Sam Steven’s Take On His 1 mistake As A PGA Rookie
“Jay Monahan passes out a set of expensive cufflinks to each Players Championship first-timer as they sit in a circle and mingle with members of the media. For many, it’s our first crack at speaking with some of the yet-unheralded players and/or the up-and-comers of the game’s future.
In this moment of achievement — reaching your first Players — I decided to ask these pros what they’ve learned on that journey about mistakes: What one thing did they do that was wrong during their rookie seasons? For some, that debut campaign was more than a decade ago. For others, it was just last year. But in a surprisingly unexpected way, their responses were stunningly similar. The mistake made too often by Tour rookies? It’s doing too much. Playing too much. Grinding too much. Thinking too much about results.
Take Sam Stevens, the 27-year-old Texan. “I probably played a little too much,” Stevens told me. “I played pretty good around this time last year and had secured my card. I wanted to get in that top 50 and I ended up not getting in the top 50, but I played so many in a row that I just kind of got worn out and started playing not as well.”