COLUMBUS, Ohio _ The path to a spot at the top of the leaderboard midway through the Memorial Tournament didn't start on the practice tees for Martin Kaymer. It was hammered home when he was recently 11th in line at Starbucks.
"Ten people (were) in front of me; everybody was on their phone reading something, but they don't know what they're reading," Kaymer said Friday at Muirfield Village Golf Club. "It's just distraction, stimulation for your brain, just not thinking, not being there."
It was a leading cause, he said, to what has been a lengthy title drought. So in the last few months, Kaymer said he has gotten away from social media and easy mental distractions during tournaments, helping him remain calmer while competing.
Halfway through the Memorial, he's seeing dividends. In his first appearance in a decade and five years removed from his U.S. Open title, Kaymer came one bogey on the 18th hole from taking sole possession of the leaderboard after the second round. After shooting 5 under par Thursday and 4 under Friday, Kaymer is tied with Troy Merritt and Kyoung-Hoon Lee.
As he tried to explain away such long droughts between wins in his career _ the 2010 PGA Championship is his only other major _ Kaymer said he's spent too much time during tournaments staying dialed into what is being said and written. By the time a tournament would start, Kaymer said, he had likely already expended 40% of his emotional energy for the week.
"What do you really gain from social media during tournament days?" he said. "There's so much gossip, so much talk, so much distraction. I just got out of that. That automatically makes you more aware, makes me more conscious, and I think leads to more calmness. It helped me."
It also helped him realize that his priorities were out of sync.
"I was focusing so much on the golf and try to find happiness through good results in golf, but that doesn't work out," he said. "So you need to find other ways to find happiness."
That comes from the process of competing for titles, he said. It's why, while he's only halfway through the Memorial, he's enjoying the process.
"It's not like I don't care _ of course you care _ but right now I try to focus on other things that are for me, personally, more important than just a quick result," he said.
