Mental Golf Game
Why is your mental golf game so important? Why does the number on your
scorecard depend more on your brain than on your club-head speed or the
size of the sweet spot on your driver? Because the quality of each
swing that you make is inevitably tied to your state of mind when
you’re standing over the ball, whether or not you realize it. Anyone
who’s played a round of golf knows that you have to think your way
around the course, making decisions about when to lay up, when to go
for it or what type of shot to play. But the importance of mental golf
goes far beyond the realm of decision-making: your swing is a slave to
your state of mind.
All the golf tips and training aids in the world
can’t help you if your mental golf game isn’t up to par. In order to
make good swings consistently, you need to know how to stay relaxed, be
confident, and deal with pressure. The golf course is bound to provide
enough obstacles to keep you busy. Instead of adding your own brain to
this list, become your own best advocate on the course by turning the
weaknesses of your mental golf game into strengths.
Staying Relaxed
Elite athletes, coaches and exercise physiologists have known for a
long time that the human body can only perform at its best athletically
when it’s relaxed. Physical relaxation can include reduced muscle
tension, lower blood pressure and heart rate, and a wider range of
motion. Try swinging a golf club with your muscles flexed. Doesn’t feel
very good, does it? Even a small amount of muscle tension in your arms
can change the arc and tempo of your swing, making it far more
challenging to duplicate consistently. Relaxation can be difficult to
maintain. Often when we’re not relaxed, we don’t realize it. Or, when
we do realize that we’re tense, it’s almost impossible to relax on
command. Training aids for your mental golf game are useful in between
rounds precisely because tension is easier to prevent than to expel.
Being Confident
In order to stay physically relaxed, you must be confident. Confidence
on the golf course consists of using familiarity to your advantage and
seeing yourself as an active agent, as opposed to a victim of the
Golfing Gods, or as someone who is incapable of dealing with the
obstacles presented by the course. Even in the most daunting and
unfamiliar situations, you can create familiarity around you through
the use of routines and by playing to your strengths. When Fred Couples
was asked about his mental routine before each shot during his victory
at the 1992 Masters, he said, “I just pull up my sleeves and shrug my
shoulders…And then I try to remember the best shot I ever hit in my
life with whatever club I have in my hand.” The first part of the
routine is a simple relaxation technique, while the second part is a
confidence-builder.
The fact that selective memory worked so well for
Couples goes to show that confidence can in fact be the product of a
decision or a self-imposed habit; it’s not an illusive quality that
some are born with and others are born without. Additionally, the kind
of confidence that will help your mental golf game is not to be
confused with cockiness or over-aggressive play. Again, confidence and
other aspects of your mental golf game are more important in their
effect on your subconscious than in their effect on your conscious
decision-making. Being confident doesn’t mean always going for the pin
tucked in the corner of the green across the water with your 2-iron;
sometimes confidence is laying up because you know your wedge game is
good enough to get up and down from the fairway. More importantly,
though, being confident will help you make good swings in any
situation, however you happen to get there.
Dealing With Pressure
While most of us may never have to deal with the pressure of needing a
birdie on the eighteenth hole to make the cut so you can cover your
next mortgage payment, many of us nonetheless tend to impose negative
pressure on ourselves when we’re on the cusp of making a personal
breakthrough. If you’ve ever been on pace to shoot an all-time low
round, only to blow it in the last few holes, then you know what if
feels like: you start thinking too much, envisioning worst-case
scenarios, duffing easy shots because you were oddly unable to focus on
the shot itself. It’s called choking, and it happens to nearly everyone
at one point or another.
Good athletes know that success or failure
under pressure is determined before the onset of pressure. Contrary to
popular belief, feeling pressure is not always a bad thing. Nervousness
is a given; as Tiger says, “If you don’t feel nervous, that means you
don’t care about how you play…I’ve always said the day I’m not nervous
playing is the day I quit.” The way to deal with pressure in your
mental golf game is not to avoid it, but to use it to your advantage.
With the right mindset going into the round, pressure can allow you to
transcend your normal boundaries of performance, or “rise to the
occasion”. The most basic difference between those who tend to thrive
under pressure and those who tend to choke is that the former view
pressure-packed situations as opportunities to succeed, while the
latter see them as opportunities to fail.
Take it From Tiger
If you’re still not convinced about the importance of improving your
mental golf game, take it from Tiger: when asked why he is the most
dominant golfer in the world, Tiger responds, “I am the toughest golfer
mentally.” Rest assured that Tiger’s mental toughness is no accident.
The tricky part of mastering your mental golf game is that you can’t
just tell yourself to start doing things differently. Mental habits are
hard to change by yourself. That’s where subconscious learning through
hypnosis comes into play. Tiger himself had help at an early age from
sports psychologists in training his brain. In the past decade there’s
been an explosion of interest among pro golfers in honing their mental
skills. You simply can’t play your best golf if your mind is working
against you, so spend some time practicing your mental golf game for a
change.
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