"But it's very difficult, I can tell you I played the Czech Open a few times and it's very difficult just to go on to a scene where the course is prepared differently when the greens are fast and he's not used to it and they're hard as a rock and he's not used to it"

Ivan Lendl is underscoring how environment can upend even elite skill. He appeals to his own experience at the Czech Open to show that performance isn’t simply about talent, but about adaptation to conditions that can be radically different from what a player trains for. “Fast” and “hard as a rock” greens change the entire geometry of golf. Approach shots that would normally stop quickly now release, demanding lower trajectories, different landing points, and more spin control. Chips that a player habitually bumps to the hole can skid and run past. Putts require feather-light pace and impeccable green-reading because speed exaggerates every misalignment. All of that means a golfer’s ingrained motor patterns, calibrated elsewhere, suddenly misfire.

Lendl points to unfamiliar preparation standards: agronomy, mowing heights, firmness, and grass types vary by region and tournament. A player accustomed to softer parkland layouts faces a new playbook on firm European setups. It’s not just a technical shift but a cognitive one: recalibrating feel, adjusting targets, and rethinking risk-reward after each bounce and roll contradicts established instincts. A few practice rounds rarely erase years of habituation.

There’s also a mental tax. When conditions punish small errors, confidence wobbles. Players begin protecting against worst-case outcomes, taking conservative lines, decelerating putts, behaviors that compound mistakes. Lendl’s repeated emphasis that “he’s not used to it” acknowledges this psychological drag and challenges outsiders’ quick judgments. Struggling in alien conditions isn’t evidence of decline; it’s the predictable latency between expertise and context.

The broader lesson is humility about transferability. Mastery is local: it lives in the details of surfaces, speeds, and subtleties that reward those who live with them. Success on unfamiliar ground is possible, but it requires time, deliberate adaptation, and acceptance that excellence travels slower than expectation.