Mental Game need help

[Mrd19abhs]

So currently I am having a lot of problems with my mental game. I just started playing in August so I know Im not gonna be great yet by any means but some days just seem to be horrible.

Ive been playing with some other TST members and anytime i play with someone new i seem to always choke until i get about halfway thru the round. But when i play with my cousin(who is a little worse then me) or my best friend (who is better than me) I shoot really consitently and pretty well. Does anyone else ever have these problems and if you do/did how do/did you overcome them.

Also when you hit a bad shot how do you recover it seems if I ever hit a bad tee shot into an adjacent fairway or the rough I cant seem to ever get back in the fairway.

[Cussin hacker]

Welcome to the game of golf! I think as you play more you will gain more confidents. Don't let playing with better players get to ya. Believe me they have been in your shoes themselves.

[Meddle]

I think you have to come in with the attitude "just keep it in the fairway" and play it safe. If you're in another fairway, instead of gunning for the green just make sure you put it in your fairway with a decent approach shot to the green. Play a club off the first tee that you have confidence in (for me it's my 7 wood). If you keep your expectations low you put the pressure of yourself, and good scores from playing conservative will get your confidence up.

[etlreams]

I'm very interested in hearing people's responses on this particular thread. The mental aspect of the game is something I really struggle with, as well. I tend to be very hard on myself. When I hit a bad shot or have a bad hole, it will stick with me until something really good happens. And sometimes that could take a few holes. If you look at my score cards, I have great games and horrible games. The only time I really play to my potential on a consistant basis is when I play alone.

I guess my advice would be to find the ability to leave a shot in the past and move on. Learn from it , go to the next shot and pretent the previous didn't happen. Also...I like the advice other people have shared regarding playing it safe. Keep yourself in good situations. If that means laying up, lay up and take the extra stroke. If that means keeping your driver in the bag because it's not working today..play your 3Wood. etc etc.

Good luck!

[user9800]

Learning to forget your last shot was hard for me at first. Once you just accept the fact that your last shot doesn't matter, only what shot you need to make next does. You will improve( well, that's what worked for me). And don't worry about what others might think of how good or bad you play. Play the game against yourself and not the people you are playing with. Also, play from the tee's that suit YOUR game and not who you might be playing with.

[microcrayfish]

I'm picking you play worse with people you don't know because you're worried that they're judging you and your golf game, you probably play better halfway through the round because you've gotten to know them better and are more comfortable around them. I think mostly every new golfer goes through the same issues. Your cousin and your best friend already know you well and aren't going to care how well you play golf so you forget about making an impression and just play but it's harder with strangers. My advice is to remember that everyone had to start golf sometime and very few of them were any good right away. It doesn't matter If someone's better or worse than you, they still know what it's like to be struggling with their game so they aren't going to judge you if you're not playing well. Try to forget about them and just have fun.

I also think it's a good idea to learn to take your medicine when you hit a bad shot. I found that once I adopted the attitude that I deserved to be in a bad spot because I hit a bad shot and that a par will be a lucky bonus because of it, I could better get on with the hole and not dwell on the negatives. So if I hook it into the trees and don't have a shot at the green I'll play for a bogey, that's why golf courses have obstacles - to punish you for messing up. If I end up with a up and down par then lucky me. One I hit the bad shot I didn't expect a par so I'm not pissed off I didn't get one and won't dwell on it. Maybe it's not an attitude that works for everyone but since I've taken it up my handicap's started to tumble so it might be worth a shot.

[Robato]

Firstly, I think its great that you have golf partners that you are comfortable playing with.
Its always harder for me to play with strangers because of the additional effort to be courteous, etc.
But these days I like that additional pressure because I see so many fun challenges in golf.
Like one time I played a really expensive course last year, and I couldnt drive to save my life.
But I got a lot of practice from the rough!
It was a course designed by Seve Ballesteros,
and I learned later that he is really well known for getting out of trouble!
His whole course could have been designed with that it mind!
So I felt like I was earning my degree from Seve's School of Trouble.

I would say that there are two ways to get back in play.
One is to try to recover and get where you thought you should have gone.
That way is hard.
The other way is to look for an easy spot to lay up.
Like, instead of trying to hit a shot over the trees towards the green,
use a 5 iron to knock it out of the forest, into a nice area of the fairway.
Then, you only sacrifice one shot,
and you get to experience the rest of the hole from the fairway.

[Gioguy21]

"Golf: The Mental Game" - by Tom Dorsel....Read it...redundant but for a newbie to the game, well worth the read.

[CarlSpackler]

To summarize what I have learned in books on the mental game...

Don't tie your sense of self worth to your game. Hitting bad shots is part of the game. It's going to happen, so when it does, start immediately trying to figure out how to get the ball in the hole with the fewest number of strokes as possible. You can't change what has already happened, only your response and what comes next.

If you had a caddy that told you, "You suck! I can't believe you could miss that putt!", you would most likely fire him and find a new caddy, right. So fire the caddy in your head and hire one that is supportive and picks you up after a bad shot. He should also help you focus on the task at hand and not get ahead of yourself (i.e. - start to think about the next hole when you have a 4' putt left).

It is just important to not get over zealous after a great shot as it is not to get upset after a bad one. Savor the moment and take a mental picture so you can use it to bolster confidence in the future when a similar situation comes up. Then start to focus on the next shot. BTW - throw away the negative pictures you may have kept in the album.

Visualization is key. Approach every shot with confidence that you are going to pull it off and picture the perfect shot in your head. I will gaze intently at my target before a shot and will get a sense that I am zooming in to it. You will not execute every shot perfectly, and that is OK.

Finally, learn to use breathing exercises to remain calm.

I read Zen golf last summer and it helped immensely. Best of luck!

[Meddle]

I also think it's a good idea to learn to take your medicine when you hit a bad shot. I found that once I adopted the attitude that I deserved to be in a bad spot because I hit a bad shot and that a par will be a lucky bonus because of it, I could better get on with the hole and not dwell on the negatives.

Yeah I totally agree with that. You have to think with you mind and not let your emotions control your decisions out there. If you hit it into the trees, going out sideways safely into the fairway is the play rather than launching the ball through trees. The odds are just on your side if you play for bogey instead of par or bust. When I look back at my blowup holes, I realize I was on tilt and not thinking, and if I had been, I could have really done damage control.

[dbuck]

+1 on what others have said about playing with strangers. No one will judge you by your golf game, and if they do, it doesn't matter. Most won't even judge your golf game by your golf game today because if they are better than you, they have been where you are, and if they are worse, they look up to you already, LOL. So enjoy playing your game where you are today.

Overused cliche, but play one shot at a time. You should have a plan for each hole that realistically using your abilities allows you the best score possible. This plan will change according to your execution, but you can only play one stroke at a time, so make that your focus. Don't worry about the last shot; you can't replay it. Don't worry about the put, you aren't on the green yet.

Go to the range once a week or so, and work on one or two things, no more. Maybe it is keeping your head still, or alignment, or whatever. Don't just pound balls. Once you hit 4 or 5 shots in row that meet your objective for the day, give the rest of your bucket to your neighbor and go work on your short game. Have an objective with the short game practice as well, and once you meet it, stop. This all sounds like mechanics rather than head games, but it teaches focus and builds confidence.

[dbuck]

Oh, and remember, you are doing this for enjoyment, so have fun!

[Rusty Shackleford]

Try reading Golf Books dealing with the Champion Mindset, also, It's hard to not care when you really care, but you have to play the part of somebody with short term memory on the course.

[Cussin hacker]

Lots of great advise....Now if we could all master it we'd be + HC'ers.

[DocWu1948]

Well, you could only play with people you know, but that could limit your time.

As others have said, most golfers really don't care how you play (exception being a team event). Now they will care if you loudly beat yourself up after bad shots because angst and anger is contagious and causes bad thoughts and bad swings. So you do yourself a favor by accepting your shot and going on.

[Travtex]

My mental game problems seem to be thankfully disconnected from nerves. Hell, one of my worst rounds ever I was out there by myself with a few apathetic squirrels for a gallery. I'm kind of backwards -- I start getting better with people watching and pressure on. I work in intensive/emergency medicine... maybe I just NEED the adrenaline to function well.

Do tend to go on tilt at times, though. Again, it's easier for me with other people around. When I duff one in front of my friend, I just laugh my ass off. When I do it on the course by myself, I'm free to go on a tirade about what a moron I am.

Some days, though... it sure does seem like you're deliberately trying to suck. Ever put three consecutive 200 yard 3 woods off the fairway into the same lateral duck pond? I couldn't do that if that actually WERE my target.

[Gibby]

We always hear about how important "confidence" is, and I think most of us don't really know what it truly means. I've been thinking a lot about the mental aspect of golf this winter so I guess I'll share what I've thought about, but be warned, it's long....and rambling....it might be confusing as i'm no professional writer, but if you read through it all I think you guys will understand what I've come to understand.

So this is going to sound inCREdibly lame and cheesy, but when I watched the movie Avatar, I had a sort of mini-epiphany. There is a part where Jake Sully is learning to be one of those blue monkey things, and of course, they're running around in 5000 ft tall trees and floating cliffs and what not. It shows at first how cautious he was, always stumbling around fearing he might fall. Then he comes to this place where he has to jump and grab onto a tree branch. He hesitates at first and is scared he might fall, and die, understandably. But then he says something along the lines of "I finally understood that I just had to trust my body, and trust I would know what to do instinctively." Going along with a similar idea, I thought of running around a track. Each track lane is only about a foot and a half wide (i'm not sure exactly), and yet I highly doubt anyone is preoccupied with staying in their lane when they run. Think about the 200m and 400m strpints, a taking one of those curves at full speed. And yet still, almost never does someone step outside their lane and get DQd (it does ahppen, just rarely). The reason is, that running is just really natural. We aren't really given a reason to fear and think about stepping outside the lane, so we just don't think about it. However, take a single track lane, and isolate it in the middle of the grand canyon. An ~18 inch wide track with a several thousand foot drop on either side if you misstep. Hell, I don't think i could even crawl around that track without wetting myself, much less run around it at full speed. The whole point is that now we are given a reason to fear, to think about staying in our lanes. And let me tell you, the constant fear of having a misstep running around that track would make you misstep and fall. It's all mental. Ideally, you could just trust your body and not think about falling to your death, and you would be fine. Just as in the Avatar example, it instead you were just 3 feet off the ground, you would have no fear in jumping to grab onto another branch a couple feet away, you wouldn't even have to think about what you were doing.

Thankfully, in golf, if you shank, whiff, duff, or top it, you're not going to die =D No really. In the end, you just have to trust that your body will know what to do. You've played golf long enough, you know how to hit the ball, how to shape it, and how it will react (for the most part). So stop thinking about it so much as you're hitting and fearing what mistake you might make. The reason golf is such a mental game; like the track in the middle of the Grand Canyon, is because you get to take as much time as you want. Just standing there. Staring at that ball. Oh dear, there must be infinite possibilities to screw this shot up. Something that has helped me a bunch is thinking of golf in terms of other sports. Put that track back on level ground again, where you don't think about what might happen and you trust your body. I love watching basketball, so i think like basketball. When Tyrone Jamaal O'Neal (I kid...) runs around a screen and shoots that fadeaway jumper, you think he's thinking about : where should me elbow be? Hmm...i'm about 18.5 ft away from the basket....Oh, make sure my shot's arc maxes out right about...there. Hell no. He just shoots it. No time to think. Gotta trust yourself. And in basketball, they have it much tougher. They don't always get to square up to the basket. They don't always have their hands positions exactly where they want it to be. Sometimes they're leaning left, sometimes they're fading away. In the end, they just shoot the ball. It's that simple. As they go up, they have a vague idea of where the basket is, without exact numbers and angles, and they just trust their body to know how "hard" to shoot the ball.

I've haven't had time to really apply this philosophy on the course yet, but i've hit a few buckets of balls these past few weeks and have seen a huge improvement. Last year I was about a ~10 handicap. My biggest problem was consistency. My consistency on the range so far has been absolutely great, and it's been without swinging a club for months. I still take my time to think about what I want to do: fade/draw, high/low, I take my time to properly set up square, and position my grip. But after im done with that, and i stand over the ball, i just clear my mind. I don't think specifically about what I have to do to pull of whatever shot i want. I know i know how to hit a shot high vs low, fade vs draw. So i just hit the ball. Trust myself. I think about someone raising up for a jumpshot in basketball. Don't think about it, just do it.

Do i still make mistakes? Of course. However, the topping, hitting shots 2 inches fat, and shanking has basically dissapeared. All i'm left with now if a little mishit, a little push, and little hook. Overall, I'm just much more comfortable when i'm not thinking about every little thing as i'm swinging. And the awesome thing is, the more I see that I'm improving, the more confident i'll get, and the more i'll trust myself.

Do make note, that I'm not saying stop thinking about your preperation. Still take time to analyze the wind, slopes etc. Take time to set up well and grip your club comfortably. The important thing to do, is as your done setting up, and as you're about to swing, stop thinking. Don't think about "make sure I roll my wrists over" or "make sure I hit down", or "keep this elbow straight" (unless you're making swing changes...that's a whole other story) You just have to trust that your body knows what to do if you want to hit a draw/fade. I've noticed my ball striking has improved SIGNIFICANTLY since i've started thinking like this, and hopefully it'll translate onto the course. Let me know if any of you guys agree with me....or could even understand what my long ramble was about.

-Gibby

[Ben]

I'm picking you play worse with people you don't know because you're worried that they're judging you and your golf game, you probably play better halfway through the round because you've gotten to know them better and are more comfortable around them. I think mostly every new golfer goes through the same issues. Your cousin and your best friend already know you well and aren't going to care how well you play golf so you forget about making an impression and just play but it's harder with strangers. My advice is to remember that everyone had to start golf sometime and very few of them were any good right away. It doesn't matter If someone's better or worse than you, they still know what it's like to be struggling with their game so they aren't going to judge you if you're not playing well. Try to forget about them and just have fun.

Fantastic advice microcrayfish!

I say from experience, the more you work on your mental game and attitude the better you'll get. A really good starter book (I think at least) if you are even interested, is Bob Rotella's Golf is a Game of Confidence . It not only details mental training theories, it covers great golf course management ideas as well.