The truest form of caring is looking like you don't care at all. This is an interesting argument – some might call it daft – but it is about to be road-tested in the theatre of major championship golf by the two best players in the world, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald.
Call them the Laissez-faire Twins. One couldn't care less as much as the other, apparently. "I heard this thing that Greg Norman said – try 110% but play like you don't have a care in the world," said Westwood. "And I like that. I like that a lot."
The world No2, looking to end a long run of near-misses in the majors this week at Atlanta Athletic Club, site of the US PGA Championship, cited the example of his 10-year-old son Sam.
"I'm just playing like my son, who stood over a 10-foot putt on the last green of the par-three [contest] at the Masters and just rolled it in," he said. "He wasn't thinking about whether [the clubhead] was square or if he was just taking it back far enough. That's just how kids do it and I'm trying to get that attitude into my game. Just free-wheeling."
Like his countryman, Donald is also out this week to win his first major championship. Unlike Westwood, however, he does not seem like the free-wheeling type, at least not on the surface. Yet with his ascent to world No1, Donald gets a little more attention these days and with that attention he has become a little more surprising. And revelatory.
A couple of months ago he divulged some of the motivational epithets he writes daily in his personal notebook and on Tuesday he revealed how he was able to transform his putting halfway through last week's WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Akron. From mediocre on the greens to deadly overnight – how did he do that? "I whistled to myself," he said. "It helps when you stand over the ball. Anything to take your mind off the act of putting.
"The first two days of the week I was working on a few things and just kept grinding on them, which meant I had too much concentration when I was standing over the putt and less focus on hitting the ball on the right line and holing the putt. Less thought and less trying – that's a good way to go about things."
Clearly, it is. Donald finished in a tie for second behind the winner Adam Scott in Akron – another impressive performance in what has been a transformative season for the Englishman. He has won three times this year, and none of those victories have been cheap.
But he is only too aware that his record in the majors – his best finish is third at the 2006 US PGA Championship in Chicago – is not as good as it should be, just as he is aware (though not necessarily bothered) that there will always be scepticism about his stature in the game until he wins one of the sport's four biggest events.
This course at the Atlanta Athletic Club represents a good chance for him to make his mark. It is playing shorter than its 7,467 yards because of the heat and the greens are nothing short of magnificent, giving the best putters ample opportunities to separate themselves from the merely good. Donald putts better than most.
Westwood, for his part, can take hope from the narrowness of the fairways and the premium placed on quality ball-striking and straight driving. As he himself said, he has those aspects of the game "pretty much sorted". The question comes with his work around and on the greens. In the last round of this year's Masters he decided to use a belly putter, much against his traditionalist's instinct. That implement was quickly consigned to the cupboard, and has since been replaced by the guidance of the sports psychologist Bob Rotella.
The pair consulted last week, with immediate effect on Westwood's putting (better) and his demeanour (cheerier). And they will consult again this week. "I was mentally strong when I came out on tour but you kind of lose sight of some things and sometimes you can't put you finger on what it is you're doing with regard to the mental side of the game," Westwood said.
"You need your memory jogged, so it made sense for me to go see Bob. He has got all those letters after his name, so I figured he was the best."
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