Choking Under Pressure
It was a fine summer’s day on June 19, 1966. The weather, perfect for a game of golf at the Lake Course of the Olympic Club in San Francisco. People gathered to watch one of the greatest players, Arnold “Arnie” Palmer, with a commanding 7-stroke lead at the beginning of the fourth round of the 66th U.S. Open. His adversary, Billy Casper, the 1959 U.S Open champion was in second. On the back nine on what is one of the most fateful days in golf history, Casper tore through the golf course shooting 32-strokes and Palmer seemed to “cool off” from the dominant performance of the past three rounds. Arnie gave up a stroke on the 10th hole then lost another on the 13th hole. According to Casper, Arnie hadn’t thought of him too much until then where suddenly, Arnie seemed to have the feeling that he could lose the tournament and Casper thought the opposite. The entire 7-stroke lead was gone when Arnie bogeyed the 17th hole and ended up with a tie with Casper on the 18th hole. They scheduled the tie-breaker playoff on June 20, 1966, where Arnie never recovered. Billy Casper was the U.S. Open champion with a 4-stroke lead, 69 to 73.
As both men walked off the golf course, and with some hint of remorse, Casper puts his hand on Arnie’s shoulder saying, “Arnold, I’m sorry.” Casper never forgot this momentous tournament ever since.
Performance pressure is defined as an anxious desire to perform at a high level in a given situation. (Hardy, Mullen, & Jones, 1996) This is influenced by the feelings of importance in a situation that one must act upon. Choking is a confluence of performance pressures that causes the person to poorly accomplish a task that he is expected to execute given his level of skill.
What could have possibly happened to Arnie? We present three theories of performance pressures: (1) the distraction theories, (2) self-focus theories, and (3) over-arousal theories. We infer on the following theories as to why Arnie has caused to perform miserably in the last rounds of the 1966 U.S. Open.
The Distraction Theory
The Distraction Theories propose that a distracting environment causes a shift in attentional focus away from the tasks at hand and into an irrelevant task from the primary action. (Wine, 1971) In the case of Arnold Palmer, there could be a change of attention from that routine “in-the-bag” or “on-fire” moment to the possibility of losing the tournament. This attention has suddenly shifted to the worries of the situation and its consequences from concentrating only on one action, such as putting the golf ball into the hole, he now has to deal with another situation, which is trying to control the worries of losing the tournament.
The “breakdowns under pressure” in distraction theory comes from skills that rely on working memory for storage of decision and action-relevant information. The working memory in this area is vulnerable to corruption as a result of the dual-task interference. (Beilock & Carr, 2001)
The Self-Focus Theory
Contrary to the Distraction Theories, the self-focus theories suggest that the pressures from a given situation raise self-consciousness that produces anxiety towards performing the action correctly. This “increases the attention to skill processes and its step-by-step control” to disrupt the well-learned actions. (Baumeister, 1984) In Arnie’s case, seeing that Casper’s catching up to him has caused anxiety that has forced him to miss makeable putts in the 10th, 13th, and 17th holes by concentrating intently on the step-by-step procedures in making that putt as opposed to just producing an automatic action as it was during practice sessions.
The task control-structure that is “proceduralized” in the self-focus theory is based on the mental or motor programs that run largely unattended, without the service of working memory, that is best left outside the scrutiny of introspection. (Beilock & Carr, 2001)
The Over-Arousal Theory
There is an optimal level of arousal that allows a person to execute tasks perfectly. Once that threshold of arousal has been surpassed, the person’s performance on complex tasks suffers considerably. However, a heightened sense of arousal improves well-learned and simple tasks. (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908) The Over-Arousal Theories of choking posits that this degraded performance is produced by excessive arousal that is probably induced by high incentives or social pressure.
In the case of Arnie, who was known as one of the greatest in golf sports history, with a commanding 7-stroke lead, he is pleased with himself for achieving such a feat. Thousands of fans, including himself, expected him to win the tournament with ease. This social pressure has got to him and has caused him the tournament. The makeable 5 to 9-foot putts in the 10th, 13th, and 17th holes were suddenly made difficult.
Watch Billy Casper reminisce the 1966 U.S. Open: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWODQ6tG86s
References
Baumeister, R. F. (1984). Choking under pressure: self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 610–620. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.610
Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: what governs choking under pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(4), 701–725. doi:10.1037// 0096–3445.130.4.701
Hardy, L., Mullen, R., & Jones, G. (1996). Knowledge and conscious control of motor actions under stress. British Journal of Psychology, 84, 621–636. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1996.tb02612.x
Wine, J. (1971). Test anxiety and direction of attention. Psychological Bulletin, 76(2), 92–104. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0031332
Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. J. Comp. Neurol. Psychol., 18, 459–482. doi:10.1002/cne.920180503