SPORT Photographer: Richard Heathcote, Getty QUALITY BEEF WE’RE DUBBING HIM THE ‘WISE <strong>MAN</strong> OF GOLF’… WE CATCH UP WITH ANDREW BEEF JOHNSTON – SITTING IN HIS NORTH LONDON FLAT, GETTING READY FOR THE NEXT BIG PHASE IN HIS LIFE, BECOMING A DAD IF I COULD GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN, I’D HAVE GOT A PSYCHOLOGIST STRAIGHT AWAY 28 <strong>MAN</strong> MAGAZINE WINTER <strong>2019</strong> sevenstarmedia.co.uk
SPORT This year’s been really interesting – last 7-8 months I’ve been working with psychologists, I’m a pretty laidback person, but during the past few years, I lost the sense of fun and put myself under loads of pressure.” In many ways winning is harder than the losing “It’s a funny one as a golfer – you’ve got to be really level-headed, in reality if you finished 10th, you may have had a good week and you’ve won. You’re playing against 150 people every week, not one person or one team. Some weeks you shoot some terrible scores; the week after some amazing scores. You get used to it – you play one week you could be leaving the tournament and be 20th, then you’re at a different course two days later – you can’t just focus on results, not be resultsdriven, take it as it comes. You’re working a process.” Jetlag is the hardest part of trying to prepare “You see other players; they get off the plane and straight to the course and practise and I used to make myself feel guilty. This year, I see what works for me – sleep, relax, don’t overcook myself, don’t set an alarm and pop up to the course for a couple of hours when I’m focussed, rather than an entire afternoon being tired – managing your time is the key.” Turkey, South Africa, Dubai & Hong Kong in the space of 5 weeks “I was so angry on the golf course and wound up the whole time – then Jodie, my Fiancée, was telling me I had to chill out, but in Australia, I just couldn’t practise anymore– I burst into tears, so stressed and worried about it, didn’t realise at the time that all the pressure was having an effect on me. I needed to speak to someone. Jodie pushed me to go, I was sceptical but I’m glad I did; now I am massively interested in psychology.” I had no idea how wound up I was and what I was doing to myself “I was slowly beating myself up without realising it – you can do that in any job, perspective is key, it’s so easy to get caught up in the bubble of competing, keep proving yourself, it’s easy to get lost like that. If I could go back and do it again, I’d have got a psychologist straightaway, I didn’t understand why I was feeling like that – once you break it down into pieces there’s reasons behind it.” Evaluate what successful means to you – “Your family, playing a boardgame with your family, not having a Ferrari – success is how you personally deem it – doesn’t matter what they say, but I’ve only come to learn that by speaking about it. I look at these young pop stars and that’s on a whole different level; you’re the next best thing, everyone wants a piece of you – then the media does a u-turn.” Same principle in golf and in life “Work out your perspective, values in life and who’s important to you – once I started understanding that I try and reinforce it every day, a mental warm up every day, keeping on top of that is important.” I NEEDED TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE – I WAS SCEPTICAL BUT I’M GLAD I DID sevenstarmedia.co.uk It’s a long way from the breakdown in his hotel room back in 2016 “My expectations went up so high, I put myself under so much pressure to perform every week that it had a big effect on me. Everything blew up (public image) – I got really popular. I won a tournament in May 2016, then I did well at the British Open in July and that weekend it went absolutely crazy, then I went over to America beginning of 2017 – it was madness being recognised everywhere, doing TV shows. I felt the need to perform – not doing it for the game but for the results.” <strong>MAN</strong> MAGAZINE WINTER <strong>2019</strong> Photographer: David Cannon, R&A, Getty 29