Golf's Mental Game Aspect

[Shorty]

Everything above is true - who would disagree?

But that doesn't make it "90% mental" - and I know you're not saying that.

The whole topic is a bit silly - imagine if Nicklaus had come out and said "Golf is 98% physical and 2% mental."

People would be saying "No sh*t , Sherlock"

Edited June 27, 2021 by Shorty

[saevel25]

5 hours ago, ncates00 said:

- blocking out your own internal noise, e.g., old bad habits you’re trying to overcome 

Depends on what this is. If it's a bad golf swing habit, that is physical not mental. Sometimes old feels just creep in with out you knowing. Until you see the miss on the course then have to fix it own the fly. 

5 hours ago, ncates00 said:

commitment to the shot you’re trying to play and blocking out things like “don’t hit it OB left” or “don’t hit it in the water on the right”

I feel like this is easy. 

I don't even register the hazard is there outside of knowing my shot zone and planning accordingly. I just aim so the percentage is so small that the ball will end up in a bad spot that its not stressful at all.

[iacas]

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/bernard-langer-golf-90-percent-mental-myth

[ChetlovesMer]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/bernard-langer-golf-90-percent-mental-myth

I could totally beat Bernhard Langer in match play... if I just had a better mental game! 🤣

[iacas]

I loved this little exchange on Instagram recently:

Then fringe LPGA Tour player Hannah Gregg replied:

Yup.

---

Original post on IG is here:

Skratch (@skratch) • Instagram photos and videos

---

3,094 likes, 346 comments - skratch on May 24, 2025: "Think you could beat an LPGA player? Think again. In the first edition of our Player’s Journal, @austonkim shares why it’s time to end the debate once and...

[Ty_Webb]

At the risk of opening a can of worms...

I'm curious how people think golf falls in the physical/mental split vs other sports/games. I would think something like basketball is basically 100% physical. There might be a tiny bit of mental fortitude in being able to focus at the free throw line or MJ getting the ball with 2 seconds left and 2 points down and making the shot, but there's no amount of mental ability that's going to help you dunk it over Shaq for example. A lot of athletics is perhaps even more physical. Who can run the fastest is really just a question of who can run the fastest, not who can focus the most or anything remotely like that.

It's hard to come up with anything in the sporting arena that's all mental, which is why I included games up above. Something like chess is clearly 100% mental and 0% physical. Not sure that's all that interesting.

But then there are other things - pool or snooker for example - yes there's physical skill involved and there's mental ability too. I'd say the difference between a top level player and some idiot in a bar is still more physical than mental, but I think the percentage that's mental is higher than it is in golf. So on that basis, I would think pool was weighted more towards mental than golf is. In the range of sports that are out there, do you think golf is on the more mental side or the less mental side? 

I recognize that this could be difficult to say because something like soccer for example, there is a huge physical element - can you keep up for a start and then can you kick the ball where you want to is entirely physical. But watching the movement of the game and seeing where gaps are and are about to open up I would think is all mental. With American Football, it kind of depends on your position. If you're a lineman, then it's 100% physical. If you're the QB, then it's more like soccer where there is still the physical skill required to throw it where and how you want to, but also the need to know where to throw it.

Golf is, by its nature, a game where you have time to think about what you're going to do. You can take a cool calm collected view and choose your target and so on and then it's a question of whether you can pull it off, so there isn't the need to make any on the fly decisions. I think that tends to reduce the mental level of the game. Conversely having the ball not moving can make it harder - hitting a ball coming towards you like you would in tennis say is more reactive and there is less opportunity for bad thoughts to come in and mess you up. 

I think on balance I would say golf is roughly in the middle. There are some which are more physical than golf (track and field) and some which are more mental than golf (pool). Curious what others think though.

[saevel25]

7 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I'm curious how people think golf falls in the physical/mental split vs other sports/games. I would think something like basketball is basically 100% physical. There might be a tiny bit of mental fortitude in being able to focus at the free throw line or MJ getting the ball with 2 seconds left and 2 points down and making the shot, but there's no amount of mental ability that's going to help you dunk it over Shaq for example. A lot of athletics is perhaps even more physical. Who can run the fastest is really just a question of who can run the fastest, not who can focus the most or anything remotely like that.

Some things I classify under mental

1) Ability to maintain or regain focus.
2) Ability to maintain strict adherence to the craft at an elite level. 

The floor to even be an NFL player or NBA player is so high. In the sport itself, there is still a wide range of athletic ability. Sometimes, a person who is uber athletic has a very short career versus someone else. That could be inability to maintain a strict regime to learn the craft and execute at a high level. That is where I think the mental game matters the most. 

16 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

But then there are other things - pool or snooker for example - yes there's physical skill involved and there's mental ability too. I'd say the difference between a top level player and some idiot in a bar is still more physical than mental, but I think the percentage that's mental is higher than it is in golf. So on that basis, I would think pool was weighted more towards mental than golf is. In the range of sports that are out there, do you think golf is on the more mental side or the less mental side? 

Hand eye coordination, and touch, that is almost all physical. 

16 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Golf is, by its nature, a game where you have time to think about what you're going to do. You can take a cool calm collected view and choose your target and so on and then it's a question of whether you can pull it off, so there isn't the need to make any on the fly decisions. I think that tends to reduce the mental level of the game. Conversely having the ball not moving can make it harder - hitting a ball coming towards you like you would in tennis say is more reactive and there is less opportunity for bad thoughts to come in and mess you up. 

Your ability to swing the club with the precision needed to achieve high level results is so difficult its really absurd. 

Again, I think the mental game falls under this bin. 

1) Sticking to the gameplan. 
2) Practicing at a level that matches the level of golfer you want to be. 
3) Ability to focus on the course. 
4) Probably, knowing what type of person you are emotionally. Can you turn pressure into focus. Does pressure distract you. How to mitigate that. Stuff like that. 

I think professional athletes say it is mental because they are at the top 0.00001% of their sport. So, to them the only edge left is that focus, not making that one mistake. There could just be a gap in physical talent as well. 

Good luck covering Randy Moss in his prime. 

Weighting how much all that stuff matters when you can't hit the ball 250 yards off the tee. Physical ability is king. 

[GolfLug]

Relatively speaking I think golf is the most stupid monkey sport there is. A proper scratch player can garden-walk away with a ho-hum 75 while making the grocery list. It doesn't require supreme mental acuity to know/decide course management... i.e., you can't go wrong with FIRs/GIRs. Mentally, just need to cut out the noise and hit your stock shot shape all day to play to your physical potential.

OTOH, a quarterback, a point guard or a midfielder prolly spends an order of magnitude more mental energy in decision making every play with way more options and way more negative outcomes they have to navigate and then execute. I find these sports much more cerebral.

Physically, they are all hard depending on the level most avid sportsperson strive to achieve.

[ChetlovesMer]

52 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

Relatively speaking I think golf is the most stupid monkey sport there is. A proper scratch player can garden-walk away with a ho-hum 75 while making the grocery list. It doesn't require supreme mental acuity to know/decide course management... i.e., you can't go wrong with FIRs/GIRs. Mentally, just need to cut out the noise and hit your stock shot shape all day to play to your physical potential.

OTOH, a quarterback, a point guard or a midfielder prolly spends an order of magnitude more mental energy in decision making every play with way more options and way more negative outcomes they have to navigate and then execute. I find these sports much more cerebral.

Physically, they are all hard depending on the level most avid sportsperson strive to achieve.

That's an interesting take.

            .... I'll have to think about it for a while. .... (See what I did there?) 

[iacas]

10 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Who can run the fastest is really just a question of who can run the fastest, not who can focus the most or anything remotely like that.

Have you talked with sprinters? Many would disagree that their sport is entirely physical. (I get what you're saying, but we're both speaking from a position, I think, of ignorance on this re: sprinting, or high-level basketball. What if you've missed your last four jump shots? How do you take the next one, or do you start to pass more?)

[billchao]

21 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Some things I classify under mental

1) Ability to maintain or regain focus.
2) Ability to maintain strict adherence to the craft at an elite level. 

This is my take on it, as well. You don’t top the ball because you didn’t think hard enough, but screwing up the following shot because you’re angry about the last one and didn’t give it enough effort can certainly be partially attributed to lack of mental fortitude.

Honestly I think most people like to say that golf is mostly mental because they want to tell themselves they’re better than they actually are.

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

This is my take on it, as well. You don’t top the ball because you didn’t think hard enough, but screwing up the following shot because you’re angry about the last one and didn’t give it enough effort can certainly be partially attributed to lack of mental fortitude.

It could  be also getting lazy with your routine. I agree, you can’t focus your self to a swing you don’t practice and make your own. 

[Ty_Webb]

3 hours ago, billchao said:

Honestly I think most people like to say that golf is mostly mental because they want to tell themselves they’re better than they actually are.

Very possibly - I also think there is a certain amount of selective memory. People remember when they had a good thought process and hit a good shot and when they had a bad thought process and hit a bad shot, which reinforces the idea that it's the thought process that led to the outcome. I think people can be prone to forget the good thought process that ended up being a bad shot and the bad thought process that led to a good shot. I'm also fairly certain that a lot of times people have a good thought process, hit a bad shot and then assume that they must have had a bad thought process. 

What's a little more difficult (if not impossible) is to figure out the likelihood of hitting a good shot given different thought processes. It's plausible that a good mental process might mean you're 5% more likely to hit a better shot than a worse one. To actually determine if that's the case would take an awful lot of shots from a lot of people with definable good/bad thought processes. Not sure that's a reasonable or doable test. 

[Christoby]

For the elite then the mental side counts for a lot but for amateurs I think its the swing that is the most important thing,if I'm driving the ball reasonably straight then I dont think of OB or a forest on either side of the fairway so dont really think about the hazards,why?,because it's just a game after all,even in an amateur competition it's not life or death,people just enjoy the game,enjoy being next to nature with friends,love shooting a good score,enjoy the exercise...

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Very possibly - I also think there is a certain amount of selective memory. People remember when they had a good thought process and hit a good shot and when they had a bad thought process and hit a bad shot, which reinforces the idea that it's the thought process that led to the outcome. I think people can be prone to forget the good thought process that ended up being a bad shot and the bad thought process that led to a good shot. I'm also fairly certain that a lot of times people have a good thought process, hit a bad shot and then assume that they must have had a bad thought process. 

Yeah. Nobody looks for a thing to "blame" for a good shot — they just give themselves all the credit. 🙂  They could have had the worst mental game/pre-shot prep in the world… but they'll skip over the post-shot evaluation.

I know for a fact I've hit great shots thinking "oops, head dipped a bit, don't chunk it!" mid-swing.

 

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

What's a little more difficult (if not impossible) is to figure out the likelihood of hitting a good shot given different thought processes. It's plausible that a good mental process might mean you're 5% more likely to hit a better shot than a worse one. To actually determine if that's the case would take an awful lot of shots from a lot of people with definable good/bad thought processes. Not sure that's a reasonable or doable test. 

Not really, because all that really might matter is the actual moments you're swinging the club.

2 hours ago, Christoby said:

For the elite then the mental side counts for a lot…

I disagree, unless your definition of "a lot" is wildly different than most everyone's.

[ChetlovesMer]

On 6/7/2025 at 9:57 AM, billchao said:

Honestly I think most people like to say that golf is mostly mental because they want to tell themselves they’re better than they actually are.

I think there's also a driving range component to this.

I see guys on the range who can get "into a groove" for lack of a better term and hit ball after ball dead straight. Hell, once and I while even I can do that. But in real golf you don't get to hit 20 seven irons in row. You get one chance to hit the shot. You aren't in a groove. You aren't on a perfect lie. So when folks hit a bad shot on the course, they think back to the range were they hit 10 beauties in a row. "Well, clearly I can hit my seven iron dead straight, so therefore it can't be my skill. It must be a weak mental game." What they don't remember is it took them eight or nine shots that were all pretty sketchy before they got into their groove and hit the ten beauties in a row. 

There's an old saying "To be good you should practice until you get it right. To be great you have to practice until you can't get it wrong." 

[GolfLug]

19 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

range where they hit 10 beauties in a row. 

To be great you have to practice until you can't get it wrong.

I mean if I hit 10 'beauties' in a row shouldn't I be checking off that box?? ...😜

[ChetlovesMer]

2 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

I mean if I hit 10 'beauties' in a row shouldn't I be checking off that box?? ...😜

I'm not sure. I don't know your practice routine. Or what you are trying to achieve. 
I do know that I've seen people hit the really really large bucket of balls at the range (which I think has 150 balls) all in the span of under an hour. Just rapid fire; Wham! Wham! Wham! 

I think that will make people remember their good shots but perhaps doesn't do all that much to help them repeat that on the course.