Your mental toughness; how good is it?

Today I played with a trio of friends, one of which is a rather gregarious fellow that loves to have a good time. His golf etiquette could use some work however as he really isn't aware that he's talking (sometimes a little loudly) while people are addressing their shots. There's also the digging for a tee in his pocket full of change on the tee boxes as well. He's a great guy but just not the type of golfer I'm used to playing with.

Typically I can tune some things out but today my mental game was off and I let a couple of these instances get to me. The first one sent me down the bogey trail until I finally shook it off. Later in the round came the change jingling which only got me going for a couple holes but I'm at a loss for defending against such things.

If it were just a case of gamemanship, I'd give it right back, but it's just the guy not realizing he's causing distractions. He's the type of person who probably wouldn't take it well to ask him to work on his etiquette.

Any ideas? Ask him to chill out, ignore it and rub dirt in it or just not play with him?

Same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. I had a great round going (4 over after 9) and at the turn the guy whom I was with, his son-in-law showed up. Talked like you wouldn't believe. I let it get to me pretty good and blew a potentially momentus round. What I took from it was, I have a plan of action with my game, others don't. My game isn't about making friends. There will be a next time and I will definitely say something. They treat the golf course worse than the driving range. Personally, I would rather play by myself.

I played yesterday with a couple guys I go to church with. Neither of them broke 100, but their attitude and level of respect for my game, and each others, was very "professional". I've heard it said that if you want to get better at golf then play with people who are better than you. The flaw in this thought is, if you want to get better - practice. I shot an 87 and I'm sure somewhere between the first tee shot to the last put my "game" was an encouragement to these guys.

Back in February I started playing again after 20 years off. I would play with guys I work with. I don't play with these guys anymore for a variety of reasons, mainly, these just don't care and I do. It's a tough senario but we all have to deal with it. Better luck next time

My mental toughness sucks I can tune anything out on the course but I cant get negative thoughts out of my head. When I have a good round going I usally screw it up by thinking of the bad shots I have hit in the past instead of the good ones.

I guess I'm also pretty easy to distract. Ever since we joined a CC I have been playing constantly with my son, daughter, and wife, or some combination thereof. It's great that we have this wonderful game to share, but my game has been affected by them no doubt. The wife and the girl are still learning how to play quickly and efficiently, and I'm always giving them tips on speeding up. Plus the constant coaching and watching their swings..

I did have the luxury of playing by myself not too long ago, and I did shoot my lowest round since joining (79). Oh well..just got to suck it up and plow ahead...

I'm gonna be honest.  I just don't understand how people get so distracted.  Sure, I do not talk or jingle change when people are taking their shot.  I understand the etiquette.  However, when I am addressing my shot, someone could be having a full volume conversation behind me and I would not notice.  I don't know, I grew up playing baseball, and with the crowd noise, and the other team yelling at you, you learn pretty quickly to tune it out.  I am not saying this about anyone on here, but I have noticed that people I have played with in the past are very quick to blame a poor swing or poor shot on some random noise or outside influence (i.e, wet ground, dry ground, wind, no wind, a bird, etc you get the picture) .  When in reality I am positive that had very little to do with it.  Peter Alliss said on Friday during The Open Championship, that golfers today are too soft.  I tend to agree.

Take advantage of the opportunity to get used to random noises and strange behaviour. It may come in handy some time.

I admit that the more I learn what my "game" is, the more mental fortitude I get. When I speak of my "game", I'm referring to the plan of action on the course or better yet, course management. This is just how I approach a round. If I walk on the first tee with no kind of plan of action other than to just hit a ball, I feel I set myself up for disaster.

I agree with this 100%.  If I don't have some kind of game plan going into a round I have also set myself up for disaster.  For me, when I think about mental fortitude I am thinking about quieting down my own self talk.  That is the biggest demon I face on the course.  I have found, that having a game plan (whatever it is, it changes from round to round) has helped me stay focused, and to quiet the critic in my head.

I find myself pre-occupied with counting the scores of the people I'm playing with. If there is a guy that I'm trying to beat and I see him screw up a drive AND the 2nd shot, I can't help but keep his score while I should be concentrating on MY shot. I do this because on occasions, I've seen them miscount their shots when they blow up on a hole.

I found the other day when I played there was a couple holes where I gave in to some thoughts of "why don't you try this...". That was the wrong thing to do. I'm finding that at the courses I play I have an idea of what I want to do, this is not the place to "try something new", that's what practice is for. I'm sure I could have saved myself a few strokes had I not given in to those thoughts.

This has happened to me quite a bit as well.  When I am walking up to a shot I usually have a gut instinct about what kind of shot I want to play, particularly around the green), for instance a safe bump and run might be the best shot to play.  But, when I get there I decide maybe this time I should try to hit a high soft shot (I'm changing my mind more on a feel or internal talk and not because of the lie or other outside influences), and results are usually pretty bad.  For the last few rounds part of my "game plan" has been to trust my instincts and not try something crazy.  Of course this does not guaranty that I hit a good shot.  But, I have felt more committed to the shots I want to hit.  I guess we have maybe got a bit off topic.  But, what I have realized is that I tend to be much more distracted by my own thoughts andI hardly notice what is going on around me.

Ryan

My mental toughness of disturbing things is pretty high, there are some things I can't handle ofcourse like when my dad and I play and he says good shot every shot even the bad ones. However my mental toughness when it's going good is really bad, I start thinking of lowering my handicap and gets shaky on putts and chips. Last time I played I only needed to get double bogey on last hole to lower my handicap but ofcourse the ball was out in the woods the only timein the round at the 18th hole.

Mine is absolutely horrible.

Mine sucks in a big way.  I try to just go play but from a good players perspective they tell me I go about everything the wrong way.  Use the wrong clubs, alignment is wrong, read the greens wrong, overanalyze bad shots, and get down too easy.  It really is the reason I cannot get better.  I did get pretty good last season but it has fallen apart this year and I cannot get out of it.  I'll keep trying though.

My round depends entirely on the first hole. If I don't make good contact with ANY of the shots my round is effectively over. I've since discovered that this is because I want to desperately find out what I am doing wrong. This leads to thinking of EVERYTHING that should and should not be in my swing. Over-thinking is the enemy of me. Recently I've been using a tactic to stop me thinking so much; if I hit a bad shot, I immediately accept it and get another ball out and put it down, take another swing and depending on that shot my mentality can go either way.

In my opinion, golf is 80% a mental game. The sooner you can deal with your mindset, the sooner you will be able to be more consistent in ball striking. Before I addressed my mental issues on the course I would go through about 5 questions before EVERY shot: 1) Grip? 2) turning from the trunk? 3) left arm straight? 4) letting arms swing through? 5) alignment good on follow through?

As you can see, all of this in the space of 2 or 3 seconds is going to put you off. Long story short, my mental toughness has improved over the last few months, but used to be abysmal.

Thanks for the replies guys......

I know I've got to deal with it sooner or later (the distractions out there) and I've had some progress quieting my mind up to this point.

I forgot to mention another thing that was bothering me which was another guy going a little over board on reactions to my bad shots. 'OUCH............' 'EWWWWWWWWWW' or 'WOOOOOOOW'. I let that get to me just a little bit then started giving it back to him which put an end to it.

I don't know if this would bother me enough to affect my shots, but I do know that it would bother me from an etiquette point of view (unless it was a good friend, then that's a different story).   Congrats on being able to quiet your mind, and good luck in the future.

Ryan

Do a Gary Koch impersonation. "Oooooh that's rolling back down the hill . . . oh no, it might make the water. Oh man it just won't stop rolling toward the water. Aaah man o man, look at that. It's in the water now. That's just not good at all .  . . ."