Just do it. The people who make trainers have been telling us to ‘Just do it’ for 25 years now. As a slogan it is simple and effective. (It was also, I learn from Google, inspired by the final words of the executed 1970s spree-killer Gary Gilmore. There’s a free fact for you.) But how many elite sportsmen can just do it?
When there are hundreds of thousands of dollars resting on a shot or a kick or a smash or a putt, no wonder people go to pieces. They lose their confidence, overthink what they need to do, take an age to line up the target, then find their limbs go tight and they fluff the chance. Call it paralysis by analysis. The England cricket team are more than familiar with it this winter.
The young just do it because they haven’t learnt to fear their sport. They still treat it as something to be loved — and it gives us armchair spectators a warm feeling. Remember the name Victor Dubuisson. The 23-year-old golfer plays his sport the right way. Six months ago, he was outside the top 130, but then he stared down the likes of Tiger Woods and Justin Rose to win a big-money tournament in Turkey in November. More good finishes came, culminating in the World Match Play in Arizona two weeks ago, where he showed the ruthlessness of a young Nick Faldo and the flamboyance of Seve Ballesteros, beating Ernie Els, Graeme McDowell and Bubba Watson to reach the final, where he lost to Australia’s Jason Day on the fifth extra hole.
Dubuisson can whack it 300 yards from the tee every time, but the best thing about him is that he just does it.
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