You start strong on the first two holes. You par the first, birdie the second and feel like it’s going to be a great outing. After a bogey on three you mutter under your breath at the twosome that is crowding you from behind. And then the jerks behind you start consuming your thoughts. If only those freaks would back off because you’re getting tense. Tense is not why we play golf. We play for fun, for competition, for reasons other than tense.
All of us have experienced something like this on the golf course and under normal circumstances you start to melt under the pressure of having someone climb up your backside on the course. What do you do? How are you going handle it? There’s some things you can do to manage pressure that goes beyond just letting the twosome play through.
First, if you want to lower your score, forget about scoring. There is enough to think about on a golf course without worrying about what your score card will look like when you’re done with the round.
The second thing you can do is treat the next hole as a fresh start. You can’t change how you scored on previous holes, but you can have a positive outlook on what is to come.
Finally, enjoy yourself! You are playing golf, after all. For most of you, you’re not playing for your livelihood, you’re playing for the sheer enjoyment of it. Enjoy the challenge you are facing, enjoy the fellas in your foursome, revel in a finely executed shot and have a good time. Leave tense at the office.
These, my friends, are three keys to managing mental pressure.