Golf's Mental Game Aspect

[chspeed]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

t doesn't work that way. Especially over a single round. Dustin Johnson is a better golfer than Jordan Spieth right now, and yet… in any given round. But over the long haul…

Yes, this only works on average.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

That depends on too many other things, though. Every time you invest time into one thing you have the opportunity cost of not spending time doing other things.

Theoretically, you could build a model that on average takes cost (which includes opportunity cost) into account. But, of course the model (you can't even call it that) I presented is a vast oversimplification.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

I don't agree, necessarily, because that same pro might be able to save 1.2 shots per round by improving his putting in half the time.

Very true. I was only pointing out that for an amateur, mental game improvement is likely not even a big enough difference to his score to be an interesting line of improvement, while for a pro it may be.

To address the question of whether a pro should work on his putting or his mental game, the "model" would need to know more about the "cost" of each for pros on average.

Edited May 2, 2019 by chspeed

[criley4way]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Whether you’re sore/tired and your “setup” is not your mental game. That’s broadening it so much as to be ridiculous. It’s half a step short of saying since your mind controls your muscles than everything is the mental game. Which has been tried.

Not what I was suggesting at all. I was saying that they are interdependent.

Not being able to find the right space in you thoughts can prevent the body from executing a good stroke (Yips are a good example). Why isn't pre-shot routine be considered part of the mental game?

Saying that physical condition does not affect decision making and ability to focus is just wrong. The science is clear that your physical state affects you mental capacity and decision making.

I am not suggesting that having the right "mental game" will change your score drastically. But not dealing with stress or pressure well will increase physical mistakes and bad decisions.

 

[iacas]

Yips are probably not a good example.

More and more we understand yips to be physical.

[golfonly]

There is no denying that the mental aspect of golf has a significant impact.  How to measure that?  Obviously there is no direct way and everybody is different. 

My son was very involved in junior golf and is now a freshman on his varsity team. His experience in the junior tours prepared him for his golf now.  He is no longer nervous before tournaments.  While there are some really good golfers on his team that will shoot a practice round in the low to mid 70s only to put up an 88 on the same course the next day when the pressure is on in a real meet. My son can't hit it as far as these guys, but he is the number 2 golfer on the team because the mental part doesn't affect him as much anymore.  It definitely did when he started playing 4 years ago though as he almost always scored worse in tournaments than he did just playing.  There is no reason to think that it doesn't also affect pros when they are under a ton of pressure the same way it affects a guy missing a free throw at the end of the game.   

Edited May 2, 2019 by golfonly

[iacas]

1 hour ago, golfonly said:

There is no denying that the mental aspect of golf has a significant impact.

Without getting way into it again… this topic has several of us denying that very thing. The vast, vast, vast majority of what determines your score on any given day is your skill. Luck probably significantly outweighs "the mental game" for most people, and luck isn't a very big factor either IMO.

[golfonly]

Skill is definitely the most important thing, but I think we differ on the impact of the mental aspect when it comes to competition golf.  In my opinion this really can't be argued, the mental aspect of golf is significant.  There is no other sport where the margin for error is as small as golf.  Having the club face open slightly can drastically change the outcome of a shot.  There have been countless golfers with amazing talent never live up to their potential in tournament play. 

Tiger even talks about the ways his dad made him mentally tough and how much it has impacted his success.  Mental part of the game is also using creativity and visualizing a shot that is out of the ordinary.  

   

[saevel25]

14 minutes ago, golfonly said:

In my opinion this really can't be argued, the mental aspect of golf is significant.  There is no other sport where the margin for error is as small as golf.  Having the club face open slightly can drastically change the outcome of a shot. 

That isn't the mental game. It's the natural variance in skill level. If it was a mental game, then maybe I shouldn't go to the driving range anymore and higher a sports psychologist? Maybe he can improve my precision to a PGA Tour level?

15 minutes ago, golfonly said:

There have been countless golfers with amazing talent never live up to their potential in tournament play. 

Is that really true, or is it being overhyped by the golf media? Were they really that talented? Maybe they were not. I would suspect a very high percentage of PGA Tour players grew up playing in countless tournaments. I am sure they are use to the tournament conditions, outside of the Majors.

19 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Tiger even talks about the ways his dad made him mentally tough and how much it has impacted his success.  Mental part of the game is also using creativity and visualizing a shot that is out of the ordinary.  

Tiger is an outlier.

Still, the fact is Tiger was the best ball striker of all time. He averaged half a stroke better per round with his approach shots (the chart below doesn't include pre 2008). This has little to do with the mental game. This has everything to do with his innate golfing ability to produce golf shots with high precision and accuracy. 

Also, I think your second part about creativity is putting the chicken before the egg. A golfer can't be creative with out being a great ball striker. Tiger was one of the few golfers who actually can be highly accurate while creating a multitude of shot shapes. Most golfers play one shot shape and are highly successful. Look at Nicklaus, he hit a fade pretty much all the time. So, creativity isn't linked to the mental game.

I am not saying the mental game isn't there. It is, but it has minimal impact during play.

[golfonly]

I'm not saying that being a great ball striker is not the most important.  However, we have the best golfer in the world pointing out that the mental side of things play a significant role.  

27 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

That isn't the mental game. It's the natural variance in skill level. If it was a mental game, then maybe I shouldn't go to the driving range anymore and higher a sports psychologist? Maybe he can improve my precision to a PGA Tour level?

 

It absolutely is the mental aspect.  Being able to repeat a swing under pressure is way different than doing it at the range.  You are not good enough to improve your precision to the PGA tour level.  You need the physical skills obviously.  However, there are a lot of golfers with the skill level to hit every shot, but can't do it when it matters.  Dismissing the mental side of things despite all the pros and experts stating otherwise is not logical.  

Edited May 3, 2019 by golfonly

[saevel25]

6 minutes ago, golfonly said:

However, we have the best golfer in the world pointing out that the mental side of things play a significant role.  

For decades golfers thought that the swing path dictated the start line of the golf ball. It took high speed camera and research to prove them wrong. That is a pretty easy thing to notice. Now, switch that to the mind, which we have very little knowledge off... I would bet their intuitions are incorrect on the importance of the mental game as well.

Maybe they can't rationalize that they are at their ceiling and have no reason other than the mental game. Humans make up excuses to validate their perspectives all the time.

[golfonly]

So since people were wrong about golf ball flight they have to be wrong about the impact of the mental aspect as well?  That is a fallacious argument.  

 

Association fallacy - Wikipedia

 

[GolfLug]

I don't get this golf is a 'mental game' narrative at all. But of course you need a brain to play golf! To me it is one the most 'penny wise - pound foolish' statement. 

 But so does every other sport/game that requires constant decision making, and clarity to make proper judgement without noise that is created by fear, nervousness, excitement, expectation, what have you. That is the extent of 'mental game' in golf or any other sport or any other activity in life. 

Once you get past all that, you gotsta put a good swing on the ball, with the right speed, right swing path and right club-face alignment. That is the moment of truth!

That is why that nervous 16 year old, pimply faced skinny little kid gets on the green in 2 on a 550 yard par 5 routinely and I can only dream to do that once or twice in my lifetime (with help of a good bounce from a cart-path or a sprinkler head). I might drain a putt or two on him every now and then but that's about it. He is going to beat my ass like drum every other time. 

[dennyjones]

Maybe I'm way out of line, if so, just put me out to pasture...

I had a speech professor in college that told everyone that "fear makes cowards of us all".   He also added that the lack of preparedness and preparation added fear to anything we do.  In converse, being prepared and ready for the task at hand whether it be a golf shot or public speaking is crucial.     

None of this is relative to the mental game.    It boils down to being prepared for the task at hand.  

Now one example of the mental game was the young girl Amy that finished a hole with Gary Woodland several weeks ago.   She is autistic and used the phrase "I've got this" to help her play in front of a gallery of people and perform well.   She used the phrase as a trigger to help her task.    

[boogielicious]

I think people use the “mental game” as an excuse when they don’t perform up to their expectations. We all have a desire to play well and hit great drives in the middle of the fairway, hit greens and have excellent short games. We want to score low. Same goes for pros. 

When the ball doesn't go where we want we need a reason. We sometimes choose “the mental game” because it is perceived as an easy fix or a convenient temporary lapse that doesn’t detract from our own perception of our physical ability. We can still feel good about our physical ability that way. I’m a good golfer.

The real reason we don’t perform up to our expectations all the time is our swings have variation. Our real physical ability is based on how small we can make that variation.

My swing has some flaws and a certain level of variation even though I swing with pretty much the same way each time. I have a consistent swing with a consistent variation in (for example):

1. how close I can hit the ball on the center of the club face each time
2. the club head velocity my body can create  
3. Face angle, angle of attack and path I present to the ball
4. hitting the ball before the ground for irons.

Right now, that makes me a mid handicap player. My distances and shots zones have my current level of variation. 

Single digit HC players on this forum have less variation on all 4 of those than me. Their shot zones are smaller and they can hit it farther for the most part. Scratch golfers on this forum do it better than single digit. PGA pros>Web.com>top amateurs, etc. 

Tiger, Jack, Hogan, Snead, etc., were just that much better than others in their prime at those 4 things than others. I wasn’t their state of mind that won those tournaments. It was their physical ability to have very small variation in those 4 items over their careers that made them better than others. And guaranteed they worked really hard on it too.

I fall into the trap of blaming my state of mind at times. But I know deep down that it is my physical ability that creates that variation. It is also why I keep practicing. Good practice can help reduce that variation. 

[golfonly]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

 

Tiger, Jack, Hogan, Snead, etc., were just that much better than others in their prime at those 4 things than others. I wasn’t their state of mind that won those tournaments. It was their physical ability to have very small variation in those 4 items over their careers that made them better than others.

Nicklaus seems to feel differently.  

 

Beyond good hand-eye coordination, perhaps my greatest inherent gift in regard to golf is the ability to compartmentalize my mind, to switch it at will totally from one activity or concern to another, then, for the required duration of the new focus, blank everything else out 100 percent. Jack Nicklaus

 

 

[iacas]

You’re not adding anything new here, and I doubt very much you have read the 20 pages before this or the other threads here.

Jack could have had a horrible mental approach to a shot and he’d have still been able to hit a better shot than you.

At the end of the day, like Tiger, Jack was physically better. He could hit more types and better quality shots than others. He was better.

[golfonly]

It appears my last comment didn't go through.  Providing quotes of the best golfers of all time regarding the mental side of things is new to the discussion. Tiger and Jack would know more about what it takes than anybody that has ever played the game.

[boogielicious]

10 hours ago, golfonly said:

It appears my last comment didn't go through.  Providing quotes of the best golfers of all time regarding the mental side of things is new to the discussion. Tiger and Jack would know more about what it takes than anybody that has ever played the game.

When you quote from outside sources,  use the quote tool and paste the quote in the box. Sometimes it’s better to paste as plain text.

Jack and Tiger could hit the ball way better than any other players that played the game. You can’t dispute that. It is just fact. Quotes like that are not new to the thread.

 

[golfonly]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

 

Jack and Tiger could hit the ball way better than any other players that played the game. You can’t dispute that. It is just fact. 

 

I don't need to dispute your "fact", here is Jack refuting it.  He seems to see things differently than you do.  

 

Quote

I knew that many of the other players had the physical skill I had, but I also knew that few of them had the mental skills to use that physical skill properly. That knowledge gave me the confidence that I would not lose a tournament myself. Someone might come up and beat me as Watson did a couple of times, but I would not lose it. Most players give tournaments away. And I always knew that when that happened, I'd be around, ready to accept the gift.  Jack Nicklaus 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by golfonly