Wilkinson’s coaching guru behind champion’s Open win
Alred fills ‘missing link’ to spark Italian’s success Coach places emphasis on ‘practising ugly’
Just as fly-half Jonny Wilkinson did 15 years ago when kicking England to World Cup victory, so Francesco Molinari has performance coach Dave Alred to thank for helping him to victory at the 147th Open Championship yesterday.
Just moments before he headed out to the first tee alongside Tiger Woods, Molinari was on the putting green “practising ugly” under Alred’s watchful eye. Eighteen holes later, Molinari sank the most important putt of his life to effectively capture the Claret Jug employing many of the same processes that Wilkinson used to kick the decisive dropped goal in extra time of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final against Australia.
Since linking up with Alred two years ago, Molinari has enjoyed the best form of his career. A fortnight ago he finished tied second at the John Deere Classic and the week previously he picked up his first PGA title at the Quicken Loans National, by an astonishing eight strokes.the 35-year-old also claimed the BMW PGA Championship in May and has now become the first Italian to win a major.
London-born Alred previously helped Luke Donald to rise to world No1 and Molinari seems to be following a similar trajectory since starting his partnership with Alred.
“Before I came in, I felt his practice lacked a bit of direction. Those are his words,” Alred told The
Daily Telegraph. “He had a really good swing coach in Denis Pugh, a great fitness guy in Rob [Goldup] and Pello [Iguaran Valle] the caddie. I was the missing link between the swinging and the scoring.”
Speaking on Saturday, Molinari described the benefits of his partnership with Alred. “In many ways, I think he’s been a great addition to the team,” he said. “He’s probably a personality and a figure that I was missing. So I think he pushed us all a little bit more. You can see the results, he’s really helped me a lot.”
Underpinning everything Alred does with Molinari is the need to “practise ugly”. Practising pretty, when every putt is sunk and every drive is picture-perfect, is anathema to Alred, who also counts international fly-halves Jonathan Sexton and George Ford among his client list. It is in the ugly, the horrible and the uncomfortable where progress is made, as Alred explains.
“Everything lies in the ugly zone – about getting frustrated, getting annoyed,” Alred said. “You need to go through that in practice so, on the course, you can handle anything. The big area was to look at his resilience and build on that.
“Once something has become comfortable, I want to make it uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable it is, the more engaged your brain is, the more on it you are.”
Asked to provide an example of how he finds ugliness, whether in golf, rugby or any other sport, Alred emphasises the need to practise with consequences. “So rather than saying let’s do 10 of these putts or kicks, you say how many does it take for you to get 10 in?” Alred said. “Other things would be if you have a set of 12, miss one and you start again. It is really important that they buy into it.
“You are almost educating the player to be ugly. Same with Sexton. He will tell you that when he gets ugly in training then he kicks like a dream at the weekend.”
The comparison between golf and a collision team sport like rugby with dozens of moving parts may seem incongruous, but the principles behind the mental preparation for goal-kicking or swinging the golf club are exactly the same. “Pressure is anything that interferes with someone’s ability to be totally focused on their process,” Alred said. “It might be lifting my head when playing a golf shot because I was more anxious about the outcome. Pressure is essentially the process and then the overriding concern of the outcome.”
Alred provides individual cues, whether it be focusing on the dimples of a golf ball or staring behind the goalposts, to get the athlete back in the moment and concentrating on their processes. “Taking the time to do that without getting technically orientated makes a massive difference.”
Focusing on the process renders the outcome – a World Cup or the Claret Jug – irrelevant, and even now Alred does not want to put any limits on what Molinari can do next. “This thing is a journey and we keep getting better,” Alred said.