Shotaro Ban has been performing at a high level for most of the spring with an increased confidence after the talented fourth-year junior began to realize that he must make some changes in his approach to the game. Ban said the transformation began last fall when he played in just one of the team’s five events despite coming into the season as one of the team’s two most experienced players.
“This fall I was just not playing well, but it was a good wake up call,” Ban said. “Going into the fall everyone was expecting Keelan [Kilpatrick] and I to lead the squad but in the fall it was mostly the freshmen and Cameron Shaw.”
Although his anger management was already underway when last fall began he was still in the process of gaining his confidence.
“It wasn’t really much to do with my anger last fall,” Ban said. “It was more just doubting myself and needing to fine tune my game. But not playing gave me a lot of time to think and regroup and work on the things that I needed to work on, and it’s been paying off so far.”
It began paying off for Ban right from the start this spring when he returned to the lineup for the team’s spring opener and tied for third at the Arizona Intercollegiate, shooting under par in each of the event’s three rounds.
Ban then won the team’s next event at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate hosted by Hawai’i for his first collegiate victory, extending his consecutive number of rounds of par or below to six in a row.
Ban wasn’t quite as a strong in his next three tournaments but still posted respectable finishes of tied for 17th (National Invitational Tournament), tied for 23rd (Southern Highlands Collegiate Masters) and tied for 29th (Aggie Invitational), with the latter two fields among the best of collegiate golf’s regular season.
Most importantly he didn’t let the mediocre three-tournament stretch faze him and responded by finishing second in another incredibly strong field at the Western Intercollegiate to close the regular season. The showing was the highest ever by a Cal player in the event’s 69 years and Ban was one of only two players in the field under par in each of his three rounds.
“It’s more of an inner-confidence,” Ban said after his finish at the Western Intercollegiate. “I’m starting to believe in my game and know that I can start getting close to the top.”
After 36 holes of the Pac-12 Championships he is in seventh place five strokes off the lead.
Ban knows that controlling his anger is a big part of his emergence.
“The transition has been extremely difficult,” Ban said. “It’s taken me ever since I started playing golf to realize that staying collected and calm and being able to regroup is just as much of a factor as striking the ball really well.”
“The biggest difference now is I give myself a little bit of time to blow off steam but once I get to the next shot, it’s all business,” Ban added. “I’m in a better mental state. I’ve been able to keep myself really calm and patient unlike in past years when I would freak out and get angry.”
Ban remembered one such instance his freshman season during a practice round that he played with former Golden Bear teammate and current PGA TOUR member Max Homa at Lake Merced Golf Club.
“I made a bogey or a double on the 15th hole and I just went off on a rant when the guys were still putting,” Ban recalled. “Max just looked at me and told me off to say the least. At the time I was a naïve freshman and didn’t really care, but looking back at it now it was a good learning experience. Poor etiquette on the course doesn’t only affect yourself but other people as well.”
“I remember that,” Homa said when asked about the incident. “He slammed his club a couple of times and was sulking all day. Finally on the 16th hole I’d had enough and I just yelled at him. I told him to calm down and basically get over himself.”
Despite Homa’s sound advice and Ban’s recent success the transition hasn’t been easy. Ban denies having an epiphany but says that he is just figuring it out over a long period of time and lots of experience.
“It’s definitely been a gradual thing,” Ban said. “As a kid growing up, in high school and then in my early college years I was the most livid guy on the course. I was kind of notorious for just blowing up. I’m a pretty stubborn person so I think that’s why it has taken me a long time, but I think I’m moving in the right direction.”
His younger brother Shintaro, a freshman golfer at UNLV who along with Shotaro claims to have a personality exactly opposite of the older sibling’s naturally fiery self, credits the environment his brother has been in at Cal for his transformation.
“I think he’s had enough experience in collegiate golf and with teammates that were on one of the best college golf teams in the history of the sport that he has learned a lot from that,” Shintaro said. “He saw their hard work, their course management and really just how they function.”
Still, Ban admits he remains a work in progress and has yet to make a complete transformation and doesn’t necessarily want to.
“You still need that fire and a little bit of anger sometimes,” Ban explained. “There are two different types of anger. One type of anger can hinder your performance, while the second type can benefit you. I’m trying to use anger to fuel and benefit me in a smarter way.”
Ban also has a focus on the big picture and draws a lot of motivation from his quest to reach the next level and realize his dream of playing on the PGA TOUR.
“I’m really looking forward to the future,” Ban said. “This spring semester has given me more confidence to play a lot better and trust myself. I have set a few long-term goals and that’s really helped in taking me out of the moment when it’s necessary. Even when I’m playing poorly it still is always going to be a work in progress, there’s always going to be another tournament. I’m just trying to get better every day, and my mindset has really been just looking into the future and focusing on my progress. I want to benefit my team as much as possible obviously, but I’ve also been able to focus on never letting go of my long-term goal to make it to the PGA TOUR.”
But before that happens there is the business of taking care of the rest of his collegiate career, which begins Tuesday with the third round of the 2015 Pac-12 Championships that sees him still in the running to win.
