Throughout the last 25 years, I’m confident that I have either made or witnessed every mistake imaginable in golf – especially in the mental game. When it comes to your attitude on the golf course, it is critical to strike a balance and avoid extremes. While this might sound generic and simple, I can guarantee that getting this right (or at least improving) will be part of your keys to getting better at this game. Every golfer on this planet could use help in this department.
Recently, I sent out this tweet, and we can use this as my “thesis statement” for this article:
The best golf is played when you exist in the space between caring too much, or not at all. This is *hard* to do
You can’t “live and die” at the result of every shot. But at the same time, you need to be engaged enough to control your emotions and approach each shot analytically
— Jon Sherman (@practicalgolf) May 6, 2021
Finding the happy medium between caring too much and not enough might look different for all of you. We each bring our own personalities to the game. However, I know that tipping in either direction too heavily does not work out in the long run.
As usual, I’ll try to provide tangible examples of what I mean because I’m sure at this point you’re wondering, “what the hell is he talking about??!!”
Living and Dying On Each Shot
All of you know this by now, but 18 holes (or even 9) is a long time. Each round of golf usually has different acts. They can even be as dramatic as some of your favorite movies. There is heartbreak, hubris, triumph, and even redemption.
If I had to pinpoint one of my biggest flaws as a golfer, I reacted too heavily based on the result of each shot.
An errant drive might send me into a panic – all of a sudden, I’m walking faster and worrying about what my next mistake might be. Conversely, an early birdie might have had me “peacocking” a bit too much and wondering just how well I was going to score that day.
I now know that you cannot become a better golfer if you are constantly in this state. If there were some device to measure your reactions, you would want to go from this:
to this:
Read More
By: Jon
Title: The Hardest Balancing Act
Sourced From: practical-golf.com/the-hardest-balancing-act/
Published Date: Tue, 11 May 2021 22:41:25 +0000
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Did you miss our previous article…
https://news-golf.com/golf-lessons/golf-swing-tips/how-i-used-data-to-become-a-scratch-golfer/