“The mind messes up more shots than the body.” -Tommy Bolt
Once you learn how to hit the ball well enough to keep it in play and have a decent short game, playing a round of golf becomes an almost entirely mental affair. Having recently taken an entire month off, I’ve been slowly getting the physical part back (i.e. keeping the ball in play), but my mental game has been awful. I find that I really have to work on my focus and concentration when I return from a long layoff. I’ve noticed that it’s nearly impossible for me to hit a decent shot when my thought over the ball starts with “don’t,” as in don’t hit it right, don’t go over the green, or don’t leave it short. While that might seem like the first lesson in Mental Golf 101, it’s one that I tend to slide back into when I’m rusty, mostly because I tend to play from a place of fear when I’m not sure where the ball is going. As I’ve discussed before, my only swing thought when I’m playing well is to hit it hard. When I’m chipping and putting well, I don’t feel like I’m thinking about anything except, “I can make this.” I’d go so far as to say that having a positive thought helps me more than being focused on a very specific feel, target, or shot shape.
A few days back I finally played on the course having devoted my golf time to practicing instead of playing in the days leading up to the round. I didn’t warm up at all, not even a putt. When I got to the first tee, a very slow group had just teed off and I was playing as a single so the starter gave me a ride to the second tee. I was grateful, but at the same time I was now going to have to start my round on one of the more difficult holes on the front 9. I decided to try an old trick I occasionally use to calm first tee jitters- pretend as if you’ve been bombing your driver with a high power draw all day long. Sure enough, shooting off the clubface came a high draw down the left half of the fairway. I decided to keep using that thought process over the ball. From 170 out I told myself that I’ve been hitting this knock-down 6-iron so well all day. Off came a low bullet that I hit so solidly it bounced clear over the green. Next came a long pitch shot, as the pin was at the very front of the green. For whatever reason, I didn’t use that same mental trick and blasted the pitch over the other side of the green. Here I was chipping for par. This time I remembered to think to myself about how I’d been chipping it so well all day, and wouldn’t you know I nearly holed out that par. I used that pre-shot thought on most shots throughout the round, which led to a bunch of easy pars and a birdie. I found that by convincing myself that I had been playing well all day, I was bombing tee shots, flushing approach shots, and getting up and down when I missed the green. The thought also helped me commit to a specific shot. The thought wasn’t just, “I’ve been hitting this 5-iron well today.” I had to be more specific: “I’ve been hitting a lovely baby draw with this 5-iron today,” or “I’ve been hitting a powerful low sweeping draw with this 3-wood today.”
I think this worked for me because I’ve successfully executed all of the shots that I was telling myself I had been hitting all day. If I came across a shot that I rarely pull off (i.e. a sky high fade with a long iron), I knew I wasn’t going to able to convince myself that I had been hitting that shot well all day, so I changed my shot selection to something I knew I could hit. This helped me play smarter and kept me from having that one bad hole that I always seem to have when I haven’t been playing on the course much. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
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