January 20 -- Going into Sunday's round, leader and veteran Justin Leonard, who is carrying some fairly good momentum from the latter part of the 2007 season, had a four-shot lead. Prior to the Bob Hope, Leonard has had the lead or was co-leader a total of ten times in his career and has walked away with a victory fifty percent of the time. Going with that stat alone would tell you it would be a Sunday to watch especially at the Hope where going low is historically commonplace. You may remember Duval shooting 59 in the final round to come back from a seven-shot deficit to win in 1999.

One third of the way through Sunday's celebrity-less round, the lead had been cut in half by D.J. Trahan. Continuing on Leonard's heels, Trahan tied the 11-time PGA TOUR winner and took the outright lead after hole 14. Though Leonard's back nine became a struggle, he persevered through several wayward shots and hung in there valiantly. The final self-inflicted blow was a drive that found the water off the tee on the final hole. D.J. Trahan's steady play and his unbelievable putting (he averaged just over 1.5 putts per hole) was what carried him to victory.

And that leads to this week's Lesson Learned.

D.J. Trahan (WireImage.com)

If you watched the tournament you may have heard commentator Nick Faldo give you some insight into Trahan's putting. Trahan did some recollecting and evaluating and found that his putting was not up to acceptable standards. He became more structured in his green reading and improved his technique as well. He worked hard on it and it certainly paid off in early 08. It was definitely what kept his five rounds consistent. Feel free to go to www.TrentWearnerGolf.com and email me asking for a game tracking spreadsheet. I will reply with one that you can use to find any trends in your game that need some attention. After all, you want to spend your precious time working on the things in your game that will benefit you the most just as Trahan did.

So while I believe Trahan's putting was the reason for his consistent and solid play the lesson learned there is that he found it. He found a technique and a process that worked for him. Instead of writing about how someone else does it, I thought I'd put down a few items that I took away from this year's Bob Hope that hopefully the majority of readers can benefit from.

As the first pro-am event of the year there are many celebrities, some with low handicaps and some with high ones, who participated in the event. My first point is the common fear that many golfers with high handicaps have when playing with players who are much better than they are. Most find it extremely nerve racking to play with players who are of high caliber. Matter of a fact one of the biggest reasons people discontinue playing this wonderful game of golf is that they don't want to embarrass themselves. Regardless of your ability, I'm certain you've experienced a day of embarrassment on the course yourself. At the least, such fear of embarrassment has kept many players from enjoying the game and playing more often. There are a couple of things however you should know that will hopefully encourage you to play regardless of what ability the other golfers may be. The most important one being that you don't learn from playing with golfers who are not better than you. While you may feel more comfortable with a group of golfers who are equally as bad, you will never improve technically or mentally until you play, learn and get comfortable with people who are better than you. Some other important keys are as follows:

• Instead of dwelling on the ability of the golfer, all parties should focus on the enjoyment of the game and meeting a new person.

• The low handicapper should make the other person feel extremely welcome and comfortable right off the bat. Introduce yourself politely and cheerfully. Talk about what a great day it is and what a treat it is to just get out and play.

• Simple conversation during the round will keep all players comfortable and will probably reveal the similarities you have with each other in business, life, family or golf vacations you've both taken. For starters, you both enjoy the game of golf.

• Though well intended, suggestions from other players often lead golfers down the wrong road. Instead, the low handicapper can inform the player of their teaching pro IF AND ONLY IF the better player senses the desire from the high handicap golfer to improve. Suggesting a teaching professional out of the blue can easily be taken the wrong way. Plus, the high handicapper may be perfectly content with his or her game.

• The high handicapper should focus on what they do well. During the round don't try miracle shots or take yourself out of your own game by trying to impress or "keep up" with the better player. Just play your game and enjoy the camaraderie and the outdoors.

• The low handicap golfer needs to recall that he or she wasn't always so good. You too had to learn so certainly don't put yourself on a pedestal. Simply be nice and go out of your way to make sure all players have a great day. After all, everyone in the group paid the same amount to have the pleasure to play that day.

Several other things really stuck out in my mind when watching the tournament this week. Justin Leonard was seen looking at his yardage book when on one of the greens. He must have had some bit of information regarding the break of the green. He could have learned this in one of the previous rounds he played that week or in years past. Obviously, what he wrote must have been important enough to remember during the round. Lesson here: write things down during or after your round to keep for the future -- it's called learning from experience.

That small but important tidbit of preparation directly relates to one of the factors of confidence. Most golfers think confidence comes from hitting great shots. That means that hitting bad shots brings no confidence and you might as well throw in the towel midway through your round. Golf is not a perfect game. It can not be perfected. You're going to hit poor shots. That said, how do you right the ship? You must find confidence and that is found in the following places:

1. You must believe in yourself and your game.
2. Visualize success in everyway.
3. Talk positively to yourself as you would talk to someone else you were caddying for.
4. You can find confidence in your preparation.
5. Being in good physical condition is a confidence builder
6. Have trust in yourself and your abilities.
7. Your routine should be a place where you recall past successes and find solace.
8. Sticking with your style of play and your plan.

The last point I took away from this tournament is what all golfers who come to our academy are looking for ... consistency. Tour pros are the most consistently good players on the planet and Tiger's consistency is simply unearthly. But you should know that they ebb and flow also. While the scores they shoot can be unimaginable for some, they have bad days and tournaments no different than you. Day to day, their scores can differ by ten, fifteen or even twenty shots. They can shoot a 62 and come out with a 76 the next day. Everything a golf instructor does to improve the games of their students revolves around lowering their scores and making those scores more consistent. But knowing there will be some bad days can help you brush them off with more ease and bounce back quicker. Take the leaders from round one of the Hope. Five players were tied at seven under par. Tim Petrovic, Joe Durant, Omar Uresti, Shigeki Maruyama and Matthew Goggin were those players. Respectively they went from leading after day one to finishing T44, T38, Missed Cut, Withdrew and T35. An interesting assignment for you is to blindly pick a golfer on tour and follow his 2008 year. Watch his consistency throughout the year; listen to his interviews to learn more about what he may be working on and how he goes about getting better. Also in those interviews you can easily detect an attitude that is conducive to good golf or not. Matter of a fact, I heard in an interview after Saturday's round a remarkable response made by Leonard when he was posed the question, "Is it going to take another low round on Sunday to win?" Leonard replied with, "I think it's attitude I need to go with." Preceding that question Leonard was discussing his confidence level and how comfortable he is with his game and his place in life. While his 72 couldn't hold off Trahan's solid 65, I'm sure he'll take a look at what he needs to work on, practice hard and have a solid year.

Congratulations to D.J. Trahan and his family. A Sunday leaderboard dotted with players who have earned the right to be called veterans mixed with several young guns made it a fun tournament to watch. Seeing Steve Elkington and Kenny Perry throw their expertise at players like Ryan Moore, Anthony Kim and Chez Reavie was a joy to watch but Trahan's honest evaluation of his game and off-season work on his putting help off the entire field ... this week.

Trent Wearner teaches and coaches in Denver, Colorado and is rated as a 'Top 20 Teacher in America Under 40' by Golf Digest. He was the recipient of the 2004 Colorado PGA Teacher of the Year award, is recognized as a 'Top Teacher in the Southwestern U.S.' by Golf Magazine, is ranked as a 'Best Teacher in State' by Golf Digest and is a 'Top 50 Kids Teacher in the U.S'. by U.S. Kids Golf. He is the author of Golf Scrimmages and you can find information about his golf instruction -- private, group and corporate -- at www.TrentWearnerGolf.com