An Important Tip Bar Examinees Can Incorporate from Golf Pro Scottie Scheffler

It’s PGA Championship Week, which means the start of the second men's major golf tournament of the season.

Yesterday was media day for some of the world's best golfers, including former Masters champion and current world No. 2 player Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler shared one of the most important things he does (or doesn’t do) whenever he prepares for one of golf's four major tournaments. At the same time, too, he unwittingly provided an important tip to bar examinees as they prepare for the bar exam.

When asked if he prepares differently for golf's biggest tournaments than he does for any other regular tour event:

Scheffler: Um, at majors. I don't, I don't treat any tournaments different than any other ones when it comes to my like weekly preparation …

Reporter: You don't like travel with more people or stay with people for majors that you don't normally?

Scheffler: Um, no. So that would be, that would be something that I would really try to avoid, is having the majors feel even more different than they already are. Um, I remember when I played. I learned this at a young age. I played the [AT&T Byron] Nelson when I was in high school, and my parents actually got some advice that they wanted … Um, I think it was from Randy [Smith, Scheffler’s now coach] or Rocky [Hambric, Scheffler’s now agent], or somebody. But they told them, my parents, to keep everything as normal as possible. Don’t make it feel any different. And so we didn't have anybody staying at the house. So, it was just us. It was just like a normal week. And so when it comes to major championships, it would be something that I want to keep as normal as possible. So, you know, we're staying with the same people we usually stay with and keeping things as regular as possible. And whether that's going out to dinner or anything like that, it’s just a normal week.

You can watch the Scheffler's entire press conference here, or skip forward to the above excerpt at the 10:38 mark here.

So what can bar examinees (and even law students) take away from Scheffler's comments?

When preparing for a high-stakes examination, like the bar exam or even a final exam, complete practice tests under timed, test-liked conditions. Try to simulate as much of the testing conditions you will experience during the high-stakes examination as you can during your study and review sessions.

And I don't mean just timing yourself. I mean putting a large digital clock in front of you. I mean taking the exam at a quiet location that you're not familiar with. You won’t be taking the bar exam in a noisy coffee shop or at your kitchen table—even if it’s quiet. So why would you take a practice test there?

Find a library or an office space. Or better yet, find some place at or near the actual exam location where you'll be taking the bar exam. Even if you can't take a practice exam at the same location, just physically going to the exam location and taking the practice test at a nearby library, office space, or other quiet place will ease some of the stress and anxiety that you might experience during the actual days of the exam.

You want to get a good feel for what exam day will be like. And the more you can try to incorporate the exam day experience into your study routine, the more you're putting yourself in a better position to view the bar exam as a comfortable experience (relatively speaking, of course) rather than a stress-filled event.

So, as a Scheffler reminded examinees during yesterday's press conference, even unintentionally: "Keep everything as normal as possible."

And you can normalize those exam day experiences by putting yourself in those situations ahead of time.