Golf's Mental Game Aspect

[rehmwa]

On 22/01/2018 at 12:12 PM, rehmwa said:

I say to myself "OK - 7 Bloody Marys is ENOUGH".  Then I switch back to Dr Pepper.

In retrospect, sometimes I say to myself "OK - 7 Dr Peppers is too much.  Then I switch to a Bloody Mary"

[Nutsmacker]

This is interesting.  For me its probably 60 40 physical/mental.  When I am in a good mood, I play good golf.  When I am stressed about something...I tend to not play well.   I haven't had any lessons in my life and have been playing on my natural ability my golfing life.  My swing is pretty good but I know there are things that need to be changed if I wanted to dramatically improve.  The two things that I need to think about to play good golf and be in a good golf state of mind is to "not break the glass" which is something I read in a Hogan book.  The other thing that is critical for me is keeping my head down.  Now, this is where I am sure I am not doing something right...but when I was playing baseball, obviously keeping your eye on the ball was critical.  When I was at the plate I wanted my chin touching or grazing my left shoulder and when I swung, I wanted my chin touching my right shoulder when I finished.  I try to remember this when I swing a golf club...simply to keep my brain focused on keeping my eye on the ball.  When I keep my head down on the golf ball and don't break the glass, the results are typically good.  So when I walk up to my ball, I say to myself, don't break the glass and shoulder to shoulder.  Those two phrases is what gets me in the proper mental state to hit a golf ball.

[mvmac]

55 minutes ago, Nutsmacker said:

This is interesting.  For me its probably 60 40 physical/mental.

Then you would be very much in the minority. With most golfers it's heavily physical, whether they realize it or not.

It's not a coincidence that better players have better mechanics than bogey golfers. They are better because their swing's produce shots that get them closer to the hole in fewer shots than bogey golfers. Mental game plays a much smaller role. 

Think of all the difference personalities on tour. Not everyone is going to handle stress the same way. Pat Perez and Dustin Johnson have much different mental states or mental games when they're playing. Yet the commonality is that they all produce really good impact conditions over and over again.

[Nutsmacker]

4 minutes ago, mvmac said:

Then you would be very much in the minority. With most golfers it's heavily physical, whether they realize it or not.

 

I am guessing completely.  As I mentioned, I have never really had any lessons and my golf game is almost entirely from what feels natural.  I don't really think about the swing very much but when I get out of a rhythm or I am dwelling on something else...my game falls apart.  When I am simply just "playing" and my brain isn't getting in the way, I play much better golf.  My putting is what ends up stopping me from getting to scratch.  So, I end up being a great scramble golf partner...but as an individual player the goal is always to stay under 80.  

[iacas]

47 minutes ago, mvmac said:

Then you would be very much in the minority. With most golfers it's heavily physical, whether they realize it or not.

It's not a coincidence that better players have better mechanics than bogey golfers.

To put it another way, @Nutsmacker, if you were to actually improve your game, you wouldn't devote anywhere near 40% of your time working on your mental game. That "60/40" ratio you've guessed at determines your score within a pretty narrow range. It's not like you shoot - with the same mechanics - 66 on good mental days, and 88 on bad mental days. You probably shoot 79 to 84 pretty often, and you probably hit good shots after a poor mental process and bad shots after a good mental process more often than you think, too.

If your scores are so easily swayed by "dwelling on something else," then I think you're in the minority, too, but even then 40% is an AWFUL lot.

[Nutsmacker]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

To put it another way, @Nutsmacker, if you were to actually improve your game, you wouldn't devote anywhere near 40% of your time working on your mental game. That "60/40" ratio you've guessed at determines your score within a pretty narrow range. It's not like you shoot - with the same mechanics - 66 on good mental days, and 88 on bad mental days. You probably shoot 79 to 84 pretty often, and you probably hit good shots after a poor mental process and bad shots after a good mental process more often than you think, too.

If your scores are so easily swayed by "dwelling on something else," then I think you're in the minority, too, but even then 40% is an AWFUL lot.

You are probably right.  I guess it just seems like when I walk out on to the 1st tee in the right frame of mind is when I shoot my great scores at 75 or better..but I would say on average I am in that 79-84 range....with the 84 being a round that I would be frustrated with because of something stupid and a 79 being a normal good day.  

But, I must say the dwelling is a major problem for me.  It has caused me to stop playing golf entirely for extended periods of time due to various stressful times in my life.  I have taken off years of playing due to job/relationship issues, etc.  I do think I am in the minority in that regard but I simply cannot concentrate when stressed about something else and makes golf unimportant.  

[mvmac]

1 hour ago, Nutsmacker said:

My putting is what ends up stopping me from getting to scratch.  

Off topic for this thread but I suggest you check this out.

 

[Lihu]

21 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Marvin was a 14-handicapper, but one day he walked up to his club pro — a scratch golfer — and challenged him to a match. He proposed they put up $100 each on the outcome.

“But since you’re so much better than me, you have to give me two ‘gotchas’,” Marvin said to the pro. 

“A ‘gotcha’?” the golf pro asked. “What’s that?”

“Don’t worry,” Marvin replied, “I’ll use one of my ‘gotchas’ on the first tee and you’ll understand.”

The golf pro figured that whatever ‘gotchas’ were, giving up only two of them was no big deal — especially if one had to be used on the first tee. He agreed to the bet, and the pro and Marvin headed to the first tee to start their match.

Around four hours later, club members were amazed to see the pro handing Marvin a $100 bill.

The club members waited for the pro to enter the clubhouse, then asked him what happened.

“Well,” the pro said, “I took the club back on the first tee, and as I started my downswing, Marvin knelt behind me, reached up between my legs and grabbed my crotch, and yelled ‘Gotcha!'”

The club pro just shook his head.

“Have you ever tried to play 18 holes waiting for the second ‘gotcha’?”

Thanks for posting this, although it probably belongs in the joke threads. Again, 

[Ty_Webb]

12 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Thanks for posting this, although it probably belongs in the joke threads. Again, 

I could put it in there, but I think it has some relevance to this thread.

[Lihu]

12 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I could put it in there, but I think it has some relevance to this thread.

I see your point. I wonder if you could map out mental versus physical to handicap? I'd suspect that for low handicaps mental game plays a much bigger role?

[Ty_Webb]

3 minutes ago, Lihu said:

I see your point. I wonder if you could map out mental versus physical to handicap? I'd suspect that for low handicaps mental game plays a much bigger role?

Honestly I think most of the disagreement on this thread and on this whole topic comes down to what people mean.

For example, I think Erik is looking at two players with vastly different abilities and saying that the difference between them is almost entirely physical. I don't think anyone out there thinks a 20 handicap could be turned into a PGA tour pro just by working on their mental game

On the other hand, the difference for any given player from day to day could well be substantially mental. Take a for instance, @mvmac in a post yesterday saying "yes, but look at how similar your swing looks physically at the end vs the beginning". Basically no physical difference, but still a significant difference in result. I think that is going to be much more than he and Erik are positing. 

Speaking personally, I have days where I stand behind the ball and I feel good about a shot. Physically I haven't done anything at all yet, but I have the confidence to aim it in the right place. Other days I stand behind the ball and wonder how I'm going to hit the golf course. Again, physically I haven't done anything yet, so that difference can only possibly be mental. The impact on my scores between the two can be substantial. 

Then there are people suggesting that Tiger's round yesterday was pretty good, because it's his first in competition in a long time. If the mental side of things has such a small impact, then you'd think that playing a tournament round would have virtually no impact on scores versus practice rounds. 

[klineka]

2 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

On the other hand, the difference for any given player from day to day could well be substantially mental. Take a for instance, @mvmac in a post yesterday saying "yes, but look at how similar your swing looks physically at the end vs the beginning". Basically no physical difference, but still a significant difference in result. I think that is going to be much more than he and Erik are positing. 

Or the difference could simply be statistical differences and upper/lower ends of your "scoring range". Lets say your average score is 80 but you can go +/- 6 shots from that. That means you could shoot a 74 one day and an 86 the next day with very little difference in physical or mental states. 

A couple of unlucky bounces or bad lies could easily account for that 6 stroke difference without any change physically or mentally. 

Maybe one day your ball stopped in the rough 2 feet in front of a water hazard but the next day they mowed the rough and your ball rolled into the hazard. 

Maybe one day your ball was right behind a tree forcing you to chip out sideways and the next day it was 2 feet to the side of the tree and you had a shot and got a GIR.

There are so many little things like that that can affect the scoring that have nothing to do with the mental side of the game and very little with the physical (since your swing would look identical on those shots I listed above that had very different outcomes)

[Nutsmacker]

12 minutes ago, klineka said:

Maybe one day your ball stopped in the rough 2 feet in front of a water hazard but the next day they mowed the rough and your ball rolled into the hazard. 

Maybe one day your ball was right behind a tree forcing you to chip out sideways and the next day it was 2 feet to the side of the tree and you had a shot and got a GIR.

I think everyone ignores this when the ball bounces in their favor...but remembers it when it doesn't.  

[Ty_Webb]

23 minutes ago, klineka said:

Or the difference could simply be statistical differences and upper/lower ends of your "scoring range". Lets say your average score is 80 but you can go +/- 6 shots from that. That means you could shoot a 74 one day and an 86 the next day with very little difference in physical or mental states. 

A couple of unlucky bounces or bad lies could easily account for that 6 stroke difference without any change physically or mentally. 

Maybe one day your ball stopped in the rough 2 feet in front of a water hazard but the next day they mowed the rough and your ball rolled into the hazard. 

Maybe one day your ball was right behind a tree forcing you to chip out sideways and the next day it was 2 feet to the side of the tree and you had a shot and got a GIR.

There are so many little things like that that can affect the scoring that have nothing to do with the mental side of the game and very little with the physical (since your swing would look identical on those shots I listed above that had very different outcomes)

I think those things tend to even out. It's very rare you play a round and get every good break going or every bad break going and you're looking for 12 shots variation. That's a pretty big variation. My scores tend to range in between about 72 and 78 most of the time and occasionally will be outside that. I have days where it feels easy and my head is in the game and those tend to range between about 72 and 74, with that two shot variance being about how many putts happen to go in that day or whether I get a good or bad bounce somewhere. The days when I just don't feel right my scores tend to vary between 76 and 78, again with the variance being the odd good or bad bounce here and there. The higher ones tend to be tournament rounds (not always, but frequently). Funny that.

[iacas]

23 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

For example, I think Erik is looking at two players with vastly different abilities and saying that the difference between them is almost entirely physical. I don't think anyone out there thinks a 20 handicap could be turned into a PGA tour pro just by working on their mental game

Not a terribly incorrect summary.

23 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

On the other hand, the difference for any given player from day to day could well be substantially mental. Take a for instance, @mvmac in a post yesterday saying "yes, but look at how similar your swing looks physically at the end vs the beginning". Basically no physical difference, but still a significant difference in result. I think that is going to be much more than he and Erik are positing.

I don't think Mike is saying that it's attributable to the mental, though. The same swing can produce very very different results:

Sometimes you're a quarter inch or a few degrees one way or the other. Sometimes you string together six or nine good holes, and then revert to the mean on the back.

You can have exactly the same mental process in each of those.

Also, again, golfers con themselves all the time. Blaming the mental game (because it's "easy to fix") is a way of making you feel better about yourself.

And, as I've said too, golfers have hit great shots after a poor mental process, and bad shots after a great mental process… It's not like the R² value of this stuff is anywhere close to 1.0.

27 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Speaking personally, I have days where I stand behind the ball and I feel good about a shot. Physically I haven't done anything at all yet, but I have the confidence to aim it in the right place. Other days I stand behind the ball and wonder how I'm going to hit the golf course. Again, physically I haven't done anything yet, so that difference can only possibly be mental. The impact on my scores between the two can be substantial.

Again, it's a grey area… but maybe you feel confident because you're swinging it well or you feel that you're going to swing well. So what's the root cause? Your (physical) "feels" or how that makes you "feel" (mental)?

27 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Then there are people suggesting that Tiger's round yesterday was pretty good, because it's his first in competition in a long time. If the mental side of things has such a small impact, then you'd think that playing a tournament round would have virtually no impact on scores versus practice rounds. 

The difference between a tournament round and a practice round has a lot of physical elements to it as well. The conditions of the course being pretty high up there, the pacing of the round, etc.

It's likely nowhere near 100% mental. Heck, if it was, wouldn't Tiger be by far the most capable guy of overcoming it?

Again, too much grey here. Tiger shot a good score because he's a great golfer. When he wasn't shooting good scores the last three years or whatever, he still had the same mind. He just couldn't perform physically.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think those things tend to even out.

Over the long haul. Not over 18 holes.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

The days when I just don't feel right my scores tend to vary between 76 and 78, again with the variance being the odd good or bad bounce here and there. The higher ones tend to be tournament rounds (not always, but frequently). Funny that.

You're likely letting the result shape your memory.

Not entirely, but there's ample evidence to show how much this happens in human beings, across every aspect of life.

[Ty_Webb]

I think Tiger's mental advantage went south in 2009 with the fire hydrant. I think before that it was no accident that everyone knew that he was going to beat them. I think they knew he was better than them (and he was - physically), which meant that they couldn't play their regular steady game. They had to shoot at flags and hope that things worked out for them. Rarely if ever did that happen. Tiger made other people make mistakes. I think post-09 the hydrant thing started to haunt him and he started to do the dumb things that other people used to do.

[Dean Walker]

47 minutes ago, iacas said:

Also, again, golfers con themselves all the time. Blaming the mental game (because it's "easy to fix") is a way of making you feel better about yourself.

For me personally, this comment could not be further from the truth. I would love the game to be entirely physical. If I could fix anything by just working on my technique, then that would be amazing. You obviously haven't struggled with any part mentally, if you think it's an easy fix. Its far from it.

Hitting a few hundred balls ingraining a new move, now that's easy.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Dean Walker

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Dean Walker said:

For me personally, this comment could not be further from the truth. I would love the game to be entirely physical. If I could fix anything by just working on my technique, then that would be amazing. You obviously haven't struggled with any part mentally, if you think it's an easy fix. Its far from it.

Hitting a few hundred balls ingraining a new move, now that's easy.

We've already determined that you're an outlier. You're not the common guy. You're not typical.

These types of conversations can't be taken as applying to EVERYONE. At best, they're a generalization, an average.

You have the chip yips and some other stuff. For you, it's more mental than most.

(And yet, to my side of things… even with that, you're still a 0.3.)