MAGA Senior Player of the Year - 2008
No doubting Thomas
Switch to senior division pays rapid dividends
for Meadowbrook's Scott Thomas
Scott Thomas came to terms with turning 50 a good year before he actually hit the milestone in November of 2007.
“Two years ago, I wasn’t very excited about it,” Thomas said. “But in the year before turning 50, I started embracing it.”
PGA Tour pros have long called hitting the big 5-0 “golf’s greatest mulligan.” As Thomas approached the half century mark, he realized his opportunities to win with regularity looked more and more promising.
With golfers like Don Bliss, Jim Holtgrieve, David Lucks, Terry Tessary and others still playing a highly-competitive brand of golf, success amongst the seniors was far from “a given,” however.
Redoubling his efforts on fitness, equipment upgrades, swing discipline and mental acuity paid dividends for Thomas. The Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association’s 2008 Senior Player of the Year went out and won the senior championships for all of the region’s top associations – the MAGA, St. Louis District and Missouri Golf Association.
In August, Thomas shot 141 at Crescent Farms, then edged Scott Edwards and Bob Meeh in a playoff to win the District’s Cassett Senior Championship.
In mid-September, he dominated at the Metropolitan Senior Amateur at Norwood Hills East. He jumped out quickly with a 3-under 66, and then followed up with an even-par 69 for a 135 total, eight shots ahead of his closest pursuer, Darrel Husinga. A week later, he completed the senior trifecta by firing an even-par 144 to edge Columbia’s Dee Sanders at the MGA Senior at Old Warson.
“I looked at the 2008 schedule and I liked the courses,” Thomas said. “I thought I had a pretty good chance. I looked forward to playing Norwood Hills East, which I thought favored me. Playing the State Amateur at Old Warson, a course that I like and had become familiar with through tournaments like the Metropolitan Match Play, was also interesting. So there were some carrots out there that got me motivated before the start of the season.”
Not that he needed to dramatically ramp up his preparation. As one of the amateur game’s most diligent practitioners, Thomas enters tournaments better prepared than many of his competitors. But given the opportunity to enter events as a senior for the first time, Thomas embraced the new challenge.
A top amateur golfer since moving to St. Louis from Minneapolis in 1984, Thomas has worked particularly hard in recent years to find the right equipment, a trustworthy swing, and a strong body that would stand up to the rigors of a St. Louis summer.
Thomas credited 3-4 times a week workouts through Chesterfield’s Velocity Sports Performance as critical to his 2008 success. “I never got tired,” he said. “Whether it was the heat or the walking, I always felt strong this year.”
The workouts at Velocity Sports Performance “focused on flexibility and strengthening my core,” he added. “As a result I was more solid, more accurate. My loose shots weren’t as loose.”
Thomas has trained with Velocity Sports Performance for two years and worked on his own for several years prior to that. “It gets more and more important as you age,” he said. “It helps prevent injury, for one thing. I know I used to suffer from lower back pain, and that is practically gone now.”
Thomas cited a new set of Miura custom clubs, designed by clubfitter John Kelly of Midwest GolfLab, as another contributor to his ’08 success. “They were better than I could have imagined,” he said while accepting his award at the MAGA post-season banquet.
Prepare with a purpose
When Thomas joined Meadowbrook Country Club after more than a decade at Norwood Hills, the Chesterfield resident realized his new club would allow him more time to both work and practice. The proximity of Meadowbrook to his home office cut back on commute time and increased quality time on the range.
“I really like to practice in the evenings after work,” said Thomas, who with his wife, Lelah, operates a computer consulting business out of his home. “I don’t play that often with the boys, or the regular game at the club. If I play during the week, it’s usually because of a tournament.”
“To me, practice is relaxing,” he added. “If I’m getting frustrated with something, I’ll stop hitting balls. Maybe I’ll move to something else or stop all together and come back another time. If it’s just not clicking, I don’t want to reinforce some bad thoughts or habits. I know Jack Nicklaus used to say if he liked what he was seeing or feeling on the range, he’d stop. Even if it was only 15 or 20 shots, he’d quit.”
Thomas credited his son’s increased interest and improvement in golf as factors in his practice routines. “That’s been fun,” Thomas said. “He actually keeps me out on the range longer than I might normally plan to.”
Frankie, 10, enjoys taking on his father in putting or short game challenges, in particular. “He’ll say, ‘one more game or ‘best four out of seven.’”
Thomas’ pre-tournament routines are formulated with a plan for success. “If you’re going to commit the time to compete, you might as do everything possible to make it successful,” he said.
“I try to get in a practice round on a day I might experience the same conditions that will exist during Round 1,” he said. “I might try and schedule that round about the same time as my scheduled tee time in Round 1. I’ll find my notes on the course from a prior event there, and go through the notes once before the practice round and again during the round. I’ll especially focus on the tee shots. I might take a few moments to go in the pro shop and talk to the pros about how to approach certain holes.
Thomas, who used to work with the late Jerry Morris, said Whitmoor teaching pro Todd Meyer has been his go-to-guy the last few years. “I’ve also worked with Forest Hills’ John Hayes on the short game for quite awhile and I really like the fact that my pro (Meadowbrook’s Craig Liddle) is willing and able to provide a quick critique any time I need something.”
Assist from Dave Pelz
Thomas said a visit to the Dave Pelz one-day clinic at the Missouri Bluffs last year proved extremely helpful. “It was awesome,” Thomas said. “The instructors were able to tell me a number of things I was doing right and some things I was doing wrong. And they were able to determine that my putter wasn’t properly fit for me.”
Thomas, an avid reader of golf history as well as technique and psychology, also points to the advice of Orlando sports psychologist Dr.Patrick Cohn.
“I have more than 300 books on golf, mostly history. I like the writings of Bobby Jones and Henry Longhurst,” he said. “I have four or five books from Dr. Patrick Cohn. I like that he gets into a lot of detail.”
Thomas said Cohn has helped in areas of preparation, concentration, proper diet and relaxation. The key, especially important in putting, according to Thomas, is being able remain focused on a plan of execution.
“You can’t get caught up in thoughts about an outcome,” he said. “If you start letting your mind wander to ‘if I don’t make this, I’ll fall a shot behind,’ you will be unable to execute the shot.
“Putting works best when you stick to a routine, no matter what the circumstance,” he added. “You have to focus on determining a line and simply making a stroke that will roll the ball over that line. You cannot allow yourself to think about anything else.”
That same commitment to a successful process has helped him hit better tee shots, crisper irons and manage his entire round. “My best rounds are when I’m not sure how far under par I am,” Thomas said. “That means, in those cases, I’m totally focused on playing a shot rather than an outcome of the shot.”
And as a scan of the 2008 leaderboards indicates, Scott Thomas’ outcomes were quite good.
-- by Bill Burton
Scott Thomas, seated, with the 2008 George F. Meyer Trophy, and MAGA Senior Amateur runner-up Darrel Huisinga.