Everything You Need To Know About Dr. Sherylle Calder Ernie Els’ Putting Visualization Coach

0 0 GolfCentralDaily July 22, 2012 Edit this post

Ernie Els thanked Sherylle Calder during his acceptance speech at The Open Championship today for having helped him regain confidence in hi...

Ernie Els thanked Sherylle Calder during his acceptance speech at The Open Championship today for having helped him regain confidence in his putting stroke. Here’s a little background on Dr. Calder and what it is that she does.

(also check out my Ernie Els winning equipment post here)

Calder is a former elite athlete, scientist and visual skills coach. She played international hockey and now works at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Ernie Els was introduced to Calder by a mutual friend Johann Rupert at at the Volvo Golf Champions at Fancourt where she was working with Robert Karlsson and Retief Goosen among others. Ernie was in the doldrums over not having been included in the Masters field and the pair decided to work together. Their sessions included a 10 day intensive camp in the USA after which Els noticed a significant improvement in his PGA Tour putting statistics.

Sherylle Calder is a renowned visualisation coach and is a household name in South African sport for well over a decade. She has worked with several of the nations top rugby players including Bryan Habana and Percy Montgomery. When the Springboks won the 2007 World Cup Calder met Nelson Mandela but needed no introduction as Mandela declared ‘Of course I know who the “Eye Lady” is.’

Calder teaches a visual performance programme, the Eye Gym, which she claims can give athletes an edge and “lift their performance”. She believes that in sport negativity is present at the highest level of competition, this is rooted in poor visual skills. Among those she professes she would to work with in the future are tennis player Andy Murray and Tiger Woods.

After Ernie’s success at Lytham, somehow I can visualize that happening.

Below is Dr. Calder’s blog post on her work with Ernie Els

When Ernie Els finished his final round at the U.S. Open last month, he had every reason to be filled with fury. He bogeyed two of the closing three holes at the notoriously unforgiving Olympic Club course in San Francisco and squandered his chance for a third U.S. Open title.
In 2010, Els, burning with frustration, had marched past the swarm of press after a similar back-nine failure at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

But this was a different Els. Disheartened? Certainly. Disgusted? Perhaps. But discouraged? Not this time. He swallowed his anger, gathered his wits and didn’t dodge any questions from the press. As a matter of fact, he accepted his fate with equanimity and spoke candidly of looking forward to the next major. And with good reason: Els all but declared he was back.
“I feel that where I was last year and where I am now, it’s a huge change,” he said after finishing in ninth place, three shots behind the champion, Webb Simpson. “I really felt like my old self. I’m contending now. I feel I have a chance, and if I eliminate those mistakes, I could win one of these things again. So I got, I got the belief back.”
Sound the warning bells, or at least take note: Els is again a prime threat at a major, especially at the British Open, where despite missing the cut the past two years, he has an exemplary record.
To think that only a year ago, there were whispers Els might be finished. He’s the first to admit that he has been fighting a stubborn slump that dates from his last victory, at the 2010 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“Well, I’ve been through the mill, believe me. Almost two years now, I’ve really been tested with the game,” he said. “The last 18 months has been really difficult. I have to really dig deep just to stay in the game, and now I’m really feeling like I’m coming around again.”
Among Els’s most ardent supporters is his fellow South African Gary Player, who won the last of his three British Open titles at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s in 1974. Even Player said he raised an eyebrow when he noticed Els had slipped out of the top 50 in the world and wasn’t eligible for this year’s Masters. (Els ended 2010 ranked No. 12, plummeted to No. 68 by the end of 2011 and has climbed back to No. 40.)
“I shook my head and said, ‘That’s not possible.’ I feel Ernie should never be out of the top 10 with his ability,” Player said.
Equally hard to believe is that a decade has passed since Els won his lone British Open title at Muirfield in 2002. For the next year, he took the winner’s Claret Jug with him wherever he traveled.
“When I returned it, I had to give it a real cleaning because we had poured so many different drinks inside it,” Els recalled.
Ever since, Els has endured a fallow period in the majors that has left him stuck at three victories. In the intervening years, his heartaches include being pipped by Phil Mickelson at the 2004 Masters, losing a four-hole playoff to Todd Hamilton at the British Open the same year, and five other top-5 finishes. He also had to overcome an injury to his left knee, which required surgery after a boating accident following the 2005 Open. But that may have felt like a bad bruise compared to his wounded psyche, which some feared might never properly heal.
“I still sometimes play like a man that’s got a lot of talent and can play the game, and then I can turn around and play really poorly,” Els said. “As I say, I’ve got a little Jekyll and Hyde to me when it comes to my golfing.”
The signs of progress are as evident in his statistics as in his sunnier disposition. Els has improved from 162nd a year ago to 45th this season in the P.G.A. Tour’s all-around category, which measures eight components of a player’s game. He has lowered his scoring average by one full stroke to 70.00, which may not sound like much, but over four rounds in a tournament it could be the difference between winning and 20th place.
Els conceded that he had spent so much time working on his swing with coach Butch Harmon that he may have neglected his short game. Late last year, he boldly switched to a belly putter. The decision earned Els lighthearted ribbing from friends and heat from critics, and for good reason. In 2004, Els called for belly and long putters to be banned and declared, “I believe nerves and the skill of putting are part of the game.”
Els’s new tune has shifted to: If you can’t beat them, join them. “As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them,” he said at the 2011 Frys.Com Open in October.
Els attributed much of his renewed confidence in his short game to the practice he’s been doing under the watchful eye of a sports scientist, Sherylle Calder, since January. “It’s just getting your eyes to focus better, and basically that’s what we’re working on,” he said.
Els ranks 70th this year in the tour’s strokes gained/putting category, a vast improvement over 181st out of 186 players in 2011. As a result, he has shown flashes of his former self and climbed into contention again.
“I probably could have won three times already this year, once in Europe and two of them” on the P.G.A. Tour, he said. “But the flat stick didn’t help me out. I’m working on that.”
His stroke is still not without some flaws. In his two brushes with victory on the P.G.A. Tour this season, his putter betrayed him at crunch time. He missed two short putts in the final three holes that kept him from winning the Transitions Championship in March. A month later, he did nothing to dissuade his doubters at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, failing to convert a six-foot, or 1.8-meter, putt to win and losing in a playoff.
At 42, Els still covets another major title. He is quick to point out that he is the same age as last year’s champion golfer of the year, Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland. When Els was asked at the Scottish Open over the weekend who he fancied at the British Open, he replied, “You still have to look at some of the old guys.”
In other words, don’t forget about Els. Confidence is knowing your best golf is still to come.