Newton's Theory Was Not What Ott Wanted to Hear
Four years later, turns out his coach was right
Mike Brohard
What flustered the freshman, the senior understands. Hold that – embraces.
AJ Ott is the same person, he’s just at a different place in his life. He has a better relationship with himself and the game of golf. Really, with life and how he approaches it daily. Where he finds his peace, his comfort and his strength.
Trust is pervasive, and it can make one powerful.
Now Ott understands what he did not, and the senior leader of the Colorado State men’s golf team is thriving.
He was the hometown product, a nationally ranked recruit who was staying home, and he was going to excel from the first ball he hit. But he didn’t. He wasn’t bad, not at all. He just wasn’t as good as he wanted to be, so he went to his coach for guidance.
“I think the expectations for him were he would come in and play every time and have a tremendous amount of success,” CSU coach Christian Newton said. “As we’ve found, any kind of life, especially college athletics, adversity is coming for you -- we just don’t know what shape, form or fashion it’s going to come in. It came in the fashion of averaging about 75 his freshman year and him coming in for his individual meeting at the end of the year wanting to know what he had to do to get better.
“We told him he needed to keep doing what he was doing. He didn’t like that very much.”
That was not the advice Ott wanted to hear. He wanted solutions. Strokes had to be shave, and it had to happen immediately. At the time, he figured Newton had no answers for him.
As it turned out, it was the perfect response.
All it took was time. And faith. The kind that comes from the Bible, and the part which comes from the process.
In the past two tournaments Ott has played, he’s topped the field. It took a playoff at The Prestige Individual Invitational on Feb. 17 at Coral Mountain Golf Club in La Quinta, Calif. It was the first collegiate tournament title on his resume, and he claimed it by making up a seven-stroke deficit in the final round by carding a 5-undeer 67, then won the playoff with Pepperdine’s Derek Hitchner.
Ott only waited four days to add his second title, this one coming at the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate tournament at the Classic Club in Palm Desert, Calif. He entered the final round with a two-stroke lead, then shot a 4-under 68 to finish with a 54-hole total of 11-under 205.
It’s been a great run which has impressed his teammates, but not for the obvious reasons.
“The actual golf piece and the result is awesome, but if I was in his position, it’s the mental side of how you basically don’t turn the success into pressure,” teammate Davis Bryant said. “Mentally, AJ is in a great place right now, because he always has a plan. He has a plan when he’s at practice; there’s always something we’re trying to work on or he’s trying to work on. I think he’s unbelievable.”
Which was the brunt of Newton’s advice back in the day. Ott just didn’t comprehend it in the moment.
Some of it, he says, has come just from experience. A rather large component has come from his faith and trying to lead a life with represents Jesus. He’s trying to be lighter on himself and others, and just as important, golf is not the God in his life, but a gift he has been given. It can’t be the main thing, it should be fun.
He would read passages in the Bible which hit close to home. It wasn’t one, but over the course of many which built up over time. His girlfriend, soccer player Taylor Steinke, helps reinforce all which he now holds dear.
It didn’t happen overnight, like the turnaround he sought as a freshman. It happened over time. He had to learn to trust the process.
“Absolutely. I’d get caught up in it every day. It’s easy for our age group and culture, that immediate success. We want everything right now,” Ott said. “It’s hard to be patient, and that’s something I’ve had to learn, as has probably everyone now, especially in sports and at CSU in the pandemic. As long as you’re doing the right things day in and day out and staying positive, success will come. Whether that’s in athletic performance, your mental outlook on life or just your relationship in life as a whole, you just have to be patient. When things aren’t going your way, you have to trick yourself into being positive, and success will come. It could be athletic success or success in life in general. Staying patient is a huge key, and Coach was definitely right.”
He was right. I’m a pretty stubborn guy at heart, but he was right, for sure.AJ Ott
Newton’s response to the run was nobody deserves it more. Ott’s success, both will tell you, has been born from failures along the way. His final round at the Mountain West Conference tournament his freshman year. The final-hole bogey of the NCAA Regional as the Rams missed the cut by one stroke.
Newton knows they all hit Ott hard and they don’t go away. Ott also values those lessons as much as his recent success, feeling without one, there isn’t the other. To him, faith and golf share a common trend: They are tested most in the valleys, not at the peaks.
Now he’s the poster child for the program when Newton tries to make the same characterization for other players.
“AJ is not really doing anything any differently than when he was a freshman, other than he gives himself a little more grace and he’s not as hard on himself,” Newton said. “He’s more of a lead-by-example kind of guy. We talked about it in our team meeting the other day. Hey, if you want to know what it looks like, just look right over there and see what he does every day, and that will be good enough. It’s really easy for me to get on my soap box and tell them what it looks like whenever it’s him. No doubt about it he walks the walk. There’s nothing you can call out about the way that kid goes about his day. That would be hypocritical, and he’s done that forever. It is who he is. It’s become his way of life.
“He didn’t think it was abnormal or special until we told him to realize that what you do every day is not what everybody else does. It’s pretty special.”
Bryant agrees. Also a Colorado product, he built up a friendship with Ott along the way, starting back when they were in high school. Ott was the player Bryant looked up to, and now that they are on the same team, the mentor he goes to for advice. It was possibly the biggest reason Ott was able to return for the senior year which the pandemic originally stripped away.
Ott is not one to constantly be chatting up his teammates about what they should change in their game or their approach. He picks out moments, particularly when he sees a teammate outwardly struggling. He likes being the guy they watch, because it is a comfortable role of leadership for him. But when they do approach him, he listens intently and speaks from the heart.
“He has told me so many things he’s learned he wished he knew at the beginning of his college career, what he would do differently. I’ve always looked up to him, and we definitely push each other every day,” Bryant said. “We talk all the time, we practice all the time; we’re kind of like brothers, basically. That’s been really special.
“It was important for me to have him on the team again. A lot of it is just working through the non-golf stuff. We’ve dealt with a lot of ups and downs in the past year, and to have somebody to turn to to talk about those things, talk about why am I not motivated right now? Why am I having trouble finding a successful way to stay motivated to practice when there’s nothing to look forward to? Conversations like that, and outside of golf. I felt like that was one of the really important parts.”
Ott’s message is born from his journey. He used to consider golf work, even his college job. Not now. He enjoys each and every time he gets to practice or play a round. The burden of it feeling like a task can lead to burnout, a level he said he never reached. But he also had to regain the joy in the game in the process of carrying what he considers one of his flaws – being a perfectionist.
An important part of what he learned is he will never be perfect and that he had to accept the truth as fact.
Even in his current run, he didn’t think there was anything new and astounding about his game which led him to raising trophies. He still hit bad shots, and there were times he had to talk himself out of being timid on the course – and old habit he’s working to break. When the moments occurred, he’s found a Bible verse he recites in each instance on the course.
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” – 2 Timothy 1:7
“I feel like mentally I feel like I’m in a better place right now,” Ott said. “It’s so hard in golf to take it one shot at a time, but that’s something looking back at the last few tournaments that I did pretty well. I stayed very present. I didn’t do anything special. I drove it nice, but I still hit a lot of bad shots over those two tournaments. I feel like I was just able to take it one shot at a time and just stay positive. That’s something I have had a hard time with in the past, and something that’s never perfect, but when you can stay present in any sport, it’s a huge advantage. And honestly it makes it way more fun too, so I just had a lot of fun.”
Part of the fun is still being at Colorado State. He wanted a full senior year, and he had to wait until the dust settled to see if it would happen. He never wanted to leave the program he’s called home, the people who have been his support group all this time. Ott knew it wouldn’t feel right to go anywhere else.
Besides, there was unfinished business. He was the only senior on a nationally ranked team which carried aspirations of playing as a team at the NCAA Tournament. He wanted to finish the path he started.
Bryant and the team wanted him back, too. Not just for his game, but his viewpoint and calming influence. The junior joked Ott’s back must be hurting after carrying the team to a sixth-place finish, but all that does is inspire him and the others to do more to carry their part of the load.
To do so, all they have to do is watch him. Just like Newton said in the meeting. Just like Newton told Ott at the end of his freshman year.
As hard as it was for Ott to hear back then, it was just as hard on the coach to tell him. Newton knew he came to him wanting more. He knew the freshman felt there was some sort of epiphany he was missing, a cure-all for his game.
Knowing the truth didn’t make it easier: You’re doing everything right. Trust it. Ease back on the pressure. You’re going to be fine. I promise.
“He was right,” Ott laughed. “I’m a pretty stubborn guy at heart, but he was right, for sure.”
Makes all the years of “I-told-you-sos” so worth it for Newton.
For Ott, too.