A big jumbotron stared Megan Tang down as she walked up the 18th hole with the lead during the final round of the 2023 Texas Amateur women’s golf tournament.
“I see my name, my face, and it says number one. That’s a lot to take in. My mind jumped straight to the end,” she said.
Tang, who spent the entire day feeling the intense nerves that come with trying to win, proceeded to three-putt the 18th hole, sending her into a three-player playoff with two other accomplished golfers.
“I just three-putted and had to brush it off…I had five to 10 minutes, just feeling so awful going into the tent signing my score,” she said. “I had to recenter myself to the present and let go of winning or losing.”
Tang did just that, parring the first playoff hole to win the prestigious tournament after her opponents both bogeyed.
“My hands were shaking,” she said of the two-foot putt she had to win the tournament. “I was like, I hope I made this.”
The Tennessee native, who is now a professional golfer, described the culmination of her big win during a recent visit to The Golf Practice’s Highland Park facility where she spent time with two dozen players who take part in M360, discussing her mental approach when she was their age and developing, like they are, into an elite player.
“I would have definitely made myself more open to the mental side of golf because I think I wasn’t really buying into it when I was younger, especially mindfulness,” the 24-year-old said during a Q and A with the players. “When you’re under that stress, it really takes your mind into a different place where a simple putt or a simple chip becomes the hardest thing to do.”
Tang played college golf at University of Illinois-Chicago with The Golf Practice coach Dasa Urbankova. She said the win in Texas was a big hurdle as she continues to work on building her mental resilience, a theme that runs throughout the M360 program.
“Mental resilience is a big component of playing good rounds or not,” she told the group. “Taking it one moment at a time instead of jumping ahead.”
Tang, who now works with a mental coach, admitted that she has a tendency of getting more nervous when she is playing well. One of the M360 players asked her what she was working on this season as she tries to get on the LPGA Tour.
“Just not thinking of fear-based expectations of making a cut or making a score. Just letting things happen, letting things go and just playing well and having more fun,” she said.
