Golf: Mind over matter

By GREGOR PAUL


Jos Vanstiphout says Michael Campbell was in a terrible state when he arrived at Loch Lomond to play in the Scottish Open earlier this year.

He must have been. He was prepared to employ 53-year-old Vanstiphout as his mind coach, even though the Belgian has no qualifications in sports psychology and only took up the game at the age of 41 to help him build business contacts in the advertising world.

Such a move could be viewed as desperate, were it not for the fact that a host of top players, including Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Sergio Garcia also seek the counsel of Vanstiphout.

It seems faintly ludicrous that Vanstiphout, a man who started his working life fronting a rock band before moving into newspaper advertising sales, could effectively wander in off the street and carve a very successful living as a mind coach.

But although Vanstiphout's story is implausible, he does have success stories. Els won five tournaments - his second major included - within five months of working with Vanstiphout. Frenchman Thomas Levet was a journeyman before employing the Belgian in 2002. A week later Levet won the British Masters and then went within a whisker of winning the Open, while Goosen was a close-but-no-cigar-performer until Vanstiphout steered him to the US Open and then to the top of the European Order of Merit.

So what's Vanstiphout's secret? "There is no secret, man, and anyone who tells you there is, is just bullshitting," says Vanstiphout. "I tell the players what they already know, tell them things they need to hear. I keep myself available 24 hours a day and they can phone anytime, they know that."

And then there is Campbell. He was struggling this season, missing cuts and earning paltry cheques. He reunited with Vanstiphout - they worked together previously four years ago - at the Scottish Open in June and Campbell came second. "Michael wasn't the happiest camper in Scotland after the disasters he had on the US PGA Tour," recalls Vanstiphout. "He was in a terrible state. I told him he needed to start again. How could he concentrate on golf when he had so many characters to deal with. There's no way he could.

"Financially Michael doesn't need to worry, he doesn't need to work. He needed to work out what he wanted from golf. I told him he belongs in the top 30. He's getting there. He comes a long way in a few sessions. A guy like Michael could win a major every year."

Vanstiphout's advice, while totally valid, appears to be nothing more than common sense. He admits his greatest inspiration is the ageless Timothy Gallwey book, The Inner Game of Golf. He quotes to clients ad nauseam from this best-selling, self-help bible, fuelling the sceptics' belief that the business of uttering inane platitudes has never been so profitable.

Vanstiphout's reputation as a peddler of the blindingly obvious is both his greatest attraction and turn-off. Those in the latter camp can't see the commercial logic in paying through the nose to hear what has long-been apparent.

Greg Turner, a long-serving member of the tour who retired last year, was always an advocate of players trying to manage their own affairs. Understandably, then, he is lukewarm on Vanstiphout.

"From what I observed and from what I heard from guys on the tour, the things he says do make a reasonable amount of sense. He seems to be half psychologist, half cheerleader.

"But I don't think he is re-inventing the wheel. He seems to tell players things which I think are obvious."

There are plenty of players who would be more pointed than Turner.

Campbell, like all the others who have Vanstiphout on the pay roll, is totally unmoved by such derision. "I think you do things that work for you," says Campbell.

"I was working with Jos and then we went our separate ways. When I met him again before the Scottish Open, we talked and things felt right. He said some things that helped me and I decided it was time to work with him again."

Vanstiphout is in no doubt that 2005 will see the re-emergence of Campbell. "Believe me, Michael Campbell will be back next year. He will return as the player we all know he can be."