For any golfer who wants to play great golf
Mental Game
Stuck in a slump? It may be the best thing for you.
Jun 28th
Golf is a game full of up and downs, and I’m not just talking about saving par.
What I mean is that everyone’s “career” with golf, whether playing professionally or playing on the weekend with buddies goes though periods of highs and lows. Whether it’s missing 5 or 10 cuts in row, or shooting 10 strokes above normal for your last 5 or 10 rounds, we all go through tough times trying to get that little white ball into the cup. We all get into occasional slumps.
I’ve been on a bit of a slump myself. After shooting some of my best rounds of the year several weeks ago, I have fallen into a deep fog, where it seems like I had lost all control of my golf ball. We’ll at least until today, although the seeds of the discovery were sown a while back, but I’ll get to that shortly.
The slump seems to have come out of nowhere. My last round before the slump was a 77. I’m not yet a scratch golfer so 77 on a tough par 72 course from the back tees is just fine with me. However when the slump started it began a downward slide in scores. Before I knew it I had several 88s, a 90, and the dagger in my heart was 97 in the member member tournament yesterday.
Although I wasn’t sure how I would fix it, I firmly believe that I will. I also know that I’m not the only golfer to have gone through slumps either. Jack Nicklaus, Steve Stricker, David Duval, Davis Love III, Ian Baker-Finch and many more have gone through their share of slumps. Steve Stricker came back from “no man’s land” to world #3.
Sometimes in golf we need to unlearn before we can learn
Jun 14th
The last couple of weeks have been up and down in terms of my scores, but I have learned some very valuable lessons along the way.
In my last five rounds I have two of my best scores for the season, two of my worst, and an average round. What does that tell you? It tells me that golf is a game of patience. You can’t control the outcome. You can only control your process.
Golf is interesting because you can’t force a good shot, you can only let it happen, but you can definitely do a lot of things to create bad shots. The opposite of that is what I think sports psychologists call “getting out of your own way”.
Asking the right questions
May 13th
I was reading Fearless Golf by Dr. Gio Valiante, and in chapter 4 he talks about the questions that guide us. I’m reminded of that scene in “The Matrix” where Trinity and Neo are at the nightclub early in the movie and she says to him, “It’s the question that drives us.” In his case the question was “What is the Matrix?”, but in golf the question is “What is my target?”.
Often though we get caught up in things like our score, our competitors, pressure, what I did on the last hole, or 3 holes ago and we get away from asking “What is my target?”. But Dr. Valiante is right. The questions do drive us. Asking the right questions can help us play better, make better decisions and keep us in the moment, while asking the wrong questions, can quickly take us out of the moment and down that road we’ve been before, and we know where that road ends.
The wrong questions introduce fear and distractions, they make us focus on the past or on the future, and they take us out of the zone if we were in it, or more likely, just take us further away from being in the zone.
So how do we get to the point where we are asking the right questions? One of the key ways I think is to think well about the strategy, the way we want to play the hole. Thinking about strategy puts us back squarely in the present. Asking ourselves the question “How do I want to play this hole?” is much more constructive than something like, “I usually hit way right on this hole, what if I do that again? Or worse, what if I hit it in the water? What if I look like a fool?”. One question gets your mind moving in a direction that allows you to marshal your resources, the other takes you out of the present, introduces fear and doubt, and makes it hard to focus on this shot right now.
Gain more confidence by challenging your fears and doubts
May 9th
A sure way to ruin a golf shot is to step up to it and hit without being fully committed to the shot. There are a number of reasons that can cause us to not commit to the shot.
Sometimes it’s our equipment. There’s a 4 wood in my bag that doesn’t fit my swing anymore. My irons and driver have an x-stiff shaft and this 4w has a stiff voodoo SVS7. It just seems and feels out of place now. I feel like I need to make too much of an adjustment to my swing to hit it well. So when I have a 235 yard show where it would be appropriate I hesitate. This happened recently and I’ve decided not to repeat the mistake.
The hesitation is, I believe, my body telling me not to use the club. Even on the practice tee it feels strange now and it really doesn’t feel like it belongs in my bag now. I used to love hitting this club but as my swing has evolved, my equipment changes with it, and that’s what has happened with my irons and driver.
Not being comfortable with the equipment can cause hesitation. The result of this is usually a less than committed swing that tries to compensate for the discomfort. And this often leads to bad shots. It’s what Doc Joseph Parent calls an “anyway.” A shot that you hit “anyway” even though you feel uncomfortable about it.
McIlroy shoots course record to win the Quail Hollow Championship
May 3rd
Rory McIlroy put on an incredible performance to win The Quail Hollow Championship.
“I suppose I got into the zone, I hadn’t realized I was going in 9, 10 under. I just know I got my nose in front and I was just trying to stay there,” said McIlroy after the round. In his post round interview he also said that he was really seeing his shots, and hitting them, and that he saw his lines much clearer. He wasn’t being technical or addressing the ball full of swing thoughts. He was visualizing and executing, and it’s a great way to play golf.
One of the amazing things about that round is that he stayed in the zone and in the moment. He wasn’t trying to break the record. He wasn’t forcing shots. He recalled a similar time that he had been in the zone like that and it helped keep him going.
The golf brain
Apr 27th
I saw an amazing video today from Ted.com. Neuroanatomis Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke and learned first hand the differences between the right brain and left brain when she had a massive stroke one morning. Watch this video if you have some time.
Although she never mentioned golf in her lecture, it got me thinking about the golf brain.
I think most golfers play left brain golf. They have a tremendous amount of mental chatter going on. They are also thinking a lot about the sequence of the swing along with the 32 million other swing thoughts cramming their brains.
Stuart Appleby shows us why right brain golf is better
Apr 20th
PGAtour.com had a good article on Stuart Appleby.
“I’m trying to be a little more relaxed about things,” Appleby said. “I felt like I probably shut down my natural abilities, talents, whatever it is to play golf. I’m trying to play more natural golf and (use) the feel that I have.”
If we can, as many sports psychologists say, “Get out of our own way”, then we have a chance to tap into our natural abilities.
I read a book that has had a big impact on my life outside of golf recently. It’s called “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future” by Daniel Pink. The central theme of the book is that our culture has been dominated by left brained activities that require analysis, and a rigid process, but that the future will be ruled by those who take more creative approaches and use the whole brain. It makes sense in golf too.
The risks of forcing shots
Mar 30th
What can we learn from the professional golfers we love to watch? We can learn a lot.
On this weeks episode of “Being John Daly” we saw Daly’s meltdown in the last round of the tournament in Mayakoba, Mexico. By his own admission, he was going for too much. He made some bad decisions and he compounded the errors by trying to hit it farther, or draw it more, or going after too many pins. He was forcing it and he paid the price.
He knew that he didn’t need to hit driver, that it was a perfect 3 wood golf course for him. But when things started to go south, the driver came out to play.
Instead of taking his medicine and getting back to the strategies that got him there, he took unnecessary risks, and he felt he had to do that because the tournament was getting away from him. But that is precisely the time that he needed to play within himself.
Bad decisions are worse than bad swings
Mar 29th
According to the National Golf Foundation more than half of all golfers shoot 100 or more, and only 1 in 4 can break 90 consistently.
Only 5% of golfers can shoot lower than 80.
With all of the advances in technology and the the improvements in the quality of the golf courses as well as the availability of access to golf professional and teachers you would expect this number to have improved over the last 20 years but it really has not. So what is going on? Why are golfers not getting better? And how can you use this information to become a golfer who does improve?
I think the number one reason golfers don’t score is they make bad decisions that costs them more shots than they should take.
How to warm up properly to play your best golf
Mar 20th
Do you ever show up to golf course only minutes before your tee time, dash to give yourself a quick stretch, take 2 swings, and then hit your first tee shot deep into the woods, OB or in the rough? Does this happen all the time?
How can we give ourselves the best opportunity to play well? How can you expect to play well without giving yourself an adequate warm up?
I want to offer a different way to warm up for your round of golf. It’s going to be designed to help you quickly get into the groove so that you can play your best.
