Piece of Mental Game: Focus

[CoryMartin]

These past three weeks I have had a big slump in confidence while playing due to a snapped driver (hit the ball and it snapped) and have been having trouble with a driver lately, even the 3 wood just isn't wanting to work (I am now hitting a driving 3 iron that is 225-230 solid so no problems anymore). So in a kind of "recovery mode" I ask coach to play the 3rd seed to kinda get my ducks in a row.

Now while playing this 3rd seed I have been playing with players that are shooting high 90s to low 100s and the occasional high score. I really came to realize while playing the immense part of the mental game called: focus.

These players do not really understand golf course etiquette or the rules too much and tend to talk and play around most of the time. This being said, the round become less serious playing with them but I scored much worse due to the split points of attention. For them it was more walking and talking with some golf vs. golfing with some talking. So my focus was TOTALLY off. I wasn't paying enough attention or worrying about my score.

This being said I kinda took it as a point that during practice this week and this week's tournament to focus on purely the golf. Not on my partners or the conversation but to fully focus on the shot at hand and one or two swing thoughts (really alignment and hip turn stuff). Before teeing off I would come up with an off the tee strategy (using 3i ha), after teeing off I would calculate a shot to the green etc. during the walk to the ball, when a putt was coming I would pace out the putt, practice putts, and visualization of the putt or chip.

All of this with just focusing on the golf and not worrying about the other players or parents following along. I realized that I sank more putts from the focus, had better tee shots and chips really were a lot better. I ended up bouncing from a 101 to a 77 in less than 5 days.

Also yesterday I was practicing with a more focused demeanor on the course we are playing this coming up Monday for District. I was 2 over after 8 holes before it got dark!

I see that the mental game is really a lot of confidence, focus and realism. I just wanted to post a little bit about a realization this week!