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The psychology of blowing up: How do you stop it?


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4 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Lol, I'd be pretty cheerful too if I could fly it 330 with my 75% swing. 

I'm sure being married to Paulina Gretzky helps keep a smile on his face too.  

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Joe Paradiso

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2 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

I'm sure being married to Paulina Gretzky helps keep a smile on his face too.  

Haha, but she's partly the result of being able to carry it 330 with said 75% swing! 

4 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Grow to 6-4 and gain the flexibility of a gymnast and you can do that too! Easy! 

Good call. In addition to a Trackman, a five camera system, and a BodiTrak, I just got one of these put in my garage's home golf setup to help with exactly that!

torture-middle-ages-the-rack.jpg

Constantine

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1 hour ago, Groucho Valentine said:

The graphic for this thread is the best thing ever..

I find that most of the time ( with exceptions when someone hits like 2 balls OB) people have blow up holes because they lose their composure. As I'm sure has been said plenty of times already. Blow up holes are mental errors, not physical ones IMO. 

They can be. But it can also be just a bad swing followed by bad luck. We've all had tee shots that left us with very little options and a double or triple bogey occurs. Sometimes you just have to take your medicine to avoid the big number. But other times, you run out of options. 

Scott

Titleist, Edel, Scotty Cameron Putter, Snell - AimPoint - Evolvr - MirrorVision

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13 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Well yeah. Just one bad swing can trigger a blow up hole. But how a player responds to a awful shot is usually what triggers the blowup hole

Maybe. I hit my opening tee shot OB to the right yesterday, but I simply tee'd up #3. I ended up tripling the hole. It was a big block to the right  with a price tag of 2 that put the big number on the card. From here I went birdie and 4 pars. I then took a 9 on #7 due to another big block OB followed by another crappy drive that was in play. I attribute this to the 15 minute wait on the tee while some jackwagons were driving all over place doing who knows what. THAT is what usually causes a blowup hole for me. :mad::mad::mad:

8 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Haha, but she's partly the result of being able to carry it 330 with said 75% swing! 

Good call. In addition to a Trackman, a five camera system, and a BodiTrak, I just got one of these put in my garage's home golf setup to help with exactly that!

torture-middle-ages-the-rack.jpg

Would that make me taller?!!! :-)

- Shane

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2 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

They can be. But it can also be just a bad swing followed by bad luck. We've all had tee shots that left us with very little options and a double or triple bogey occurs. Sometimes you just have to take your medicine to avoid the big number. But other times, you run out of options. 

Sometimes. But Im not too sure i see it that way. Double bogeys are a part of the game and can happen without making a huge mistake, but most triples or worse can certainly be avoided by playing smarter. 

10 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Haha, but she's partly the result of being able to carry it 330 with said 75% swing! 

Good call. In addition to a Trackman, a five camera system, and a BodiTrak, I just got one of these put in my garage's home golf setup to help with exactly that!

torture-middle-ages-the-rack.jpg

Now thats dedication to the game. 

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Just now, Groucho Valentine said:

Sometimes. But Im not too sure i see it that way. Double bogeys are a part of the game and can happen without making a huge mistake, but most triples or worse can certainly be avoided by playing smarter. 

Agreed, but it can happen and it happens more to mid and high HC players than single digit because our tee shots are more erratic.

Scott

Titleist, Edel, Scotty Cameron Putter, Snell - AimPoint - Evolvr - MirrorVision

My Swing Thread

boogielicious - Adjective describing the perfect surf wave

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5 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

They can be. But it can also be just a bad swing followed by bad luck. We've all had tee shots that left us with very little options and a double or triple bogey occurs. Sometimes you just have to take your medicine to avoid the big number. But other times, you run out of options. 

Had this happen last Thursday, hit the drive of my life that flew straight 270 yards into a hazard at the end of the fairway.  I never even considered running out of fairway when I pulled driver but sure enough when we got to the end of the fairway my ball was nowhere to be found.  I didn't hit a provisional so I rushed back to hit one, didn't take my time and sliced it into the woods.   It took me 2 shots to get out of the woods so instead of hitting a wedge into the green on the other side of the hazard with a chance at birdie I was now laying 5 and two putted for a snowman.  

Joe Paradiso

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1 minute ago, boogielicious said:

Agreed, but it can happen and it happens more to mid and high HC players than single digit because our tee shots are more erratic.

True. I sometimes have opinions on these things from my POV. If i don't hit a ball OB or something like that, i feel like double should be the worst score i make on any hole. But even 15-20 capper has some measure of control over the golf ball and can play to safety, then try to minimize the damage from there. For example, if you duff one off the tee, take the mentality of playing the hole for bogey instead of trying to save a par. I think that can eliminate alot of blowups. 

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What I usually see is that a blowup hole will cause a string of blowup holes until they finally say "screw it". Then things seem to start settling down. I think this comes from tension. When a player gets angry over a bad shot or hole, tension sets in and makes the problem worse. Even in my case yesterday I tensed up when I had to wait so long. I expect bad shots from my own swing, but get absolutely frustrated when a slow group is in front of me.

- Shane

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I'm a high HC player and I might have one (1) triple per round, max. I might hit two bad shots in a row, but rarely if ever 3. My "bad" shots sometimes miss left or right, and sometimes fat, but usually they are in play. That's the difference - I'm in bounds, in play. I learned a while back to be smart and not try to get it all back at once, like a Blackjack player on a losing streak... When I do hit triples it is usually around the green because I'm distracted. Either another golfer or something from work/family has made me angry. So as a high HC I can say for me blow up holes are 100% mental. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

What I usually see is that a blowup hole will cause a string of blowup holes until they finally say "screw it". Then things seem to start settling down. I think this comes from tension. When a player gets angry over a bad shot or hole, tension sets in and makes the problem worse. Even in my case yesterday I tensed up when I had to wait so long. I expect bad shots from my own swing, but get absolutely frustrated when a slow group is in front of me.

That happened to me as well.   Two bozos in front of me.   2 over thru 8 holes and then a triple on a par 3 because I got mad waiting so long.

—Adam

 

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3 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

True. I sometimes have opinions on these things from my POV. If i don't hit a ball OB or something like that, i feel like double should be the worst score i make on any hole. But even 15-20 capper has some measure of control over the golf ball and can play to safety, then try to minimize the damage from there. For example, if you duff one off the tee, take the mentality of playing the hole for bogey instead of trying to save a par. I think that can eliminate alot of blowups. 

I remember seeing Graeme McDowell hitting it OB on a par 5 hole and he still parred the hole!

I do always try to minimize the damage, but occasionally it doesn't work out that way. Example: I had a par 3 last week where I hit into a hazard. My only option was to hit it to the far end of the green because my line from the hazard to the flag was blocked by a tree. I got on the far end of the green on the 3rd shot but had a 45 footer for bogey. I doubled the hole. I could have gone back to the tee, but I would have ended up just as far from the flag most likely.

Scott

Titleist, Edel, Scotty Cameron Putter, Snell - AimPoint - Evolvr - MirrorVision

My Swing Thread

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2 minutes ago, imsys0042 said:

That happened to me as well.   Two bozos in front of me.   2 over thru 8 holes and then a triple on a par 3 because I got mad waiting so long.

So the question, relating to the OP, is how do we stop that now that we have identified the problem. I'm assuming that a firearm is not acceptable. ;-)

- Shane

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1 minute ago, boogielicious said:

I remember seeing Graeme McDowell hitting it OB on a par 5 hole and he still parred the hole!

I do always try to minimize the damage, but occasionally it doesn't work out that way. Example: I had a par 3 last week where I hit into a hazard. My only option was to hit it to the far end of the green because my line from the hazard to the flag was blocked by a tree. I got on the far end of the green on the 3rd shot but had a 45 footer for bogey. I doubled the hole. I could have gone back to the tee, but I would have ended up just as far from the flag most likely.

Oh yeah. But thats golf. Thats all you could do, there. That would be a blowup if you got that 3rd on the green and then proceeded to 5 putt because you just batted the ball around. 

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2 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

So the question, relating to the OP, is how do we stop that now that we have identified the problem. I'm assuming that a firearm is not acceptable. ;-)

I try to bring something else along with me to do when I get in these kinds of situations.   If I am with someone else it's better because then you can talk, or make fun of the bozos.   Yesterday I was essentially playing as a last minute decision and figured it wouldn't be very busy.   Oops.  Speaking broader, I think you just have to accept that bad things will happen and more bad things will happen if you let it bother you.

These guys weren't worth firearms going off.   There are others where I might be tempted.

 

—Adam

 

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1 minute ago, imsys0042 said:

I try to bring something else along with me to do when I get in these kinds of situations.   If I am with someone else it's better because then you can talk, or make fun of the bozos.   Yesterday I was essentially playing as a last minute decision and figured it wouldn't be very busy.   Oops.  Speaking broader, I think you just have to accept that bad things will happen and more bad things will happen if you let it bother you.

These guys weren't worth firearms going off.   There are others where I might be tempted.

 

I was paired up with a younger couple who were not playing good and we were still waiting on every tee box. What really set me off was that the ranger visited them on that tee box (#7) and I hoped he was going to pull them aside and let us through. The whole course was backed up behind them. 

For me, there is the physical issue of stiffening up if I have to wait that long. Then there was the mental aspect of wanting to take advantage of that reachable par 5 and sitting there thinking about it. On top of that, the group behind us is also standing on the tee box wondering what the hell they were doing and we all started going off. Perhaps I need to brush up on my meditation and breathing exercises. 

- Shane

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19 minutes ago, Kalnoky said:

I'm a high HC player and I might have one (1) triple per round, max. I might hit two bad shots in a row, but rarely if ever 3. My "bad" shots sometimes miss left or right, and sometimes fat, but usually they are in play. That's the difference - I'm in bounds, in play. I learned a while back to be smart and not try to get it all back at once, like a Blackjack player on a losing streak... When I do hit triples it is usually around the green because I'm distracted. Either another golfer or something from work/family has made me angry. So as a high HC I can say for me blow up holes are 100% mental. 

What?

Yesterday I hit an 88 on a full course which because of the course rating/slope translated into a 15.4 differential.  I had one triple due to a stroke and distance for a lost ball (I drove through the fairway on a dogleg) I think a group playing a different hole picked it up) I just went through the round and counted up my mishits, I had 14 mishits in the round.  I was never upset and never lost my focus.  0% mental on those mishits.  100% due to swing mechanics.  Because of my swing mechanics there is a certain amount of randomness to my shots.  

I'm not within a mm of the sweet spot every time I swing.

Are you?  

How can we be looking at this so differently? 

That round:

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/fep/round/1170071

 

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Note: This thread is 2726 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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