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The crowd stood and cheered as Tiger Woods walked off Augusta National at the Masters on Sunday. The positive reception from the gallery was what you might normally expect for the winner, not the fourth place finisher, but this was not a typical Major. Rather, it was the first tournament that Woods had played since taking a long and difficult absence from his sport to recuperate from a humiliating sex scandal.
The warmth Tiger encountered from supporters as he exited the tournament wasn't so different from the positive reception that he was greeted with on his first day of play. After weeks of speculation about how Tiger would be received by the fans, it was obvious the gallery was on his side.
Yet, Tiger's play, especially on Sunday, didn't reflect this fan support. Instead, his golf was full of emotion-filled ups and downs. Woods made mistakes on the green, bogeyed three of his first five holes, pulled out an impressive eagle at number 7, and then bogeyed twice again. For most of the Masters we were not watching the old Tiger, the front runner, the champion.
It's easy to think that Woods's less-than-stellar performance is because he was distracted by scandals off the course, his diminishing fan base, the pull out of sponsors, his tarnished reputation. But, then again, the positivity from the gallery didn't seem to reflect his losses at all. So, let me float a different hypothesis: Tiger played below his ability precisely because of the enthusiastic crowd.
Simply put, supportive audiences can lead people to choke under pressure. Choking, or performing more poorly than your ability when there are large incentives for stellar performance, is most likely to occur in those very instances when people are intent on doing their best and when those watching are intent on a player's success as well.
For several years psychologists have known that putting a mirror in front of a person or videotaping him while he performs will make him more self-conscious - more aware of himself and his actions. This also occurs when we find ourselves having to perform in front of a friendly audience. Yes, it can be quite satisfying to have your best performance witnessed by friends and followers. But, it can also be more painful to have your supporters see you fall flat on your face. As a result, when we are in front of a supportive crowd, we have a tendency to try and control what we are doing in order to ensure success. Ironically, this attention to detail can disrupt the normally fluid movements of well-learned athletic skills, making them more rigid and error-prone. The end result is choking under the pressure.
Take a study conducted in my Human Performance Lab some years ago. We asked highly skilled college soccer players to dribble a soccer ball through a series of cones while paying attention to the side of their foot that was making contact with the ball.1 This instruction was designed to draw attention to an aspect of their performance about which skilled players might not normally be conscious. We found that soccer dribbling was slower and more error-prone when the players paid attention to their foot in comparison to when they dribbled without any instructions and even in comparison to when we distracted the players' attention away from what they were doing altogether. Paying attention to the details of your performance can be detrimental if you are a highly skilled athlete who, under normal conditions, executes his or her skill without too much conscious control. As an analogy, think about what would happen if I asked you to pay attention to how your knee was bending as you shuffled down the stairs, an activity you have performed countless times in the past. You might fall on your face. Devoting too much attention to fluid and highly practiced motor movements - whether it is a practiced golf shot, soccer dribble, or locomotion - can disrupt them. Paralysis by analysis.
So, in the end, although the crowd probably thought they were doing Tiger a favor by their obvious show of support, it might have been better for Woods's play if they had withheld their elation - at least until he had put on the Green Jacket. Of course, knowing the dark side of a supportive audience can also be advantageous. Next time you are on the course with your buddy who always seems to make the amazing shots, instead of jibing him and hoping you can distract him, just smile and be supportive. Tell him you are really impressed with his game. And, if that doesn't work, ask him what he did with his elbow on his last shot. Good luck!
1Beilock, S. L., Carr, T. H., MacMahon, C., & Starkes, J. L. (2002). When paying attention becomes counterproductive: Impact of divided versus skill-focused attention on novice and experienced performance of sensorimotor skills. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 6-16.
