anyone else around the game may have opinions about how they should play.
Sir encouraged the players to learn to filter the noise from the helpful advice.
The question should always be:
Who am I listening to? What is their experience?
Opinions abound within competitive sport. Trying to listen to everyone can easily throw a player off their process. The successful athletes need the discernment to know who to listen to if they want to add real value to their development. And when the noise gets too loud, the answer is still communication with the team.
The Ultimate Devotion
The Players’ Meet ended on a difficult note for the young golfers.
- Be optimistic.
- Turn off distractions.
- Speak.
- Work with your team.
- Make your own reality.
- Most important, do something with what you learn.
The results of the tournaments are not the only measure of the path to becoming a successful golfer, but also the quality of the habits built along the way.
Mistakes will happen. There will be no remedy sessions. There will be tough tournaments, injuries, doubts and times when quitting seems the easier option.
Tarun Sir reminded the players that the entire TSG Academy team is invested in their success. The onus is now on the players to take advantage of that opportunity. The grind isn’t something that happens every once in a while.
It happens every single day.
And it’s what you do with those days that’s going to make the difference for those who want to reach the highest level. With that, this amazing learning came to a halt only to meet again with something new and of good value for our young and aspiring golfers.
Keep Golfing and don’t forget to cherish your journey!
