Golf's Mental Game Aspect

[saevel25]

30 minutes ago, golfonly said:

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

Jack could of have been wrong as well. He himself is attributing people struggling towards a mental thing versus that they were not as good as him just having their natural hiccups. 

[Vinsk]

41 minutes ago, golfonly said:

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

 

 

And if you follow the advice of Nick Faldo on hitting a fade you’d be all messed up. There are many videos of pro golfers explaining how they think they hit a shot yet in reality they’re  wrong about ball flight laws as well as not doing what they say they’re doing. I suppose you listen to them anyway?

[golfonly]

6 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Jack could of have been wrong as well. He himself is attributing people struggling towards a mental thing versus that they were not as good as him just having their natural hiccups. 

Ya, I'm sure we all know more about Jack and the players he played for years with than he does himself.

[billchao]

22 hours ago, golfonly said:

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

I'm really good at this and I still suck at golf. Believing I can hit a shot and actually executing it are two different things.

[saevel25]

54 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Ya, I'm sure we all know more about Jack and the players he played for years with than he does himself.

Yea, and humans have been correct 100% of the time with ever intuition they’ve had. Announcers are routinely wrong. You are giving false credit with out any measurable facts that jack knew the minds of his opponents.

54 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Ya, I'm sure we all know more about Jack and the players he played for years with than he does himself.

Yea, and humans have been correct 100% of the time with ever intuition they’ve had. Announcers are routinely wrong. You are giving false credit with out any measurable facts that jack knew the minds of his opponents.

[golfonly]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

I'm really good at this and I still suck at golf. Believing I can hit a shot and actually executing it are two different things.

Please show where I said the physical tools don't matter.  You are completely misrepresenting what I have said.

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

Yea, and humans have been correct 100% of the time with ever intuition they’ve had. Announcers are routinely wrong. You are giving false credit with out any measurable facts that jack knew the minds of his opponents.

Yea, and humans have been correct 100% of the time with ever intuition they’ve had. Announcers are routinely wrong. You are giving false credit with out any measurable facts that jack knew the minds of his opponents.

Again, who is in a position to make better determination in this situation?  A non professional golfer or one of best to ever live?  The guy that saw the skills of the other players up close and first hand or a person that only saw it on TV or highlights?  Seems simple to me.  Jack is more informed on the subject than you are.

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Jack is more informed on the subject than you are.

Doesn’t make his statements accurate.

What percentage of the top players today have mental game gurus?

It’s virtually none.

Their physical skills are, by far, responsible for what they shoot.

[billchao]

43 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Please show where I said the physical tools don't matter.  You are completely misrepresenting what I have said.

No, I'm not. You're misreading what I wrote and inferring something I didn't.

[chspeed]

I quoted an article recently that showed that stress has a significant effect on "expert" athletes' performance. But that study didn't establish that a "good mental game" diminishes the effect of stress in athletics. And even if it did, it didn't compare stress's effect to skill differences in athletic performance.

One study I read a bit ago, I'll try to find it, has to do with "grit" in sports. The study found that kids who rate high on a "grit" scale tend to spend quite a bit more time in various sports-related activity (practice, etc.) than those who rate lower. This suggests that mental game has an effect on preparation. Maybe that's how mental game helped Tiger and Jack, and they're mistaking that for making a big difference during play.

Edited May 4, 2019 by chspeed

[golfonly]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Doesn’t make his statements accurate.

What percentage of the top players today have mental game gurus?

It’s virtually none.

Their physical skills are, by far, responsible for what they shoot.

I have agreed that the physical tools are the most responsible

  However, the two best golfers have gone on record as attributing a significant portion of their success to the mental aspect against other highly skilled golfers.  They are right.

[saevel25]

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

They are right.

Prove it. Quantify it with accuracy. The issue is you can’t. 

[golfonly]

27 minutes ago, billchao said:

No, I'm not. You're misreading what I wrote and inferring something I didn't.

You implied that I said somebody that has no physical skills can be good just by being strong mentally.  I never said that.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, golfonly said:

They are right.

I don’t agree. And I’ve got PGA Tour winners backing my opinion too.

Until you establish anything as fact - not the opinion of anyone - you don’t really get to use the word “right.”

Just now, golfonly said:

You implied that I said somebody that has no physical skills can be good just by being strong mentally.  I never said that.

He didn’t.

[Patch]

35 minutes ago, iacas said:

Doesn’t make his statements accurate.

What percentage of the top players today have mental game gurus?

It’s virtually none.

Their physical skills are, by far, responsible for what they shoot.

Just a couple of questions. How effective would physical skills be, without the person "concentrating" on pulling that phyisical skill off to best of their ability? Is not the act of concentration a part of the mental process? Just curios.

[golfonly]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don’t agree. And I’ve got PGA Tour winners backing my opinion too.

Until you establish anything as fact - not the opinion of anyone - you don’t really get to use the word “right.”

You have stated opinion as fact.  Mine is at least based on the opinions of the two greatest golfers of all time.

6 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Prove it. Quantify it with accuracy. The issue is you can’t. 

Prove your side.  You can't do that with accuracy either.

2 hours ago, billchao said:

I'm really good at this and I still suck at golf. 

 

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

He didn’t.

So what is he stating here then?

[chspeed]

7 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Prove your side.  You can't do that with accuracy either.

Nobody can prove either side here. Nobody, as far as I know, has stated anything as fact. Everyone is just stating opinions.

[golfonly]

2 minutes ago, chspeed said:

Nobody can prove either side here. Nobody, as far as I know, has stated anything as fact. Everyone is just stating opinions.

I agree that neither can prove their side here. 

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, Patch said:

Just a couple of questions. How effective would physical skills be, without the person "concentrating" on pulling that phyisical skill off to best of their ability? Is not the act of concentration a part of the mental process? Just curios.

Once again: At the end of the day, Rory McIlroy could be drunk, hung over, half-asleep, and just be told that his wife cheated on him with Tiger Woods, and that he has four seconds to hit this 7-iron, and he's still gonna hit it better than just about anyone on this forum.

I believe the mental game, except in extreme outlier type situations (glaring weakness), has a minimal impact on your actual performance.

8 minutes ago, golfonly said:

You have stated opinion as fact.

Where?

8 minutes ago, golfonly said:

Mine is at least based on the opinions of the two greatest golfers of all time.

Mine is based on facts as well - Tiger and Jack hit the ball better than just about everyone else. Tiger famously could hit shots no other golfer could hit.

I've also got the facts that I've talked with a number of PGA Tour guys and they will tell you that the "mental game" has a minimal effect on the outcomes of their shots. They go through the same process, and sometimes they hit a great shot, and sometimes they hit a poor shot. A number of them.

I've also got the facts that virtually none of the top 50 players in the world even work with a mental game guru. If the mental game was soooo important, they likely would. Instead, they're spending money (I know this directly) on analytics. Or instruction. Or health and diet and exercise (physical things).

8 minutes ago, golfonly said:

So what is he stating here then?

Ask him. He's told you.

3 minutes ago, chspeed said:

Nobody can prove either side here. Nobody, as far as I know, has stated anything as fact. Everyone is just stating opinions.

Oh I've stated facts. And @golfonly's statements (that those people may have at one time said those things, not the opinions they express) are facts, too. Many have stated facts.

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My opinion, throughout all of this, is that (absent an extreme outlier type situation), the mental game is a relatively small part of a golfer's average performance. It doesn't affect things nearly as much as most seem to credit it, and what separates one generic player from another is almost entirely physical skills.