He could easily fall off the radar and tumble down the leaderboard. Darren, I feel, now takes much more pride in finishing, say, seventh as opposed to 10th.

Tiger Woods's so-called 'slump' at the 2004 WGC Matchplay was a perfect example of a golfer who was at odds with his game, but had the mental toughness to grind out a win. Tiger struggled with his driver against Australia's Stephen Leaney in the semi-final, and in the final head-to-head against Davis Love. Time after time he was able to produce remarkable recovery shots and maintain his outstanding ability to hole crucial putts when necessary.

Woods is possibly the supreme example of a golfer who can 'get it round' when he's at less than his awesome best.

The lesson is simple. Even arguably the greatest player the game has ever known cannot completely rely on or trust his technique all the time, Bad shots do happen. What Tiger has is complete trust and faith in himself, and an ability to keep grinding out a score even when he is way below his best.

So, rather than falling into the trap of believing that good technique can protect you from bad shots, learn to accept the fact that the ball will not always behave as you would like. No one, not even Woods, has complete control over the ball, but what you can control is your reaction to where the ball goes.

You need to ask yourself if your normal reaction to poor play works for you. Does getting angry and beating yourself up, questioning your technique and being miserable actually assist you in producing the best golf that you are capable of? If not, take a leaf out of the Tigers book and learn to 'win ugly'. The opposite of this is what we would call a downward spiral, where your game goes into freefall after a couple of poor shots.

Generally this is a result of something called 'thought chains' - the way the mind links one thought to another very quickly, usually producing a downward spiral of negativity. This is usually something like: 'There's that hook again'; 'That swing felt terrible';

'Those lessons aren't working'; 'I'm useless at this game'; 'In fact, I'm useless at most things.' And so on until you're trying to find the number of The Samaritans.

The trick when this happens is to shout 'Stop!' inside your head, perhaps even visualise a stop sign in your mind's eye.

Break the chain before it breaks your game and commit to keeping your mind open to the possibility that the next shot/swing could indeed be a good one, as opposed to convincing yourself of the lie that it's certain to be a bad one.

Not for one minute am I saying that you should put up with bad golf and not attempt to improve your swing.

Technique is a key part of becoming the best that you can be, however, no swing will always hit the ball straight.

A quote from Padraig Harrington sums up the message when he said: "I know I can't swing it well every day, but there is no reason why I can't think well every day."

Dr Karl Morris has a cd series available that has been used by clients such as Paul McGinley, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell. Find out more at www. golfbrain. com