Sir Nick Faldo: A Tale of Dedication and Determination

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Sir Nick Faldo won three Open Championships from 1987 to 1992. None were won through pure talent alone, but all three were grounded in a level of dedication that few sportsmen or women have ever known.

Standing on the 15th tee at Muirfield in 1992, with just four holes to go in his tournament, Nick Faldo lay two shots behind leader John Cook. Having started the final round with a four-shot lead, the Englishman’s bid for his third Open Championship in six years was on the ropes.

But Faldo had been working for nearly a decade to conquer this exact situation. Under the most strenuous circumstances, England’s most successful golfer was stoic and unrelenting.

“Something clicked with my mental strength,” Faldo said. “I honestly said to myself as I walked off the 14th green, ‘Just forget everything. You’ve got four holes to play and you’d better play the best four holes of your life’.”

A decade earlier, Faldo was incapable of displaying such mental stability. In fact, Faldo’s perceived inability to handle the biggest moments forced his hand to make one of the most radical decisions any professional golfer has made in the last 50 years.

Nine years earlier, during The Open at Royal Birkdale in 1983, Faldo was posing a real threat to the leaders over the weekend. It was the then-25-year-old’s best chance yet to win a major, and he was threatening to become the first British Champion since Tony Jacklin in 1969.

“I learned very quickly that I loved playing with the buzz,” Faldo said. “I needed that extra bit of atmosphere. I was quite happy. You go through all the butterflies in your stomach in the morning, all that apprehension and then finally when you walk onto the practice ground, you think, ‘oh, relief!’ Finally you take the balls out and start hitting golf balls.”

“Now I’m in my comfort zone, so that was all good to know. That was all good, how much I enjoyed that feeling and the whole experience of it. But the big learning curve was Sunday afternoon. By the time I got to the 10th tee, I was now leading The Open and, bottom line, I couldn’t handle it.”

After racing into the lead after the front nine on Sunday, a less than stellar back nine saw Faldo drop to a share of eighth position. As well as knowing how much he loved the thrill of contending in The Open, Faldo now knew his game simply was not built for major success.

“And it was teaching me really fast,” he said. “If you want that feeling and you’re not quite prepared to handle it, you’ve got to elevate your game just a touch.”

“I guess (1983) started to sow the seeds that ‘Hey, if you want to win The Open, you’ve got to have a little bit more’, and that little bit more I was looking for was better shot-making. I was old school, a lot of leg action, a lot of hand action, especially with the equipment. The ball would start low and then climb high and had a lot of spin on it.”

In the winter of 1983, now with a thought in his mind that was beginning to grow, Faldo mulled over a decision that would change the course of his golfing career forever.

“I was in South Africa and I guess that’s when the little light bulb hit me and I said ‘Right, I’ve really got to do something about this now.’ David Leadbetter was there and that’s when we started talking and sowing the seeds. I thought about it for another six more months but that started to sow the seeds of how to rebuild my golf swing.”

Faldo was not aware of the risk he was undertaking in completely rebuilding his swing, and the possible effects it could have on his career. But having come close to winning The Open at the tender age of 26, he was certain his swing was not good enough to accomplish what he wanted.