Coming out of high school, Chip McDaniel was one of the top players in the country, having won his State Amateur and the National Junior PGA Championship. At the University of Kentucky, Chip won four times as an individual and twice in his senior year. Professionally, Chip competed mainly on the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry for four years before taking the assistant coach job at Eastern Kentucky University.
Despite winning a few tournaments as a kid, Chip did not let it go to his head. His dad always reminded him that Michael Jordan said to “never believe your press clippings.” Instead, Chip focused on blocking out the noise and not focusing on results.
When Chip made it on the PGA Tour, one of the things he noticed was that all of the players were focused on disassociating their self-worth and their golf scores. Later, when he got to the Korn Ferry Tour, he noticed that many of the players, including himself sometimes, were associating their golf with their self-worth and saying things like “I don’t belong here. I belong on the PGA Tour.” While he was on the Korn Ferry, he tried to remember and emulate the mentality that he had learned from the PGA Tour players.
For more information, listen to the episode here https://rss.com/podcasts/thetournamentcode/
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