22 hours Ago
Cam Davis desperately wants to perform at the Masters, but has lent on his hypnotherapy sessions to understand it will be best not to think that way at Augusta National. Davis is the first PGA Tour member to add a hypnotherapist to his support team. The two-time PGA Tour winner's form has faded but he fancies his chances when he tees up among five contending Australians at the Masters from Thursday.
"Setting a goal to play well at an event, or place a certain position, or keep my card leads to more pressure because you don't want to let yourself down," Davis said. "There are people that those goals fire them up, pump them up and it's a great way to be. "But for me there's been history of not wanting to let myself down, rather than get after it.
"Some call it more of a 'choker's mentality', but for me it's being able to put myself in a place where I can play my best golf." Davis said his hypnotherapy sessions, initially a suggestion from his wife, were designed to find answers "without the conscious mind trying to change it". Davis is among five Australians contesting the Masters.
"It starts off with a goal, something you want to improve and then it's a guided meditation: no tricks or anything," he said. "In that state I've found out things I didn't want to know, or didn't realise were causing blockages, to improve. "But not just golf, how content I am in life in general.
"It's an eye-opening experience and I'm still unpacking stuff." After leading by a stroke heading into the final hole, Australia's Min Woo Lee breaks through for his first PGA Tour victory following a tense finish at the Houston Open. Davis had only worked with his hypnotherapist for a fortnight before winning in Detroit last year, a triumph that followed missing the cut at the US Open.
He will enter the year's first major on the back of five missed cuts mixed with three top-18 finishes, including a fifth place at Pebble Beach. "I'm more in the camp of doing the little things well and let the big things happen," Davis said. "I'd love to win and every guy out here wants to win a major.
I've kind of been in contention, but I'd love to experience what it's like to hit the shots required to win the thing. "I'm trying to get better and better every year and part of that is doing well in the majors. "But I've figured out the goals that work best for me are not goals where I'm comparing myself to other people.
"That, finishing second but playing well, would feel like a failure to me.".
