How Do You Break a Streak of Bad Luck?

[allin]

My experience has been that most bad luck comes from failure to balance risk reward.  Trying to cut the corner on a par 5 when 2 of your absolute best shots would be required etc.  Hitting trees or cart paths is not bad luck. A spike mark or bad spot right on your putting line would qualify, landing in an old divot would also.  Many of these things can be prepared for and minimized.  Practice plugged bunker shots, hitting from a divot etc. Beyond that I often see people respond as if they are the only one these things happen to.  They happen to everyone, you choose how you respond.

[Chief Broom]

The way I deal with bad breaks is to realize that they are generally balanced out by the good breaks.  It does happen that you can get a string of bad breaks but usually when I have a good round going I can also look back and see where one or two holes were saved by a lucky break that kept me in the game (so to speak).  As you asked the trick is to be able to shrug off those bad breaks so that they don't derail your round.  The sad fact is sometimes you'll go out to the course and have one of those rounds you want to forget.  It happens.  Again this is where you compare those bad rounds with the times you go to the course and have an unexpectedly good round.  If that never seems to happen you simply haven't been playing often enough.  I've got a buddy who is very down on himself by his overall poor level of play but I tell him that he simply has to keep on playing to give himself the chance for that good round to happen.  One thing is for certain and that is you'll never have that good round if you don't get out there and play.

To me it really is as simple as this, but the trick is to tell yourself this and really believe it...

[injury]

start writing down the good things that happen. Our psychology is such we remember the bad much easier than the good, it's a defense mechanism.

However opening the thread I expected to read stuff like clubheads coming off, sticking it to 2 feet and the wind blowing it off the green into a water hazard, approach shot landing in the hole and bouncing out. Stuff like that I consider bad luck issues. Odd bounce in the water I ask myself why did I give the water a chance to be in play. If I hit a tree limb why didn't I play under, over, short, or around it. When I sit down and analyze and be honest with myself I can usually find exactly where I could have eliminated the "bad breaks" I've gotten from being any kind of real factor.

[dsc123]

I try to break the game into smaller games.  Since my goal each time I go out is to break 90, over three holes i want to be 3 over par or better.  I take it three holes at a time.  If I double the first hole, a par puts me back on track, and a couple bogeys only leaves me one off my goal.  It helps put the bad hole in perspective.

Last weekend, I started the round with a bogey, a triple, and a double; 6 over through three and more or less no chance of breaking 90.  I just tried to focus on the next three holes.  Standing on the 4th tee, I was able to think to myself, "ok, those holes are done.  Lets get one back over the next three holes, two bogeys and a par."  Which i did.  After six, i think the same thing about the next three, "two bogeys and a par, get one more back"

It helps to compartmentalize those bad stretches.  There's no real reason why whatever went wrong with holes 1-3 would stop by hole 4 as opposed to hole 2 or hole 7.  But if in my mind, i can look at them as separate games, then its easy to convince myself that the bad stretch is over, and i have a clean slate.

It really helps to climb back from a bad start because I can just focus on trying to play 1 shot below bogey golf over a three hole stretch, an attainable goal that doesn't put all the pressure on one shot or hole.