How easily are you psyched out of the zone?

[Kalnoky]

18 hours ago, saevel25 said:

There is a lot of instances were a golfer can just hit ball after ball at the range and end up getting into a good rhythm. It's just being able to put together a halfway decent club face to path control due to rapid fire hitting. It wouldn't be something I would call being in the zone. 

In the end, there is too much variation and timing required, in a poor golf swing, to produce repeatable results under any form of time between shots. 

^^^ this is an excellent assessment. I'm trying my best to graduate from this phase of golf. Everyone can play well sometimes. I want to be reliable from a cold start. 

In response to the OP, yes 100% mental distractions can ruin a round for me. Emails from work, texts from family, a bad playing partner, etc.. If my brain is not completely engaged and devoted to each shot, I will start to sway or lift (come out of posture) or both, swing too fast, get stuck on my back foot - every ugliness imaginable. 

 

 

 

[Hategolf]

I believe that for a recreational high handicapper like me , getting off the "zone" is just the result of my lack of skills to execute a good swing. The so called zone goes out the window when my swing falls apart  not the other way around.

I execute, the shot is good, confidence goes up, then I'm in the zone.

A relax state of mind is for sure necessary but the better I swing the more I relax.

I do have a hard time staying focus though.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Hategolf
Grammar

[Buckeyebowman]

8 hours ago, Secretariat said:

I shall never forget my feeling as I prepared to hole my last putt at Scioto, in Columbus, Ohio, to win the United States Open in 1926. The thing could not have been over three inches in lenght. Yet, as I stepped up to tap it in, the wildest thought struck me. "What if I should stub my putter into the turf and fail to move the ball?". I very carefully addressed the putt with my putter blade off the turf and half-topped the ball into the hole. Sounds a bit psycho, doesn't it? But golfers can get that way. 

(Bobby Jones on Golf) 

Ah! Good point! I read a comment by a pro, don't remember which one, and I think I read it in "The Bogey Man" by George Plimpton. All this guy had to do was 2 putt from about 20 feet to win a tournament. As he addressed the ball he started thinking, "Wait a minute! How do you 2 putt on purpose?"

[Secretariat]

9 hours ago, Buckeyebowman said:

Ah! Good point! I read a comment by a pro, don't remember which one, and I think I read it in "The Bogey Man" by George Plimpton. All this guy had to do was 2 putt from about 20 feet to win a tournament. As he addressed the ball he started thinking, "Wait a minute! How do you 2 putt on purpose?"

I might think I need only two putts, but just after striking the first I only expect to hole it -- always. So 2-putting on purpose is a paradox. You have to picture your ball as being stymied, or something like that, in order to accomplish it.  

....................................... 

For a description of the infernal misery possibly within golf, read George Plimpton's The Bogey Man, especially the terrifying chapter wherein Plimpton practices with four golf balls on a tinselly, night-lit par-three course in the desert, each ball diabolically possessed of individual bad habits. 

(Is there life after golf?, by John Updike)

 

[gregsandiego]

On 1/5/2017 at 0:29 PM, Yukari said:

Ah yes.  The proverbial mental breakdown.  Happens more often than I would like to admit.  Sometimes for no reason at all.

When that happens, I usually try to concentrate on the basics like grip, alignment, stance etc.  But there never seems to be a magic bullet that makes it all better.

Golf is tough.  Any small distraction can ruin your concentration and hence your swing.  It's game of inches -  6 inches to be exact (distance between your ears).

I know. They should invent a golfers boot-camp. Deprive you of sleep, water, sex, then make you play 18 holes in the rain. Until you can do it. Until you are crying and swearing at the top of your lungs, but damn it you can still hit a drive.....

22 hours ago, Hategolf said:

I believe that for a recreational high handicapper like me , getting off the "zone" is just the result of my lack of skills to execute a good swing. The so called zone goes out the window when my swing falls apart  not the other way around.

I execute, the shot is good, confidence goes up, then I'm in the zone.

A relax state of mind is for sure necessary but the better I swing the more I relax.

I do have a hard time staying focus though.

To clarify my original post - it wasn't so much that I was in some great "zone". I was on the indoor range the whole time hitting decent. But the emotional upset took me from solid hits to complete crap.

[Buckeyebowman]

12 hours ago, Secretariat said:

I might think I need only two putts, but just after striking the first I only expect to hole it -- always. So 2-putting on purpose is a paradox. You have to picture your ball as being stymied, or something like that, in order to accomplish it.  

....................................... 

For a description of the infernal misery possibly within golf, read George Plimpton's The Bogey Man, especially the terrifying chapter wherein Plimpton practices with four golf balls on a tinselly, night-lit par-three course in the desert, each ball diabolically possessed of individual bad habits. 

(Is there life after golf?, by John Updike)

 

Oh, I always try to make every putt, but sometimes reality intrudes. It could be the yip, or ginch, or just a simple misjudgement of line or speed.

And I remember that chapter of the book! Plimpton's game is in the toilet and decides that the way to rescue it is night golf at a par 3! He plays 4 balls, and names each one after a friend of his. One ball always slices, another always hooks. Another he always hits thin, and the other fat! Or something like that.

It's a compelling exposition of the fevered state at which a golfer's mind can arrive when their game turns to crap!

[Piz]

"It's a compelling exposition of the fevered state at which golfer's mind can arrive when their game turns to crap!"     That, sir, is poetry.

[Buckeyebowman]

20 hours ago, Piz said:

"It's a compelling exposition of the fevered state at which golfer's mind can arrive when their game turns to crap!"     That, sir, is poetry.

Thank you, Piz. I had a Communications Prof in college who wanted me to go into journalism. The one thing I learned in her class, above all, was that good writing is damned hard work! And there should should be an "a" between which and golfer's! Typo!