Is there such a thing as a ‘born winner?’

Is there such a thing as a ‘born winner?’

In the run up to the British Open golf this week Tom Watson has been talking about the game’s new young rising star Rory McIlroy, and about winning. He says he believes that McIlroy will have learned important lessons through losing at the Masters tournament this year.

Describing his own early career Watson talks about not knowing what pressure is until you’re in it and then how some deal with it better than others. He said “I had a hard time dealing with it when I came on tour. I was not a winner. I choked my way through a lot of tournaments, but was good enough to get in positions to win and found out how to deal with it.”

Technical skills and tactical ability are essential elements is successful performance, but so is the mental game and often even more so. Understanding your own recipe for dealing with pressure and managing stress is a performance fundamental in the challenging, competitive and demanding worlds of both sport and business.