IT comes as no surprise that Pat Cash, like many top-tier athletes, is also a good golfer.
He won’t testify to being in the same echelon as Ivan Lendl, who he famously beat in the Wimbledon final in 1987, or lanky Englishman Tim Henman, but Pat knows and loves his golf.
We were having a sneaky nine holes after the Australian Open (tennis) when Pat started talking about the mental grit of Tiger Woods and our conversation organically traversed into sports high-pressure moments and how the greats handle pressure and some don’t.
Andrew Crockett: When was the first time you had a hit of golf?
Pat Cash: I started at about 15. It was very frustrating. Everyone said ‘oh you’d be great at golf’. But it is a different technique and took me quite a few smashed golf clubs and nearly drove me insane before I started enjoying it. I didn’t have any lessons or anything and my expectations were way too high.
AC: I guess it wasn’t until you started to retire from tennis that you got more into golf?
PC: Pretty much. Between tennis coaching, raising a family and all my other work and charity commitments it is really tough to get time for golf.
AC: Do you see much in the bio-mechanics of tennis with golf?
PC: Interestingly, I was working with the bio-mechanical maestro, Brad Langevad, in the mid-1990s around when I retired from tennis and I had the tennis academy at Hope Island on the Gold Coast. Brad had shown me all this bio-mechanical information which really opened me up, helped my tennis immensely and I started serving and volleying way bigger than when I won Wimbeldon. We started doing this video analysis, which not only helped my tennis but really helped my golf and I started playing quite well. Of course, chipping and putting was a challenge (laughs), but I started playing quite a lot of golf in the late 1990s. These days it is driving me nuts again because I have only been getting out there a couple of times a year.
AC: Do you ever look at golf and tennis and see similarities with technique, or the mental aspects?
PC: There is a mental crossover in golf and tennis, for sure. They are probably the two toughest individual sports. Tennis is much more physical – it is almost a war of attrition and fitness especially in the grand slams where you can just outlast the opponent. There is an element of that in golf too. Over the four days you have to be the most consistent and the toughest mentally.
AC: Which sport do you think is tougher to stay level-headed?
PC: In some ways I think golf is tougher mentally to keep your calmness because you have a long time to think and overthink between shots. Generally speaking, players who are calm tend to be successful. Golfers have a lot of time between shots, but with tennis you might have 30 seconds between points and maybe a minute or two between sets. You see a lot of tennis players (these days) get pretty fired up between shots, yelling and cursing their team in the stands…the amount of emotional energy they are burning is huge. I don’t understand that.
The three to four minutes’ wait between shots for the top golfers, jeepers creepers, I can’t think of anything mentally tougher in sport.
I guess for the average person, if you have ever had to wait to do a presentation or a public speech and it just seems like it is taking forever and all the doubts come into your mind. Tennis players at least only have 30 seconds to do that. It can be crippling if you overthink things. So, I take my hat off to golfers, that is for sure.
AC: You have quite a fun story involving Tony Jacklin CBE (1969 British Open/1970 US Open champion) and China.
PC: I’d get invited to pro-ams and I’d tend to just do the ones for charity. But one day my manager rang me and tells me about this event in China. My manager says ‘we will fly out together, check out the tennis centre and go down to Hainan and play with some guests there. I ask him if should I take my custom-made Callaway clubs and he says ‘nah, it’s just one day’.
We get to the airport and I recognise the physio I used to work on the tennis tour and I’m like ‘what are you doing here’? He says ‘I’m here for the pro-am’. Then I start seeing all these pro golfers hopping off the plane and he starts going on about how much prize money there is. So, I haven’t got any golf clubs and I start seeing golfers like Darren Clarke, Matt Kuchar, Yao Ming, the basketball player, the Brazilian Ronaldo, Andy Garcia, Michael Campbell. Then I find out I’m in a team with Tony Jacklin and I will be on national television in China paired with Jacklin as my team leader. I’m like, ‘you are #$%@ joking me’. I hadn’t played golf for a year and now I am shitting myself. So, I get some rental clubs and I am on the range and I see Darren Clarke, who I knew a bit, and I ask him how he is. He says ‘by the look of your golf shots, I’m going better than you’. Then he gives me a quick 5-10-minute lesson/tip about my shoulders, compares it to tennis and I just started cracking them. I go out there and start playing great and I’m top of the leaderboard, pars and birdies and Tony Jacklin is like ‘wow, you can really play’. Sadly, it didn’t last long. I went tumbling down the leaderboard and stayed there. Yao Ming, the basketballer, is so tall they had to chop off the top of the golf buggy so his head can stick out. After a few days of golf, they have this red-carpet dinner and you realise some of these people you have been golfing with are super famous. They put on this amazing event – Chinese dancers, performances, great food, the whole bit. Eventually, Matt Kuchar comes on the stage to say a few words and I am just feeling like a nobody among all these great golfers, personalities, movie stars. I’m thinking what the hell am I doing here. Matt Kuchar had won the tournament and is thanking Mission Hills for putting on the event, thanking the sponsors and then he says ‘what a great thrill it is to see Pat Cash out there, he was my hero. Suddenly the lights and cameras swing to me and everyone is looking at me and I had not even met Matt Kuchar yet, but he is telling all these people that I’m this legend and his hero when he was growing up as an aspiring tennis professional. I think Andy Garcia won the amateur division. It was a great event despite me skulling my chips along the ground and putting woefully, I still had a great time.
“I’d get invited to pro-ams and I’d tend to just do the ones for charity.”
AC: Of the tennis players, who are some of the better golfers?
PC: They are all pretty good – Tim Henman, Pat Rafter, Lleyton Hewitt, Ivan Lendl. Scott Draper though, wow! He qualified in the morning for the Victorian Open and then went out in the afternoon and won the Australian Open mixed doubles. What a talent!
AC: What else keeps you inspired?
PC: I’m passionate about charity work, and particularly the indigenous charity Children’s Ground up in Alice Springs area. They do great work with the kids there teaching them their native languages (and English) and other things. Beyond that, I am still engaged with Youth of Tomorrow which is a great event based around the memory of Anzac Day in Australia and there are plenty of things I am busy with in England.
AC: What’s next for Pat Cash?
PC: After a few weeks in Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Hamilton Island it’s back to the USA and UK to follow the tennis.
FOOTNOTE: Pat Cash recently joined Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/thepatcash/
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