Does mental game affect your swing?

[9wood]

17 hours ago, Lihu said:

One of my occasional partners and range buddies is over 78 and hits exactly the same spot on the face every time and drives 200 yards with a very efficient swing. He only swings about 80-ish. I hope to swing like that when I'm that age, and it'll be swinging efficiently that would make that possible.

I don't think I've ever seen him hit a bad shot, good mood or bad mood. In fact, I don't think mental attitude does anything good for him because he's always berating himself for being so old all the time. All the time. He's always complaining about one thing or another, but still hits good shots. I think he even came out a week after an operation or something, and still shot well while complaining. 

He claims to be bogey, but he shoots too many pars to be bogey. He putts and chips better than a pro, but that's not too surprising given 60+ years playing.

I have an occasional partner as well. He will turn 85 years of age in a couple of months. He only plays par 3 courses. When his game is going well his mental attitude is such that he can score between 36 - 40  But when he starts off on the first two holes with not so good results, his whole mental attitude results into bad shots for the remaining 7 holes and he ends up shooting in the high 40's to low 50's all because he let a couple of bad shots get into his head and make him unable to concentrate to make the necessary corrections that would have helped him on the remains 7 holes. 

Golf truly is a sport that is both physical as well as mental. Well at least in my own personal experience.

Edited March 28, 2016 by 9wood

[Dave2512]

The only mental flaw I have is tricking myself into thinking I can rely on an expected result. If I just go out and play I know at the end of the day it will be a score close to my average with a mix of good shots, bad shots and lucky shots. Simply put I'm not good enough to worry about my mental game. It's not my outlook holding me back.

I average 81 strokes, 30-34 of those are putts. Of the remaining 50ish on any given day just a couple actually do what I envisioned in my head before the shot. The rest are mishits with varying degrees of unintended consequences.

 

[Patch]

My mental game told me the wind was blowing to hard to play. My physical game took the hint. 

[Buckeyebowman]

On 3/27/2016 at 1:42 PM, onthehunt526 said:

100% of golfers, pros or amateurs with handicaps probably are doing some sort of work on the swing. A lot of amateurs are probably repeating the same mechanical mistakes. While there is no such thing as muscle memory, and your brain controls everything you do... Your physical swing is controlled by your different systems of movement. 

If my mental game is very good, It's still not going to help me with my golf swing. Though your brain controls everything you do, you're mental game and a swing flaw, have NO direct correlation with one another.

I completely disagree that there is no such thing as muscle memory! When I was a kid, I took piano lessons. Every year my teacher would hold a recital for all her students. Would hire a hall, a big Steinway grand, and the place would be packed! To add to the pressure, the more advanced students could bring their sheet music and review while waiting to play. However, the teacher was seated backstage, and you would have to hand the sheet music to her before going on, and play the piece from memory.

In the instance I'm thinking of, I was an advanced student and was playing a difficult, classical piece. For the finale, it called for an ascending series of chords, 5 notes apiece on each hand, in a key that had 7 sharps in it! When playing I'd always think a couple of measures ahead, seeing the written music in my mind. On this occasion, I couldn't "see" the music for that crescendo. I began to panic! I just couldn't see it! Yet, my body took over and I played the passage perfectly. I had rehearsed it so many times, my body just knew what to do. My mind was a blank!

This thread is quite long, so I perused the first and last pages, and decided I should ask the following question. When you ask about the mental "game" are you really referring to your mental "state"? For me they are two opposite things.The mental game refers to your thinking about how you are going to play the course. Your mental state refers to being wary of hazards! We all know the skull jobs. Ooh, look at all the water on the right! Ooh, look at the OB left! I have a friend of mine who concentrates on everywhere he DOESN'T want to be! I keep telling him to not think that way. Think of where you WANT to go!

[Fourputt]

20 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I completely disagree that there is no such thing as muscle memory! When I was a kid, I took piano lessons. Every year my teacher would hold a recital for all her students. Would hire a hall, a big Steinway grand, and the place would be packed! To add to the pressure, the more advanced students could bring their sheet music and review while waiting to play. However, the teacher was seated backstage, and you would have to hand the sheet music to her before going on, and play the piece from memory.

In the instance I'm thinking of, I was an advanced student and was playing a difficult, classical piece. For the finale, it called for an ascending series of chords, 5 notes apiece on each hand, in a key that had 7 sharps in it! When playing I'd always think a couple of measures ahead, seeing the written music in my mind. On this occasion, I couldn't "see" the music for that crescendo. I began to panic! I just couldn't see it! Yet, my body took over and I played the passage perfectly. I had rehearsed it so many times, my body just knew what to do. My mind was a blank!

This thread is quite long, so I perused the first and last pages, and decided I should ask the following question. When you ask about the mental "game" are you really referring to your mental "state"? For me they are two opposite things.The mental game refers to your thinking about how you are going to play the course. Your mental state refers to being wary of hazards! We all know the skull jobs. Ooh, look at all the water on the right! Ooh, look at the OB left! I have a friend of mine who concentrates on everywhere he DOESN'T want to be! I keep telling him to not think that way. Think of where you WANT to go!

It still isn't your muscles remembering anything.  You had simply trained your neural pathways to react to what your eye reads on the sheet, or what you have memorized, without the need for a conscious command.  

[Lihu]

42 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

It still isn't your muscles remembering anything.  You had simply trained your neural pathways to react to what your eye reads on the sheet, or what you have memorized, without the need for a conscious command.  

The lack of need for a conscious command likely separates your mental state from that movement.

[phillyk]

11 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I completely disagree that there is no such thing as muscle memory! When I was a kid, I took piano lessons. Every year my teacher would hold a recital for all her students. Would hire a hall, a big Steinway grand, and the place would be packed! To add to the pressure, the more advanced students could bring their sheet music and review while waiting to play. However, the teacher was seated backstage, and you would have to hand the sheet music to her before going on, and play the piece from memory.

In the instance I'm thinking of, I was an advanced student and was playing a difficult, classical piece. For the finale, it called for an ascending series of chords, 5 notes apiece on each hand, in a key that had 7 sharps in it! When playing I'd always think a couple of measures ahead, seeing the written music in my mind. On this occasion, I couldn't "see" the music for that crescendo. I began to panic! I just couldn't see it! Yet, my body took over and I played the passage perfectly. I had rehearsed it so many times, my body just knew what to do. My mind was a blank!

This thread is quite long, so I perused the first and last pages, and decided I should ask the following question. When you ask about the mental "game" are you really referring to your mental "state"? For me they are two opposite things.The mental game refers to your thinking about how you are going to play the course. Your mental state refers to being wary of hazards! We all know the skull jobs. Ooh, look at all the water on the right! Ooh, look at the OB left! I have a friend of mine who concentrates on everywhere he DOESN'T want to be! I keep telling him to not think that way. Think of where you WANT to go!

We mostly agreed on calling course management/planning as is and not a mental game.  Mental game is more of the mental state you said, but close enough.

All your muscles can do is contract and relax; sure, you can build muscle that favors a certain motion, but there is no such thing as muscle memory.  Your brain sends signals for those two actions to occur.  When you practice, you are training your brain on when to send those signals.  At your recital, you were simply at the point when you don't need to consciously think about what you need to do, your brain had recited those signals enough to do it on its own, regardless of outside thought. 

Golf has so many small movements to account for, that while they can become automatic, we want those actions to produce better results.  Hence, we always make more mistakes as we try to get more distance or accuracy or playability or all the above.  This all relates back to mental game, because most golfers are not in that automatic state where the swing is the same every time.  Those swing thoughts or pre shot routines are sometimes essential to produce a certain shot because our brain and muscles haven't practiced that motion enough.  So if one part of that is off, the rest can fall apart too.