Charles Warren Interview

Charles Warren was a two-time winner on the 2004 Nationwide Tour and finished the year ranked 8th on the Nationwide money list.  Prior to his back-to-back wins in late July & early August, Charles was ranked 56th on the money list and had had a poor start to his year compared to his finishes on the Nationwide Tour in 2002 (16th) and 2003 (25th).  Charles’s year started to turn around in late May after missing second-stage U.S. Open qualifying by one shot. At that time we had an honest discussion about how his game, and in particular his putting, had not improved in several years and what it would take for it to become significantly better.  Following is an interview I conducted with him in early September during a week off.

Dr. Mo: What has been the biggest difference in your play from prior to May until early September (now)?
Charles: My putting has been much better.  I still haven’t had an A+ ball-striking week yet, although I have had some very solid weeks, but my putting has been the difference.  I’ve made a lot of 8-12 footers and haven’t missed hardly any short ones.  I have a lot of confidence in both my medium and short-length putts now.

Dr. Mo: Has your practice and preparation been different lately, and if so, how?
Charles: My practice is much more structured now and it leads to more quality work getting done.  In May and early June it had more quantity also, but I’ve cut back some on the quantity, but not the quality.

Dr. Mo: What do you mean by structure?
Charles: Well I used to go out and putt and work on different distances or maybe work on my stroke, but I didn’t have a set way of going about it (practice).  Now I have different drills for different aspects of putting and I do the drills for pre-determined periods of time, say 20 or 30 minutes.

This way my practice is much more purposeful and once I leave, I know exactly what I’ve accomplished & I think this helps instill confidence in my putting.  I guess the best way to say it is in the past I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to get done or if I had accomplished it once I left (the putting green).

Now I know what I want to get done, how long I’m going to work on it and which drills to utilize to ensure that, and when I leave, there’s no question about whether I got it done or not.

Dr. Mo: O.k., let’s switch to another subject.  Talk about the mindset you have when you are in contention to win a tournament.
Charles: I love it. I love being in the hunt.  That’s when it is really fun for me.  I kind of get into a zone.  Not a zone where everything is necessarily going great, but a zone where I don’t care as much.

I don’t think about negative possibilities (of where the ball might go), I just more or less see-and-do.  I see where I want the ball to go and I just try to get the ball to go right there.  But I’m not worried that the ball might not get there, I just kind of expect it to (go where I want it to go).

Dr. Mo: And how is this different from your mindset when you make the cut close to, or right on, the number and you are not in contention?
Charles: When I just make the cut I don’t try to do anything differently (than when in contention after 2 days), but I do probably put pressure on myself to get off to a good start on Saturday.  And then if I don’t get off to a good start, I can lose interest.

I try to fight it (losing interest) by giving myself small “in-round” goals (i.e. 2 birdies in the next 3 holes), but it can be a struggle.  That’s something I continue to work on and although I’m getting better, I can still improve, and hopefully I will.

Dr. Mo: What do you have to improve from 2004 to have success on the PGA Tour in 2005 (players finishing in the top 20 on the Nationwide money list at years end automatically qualify for the PGA Tour in 2005)?
Charles: Well in a way everything needs to improve because the competition will be against the best in the world.  But in another way, nothing needs drastic improvement.  That’s one thing I need to be careful of — not trying too hard to improve and making changes that aren’t needed.

But if I had to pick areas that I need to improve, that I need to be better at more consistently, I would say putting, wedges, and driving accuracy.

With putting my good days now just need to be my average, solid days next year. As far as my wedges are concerned, I need to give myself better chances again more consistently. I need my average wedges to end up 5-10 feet away as opposed to 12-15 feet away.  And that just takes good disciplined practice, which for me with my wedges, is behind my putting and my irons.

And my driving just needs to improve in terms of fairways.  I didn’t hit many unplayable drives this year, but I also didn’t hit enough fairways.  And next year the fairways will be tighter so I just need a little more consistent accuracy off the tee.

Dr. Mo: What will you do differently next year on tour vs. your other year on tour, 1999 (in 1999 Charles qualified for the PGA Tour via Q-school following college)?
Charles: Well first off my preparation in the off-season prior to the year will be much better.  I mean I prepared the best I knew how in 1998, but now I know what I really need to focus on and more importantly, how to go about practicing it.

A second thing I’ll do is focus more on myself, my game, my progress week to week than I did in 1999.  Back then I probably paid too much attention to other players and what they were doing, and I didn’t stick to what had made me a successful college player — and that was having confidence in what I was doing and letting others watch me as someone who knew what he was doing. But that (paying too much attention to others) probably isn’t too uncommon for a rookie like I was and so I’ve learned from it.

And the last thing I’ll do differently is not really something I’ll do, but rather just some things that are different which should help me.  I have a much stronger team supporting me now primarily with my wife traveling with me, but also I’ve been with the same caddy and sports psychologist (Dr. Mo) for several years, and my swing teacher has my game built around really solid fundamentals, much better than they were even just two years ago.

So I don’t know that I’m necessarily doing anything different per se, but my foundation is really solid right now.  And so hopefully that will lead to a solid year on tour.