Chapter 2
Keeping Your Head in the Game
In This Chapter
Overcoming on-course meltdowns
Performing under pressure
Being the ball (or at least seeing the ball)
Maintaining a positive attitude
Your mind is undeniably a big part of your golf game — especially the short game. In golf, the mind can be overactive and distracted. You walk a fine line between being mentally engaged and being overly analytical. Although your goal should be to reach a point where you can play the game in the subconscious, you also have to be aware of your situation and the options available to you, not to mention the way playing conditions can affect your performance.
Taking all the factors and options into account at once can make you mad! But listen to the old contrary adages, both of which contain good advice: “Look before you leap” and “He who hesitates is lost.”
In this chapter, we explore the mental gluts that can destroy an otherwise poetic and effective game, and we give you ways to combat your own mind.
Regrouping When the Wheels Come Off Your Game
It happens to all golfers. You have a nice, pleasant round cooking along when, suddenly, you’re all thumbs. It seems to happen in an instant. You can’t play golf effectively. You miss some short putts. You fumble around with your short irons or foozle (that’s golf-speak for bungle) pitch shots. You blade your chip shots over the green because of an ugly mishit or leave the ball short of the green with a chunky, fat shot. (Fat shots occur when you hit the ground before you hit the ball.) Your confidence abandons you faster than your enjoyment level, which is also quickly heading downhill.
Consider the case of Jean Van de Velde, who experienced an infamous meltdown as he tried to put the finishing touches on what looked like a certain victory at the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie. Despite having a comfortable lead, he suddenly found himself hanging on to make a 7 on the final hole just to get into a playoff (which he lost). A bad bounce, and suddenly things can start happening fast.
Often, the more you try to pull yourself from this downward spiral, the farther into the mire you slip. So relax and quit fighting it so hard. Recognize that these helpless, hapless spells of uselessness strike every amateur golfer (and even the pros). Don’t panic; just try to laugh it off, or at least grin and bear it. Remind yourself that you’re not alone, and recognize that you’ve hit good shots before and can hit them again. And beware of opponents who want to make double-or-nothing bets.
In this section, we cover the steps you can take to get your mind right when you encounter some of the more common mental mishaps that occur on the course.
Regaining your tempo
You can sense when you start to lose your tempo. Your golf swing feels quick and jerky rather than slow and fluid. You become aware of the fundamental disconnect between your upper body and lower body, and maybe even between your hands and arms.
If you lose your tempo, you’ve lost your focus and, as it slips away, you get more fearful. With increasing fear comes a rising tension level. The more you think about it and the more you fight and struggle with your golf game, the higher your tension and anxiety levels rise. You stand over every shot and think
“Can I hit this one correctly? Will I hit this putt too far past the hole? Don’t leave this short of the green! I’m about to hit this shot in the bunker . . . again! Dear God, I made a 7 on the last hole. Don’t 3-putt again! Could I possibly miss this 1-foot putt? Why is this happening?”
When this situation happens, you need to lower your tension and anxiety levels to get your groove back!
So how can you regain your tempo? The more air you take into your system, the more you can relax. The more you relax, the faster you begin to regain your tempo. Try the following techniques:
Start breathing. Take big, deep breaths that go all the way down to your diaphragm. The more oxygen that comes into your body, the more your heart rate begins to go down. Breathe deep and don’t get caught up in the moment!
Fake a yawn. Look at some of the greatest Olympic sprinters and track athletes. When they get ready to run, they seem relaxed because they start taking big yawns. You may think those athletes are about to fall asleep! The truth is that they become tense and want to get some air.
Overcoming analysis paralysis
Golf games often go awry during a round because players get too focused on the conscious part of the swing. You need to stay focused on playing in the subconscious. Smell the flowers, hear the music, and calm down. Don’t over-think every situation or overexamine your swing; trust it and the work you’ve put toward it on the range. Take aim at the target and let it go. Play golf.
The middle of a golf round is no time to fix a swing flaw or experiment with a new grip. Let it flow. Focus on the target. Talk with your playing partners. Do anything that stops you from overanalyzing your swing or breaking it down into small parts. Can you imagine the flood of swing thoughts and the number of mental checklist items you could clutter your mind with if you wanted to? Playing such a round may take forever, and it’d certainly be a mechanical, grueling affair. Unless you round the course for a living, golf is still just a game.
Getting out of the blame game
When it comes to putting, many factors are out of your control. You have too many variables to consider around the greens to always shoulder the blame. Remind yourself of this fact from time to time when the ball doesn’t break the way you read it and your frustration level starts rising.
First of all, remember that the green beneath your feet is a living, growing organism. The grass grows and changes all the time as you play on it. And like any Saturday at any golf course, a number of foursomes have teed off in front of you (unless you’re a part of the early-bird crew loaded with coffee and pancakes). One foursome takes as many as 140 steps on a green. If you play in the tenth foursome of the day, you putt on greens that have endured more than 1,000 steps! Steps in your line, scuffed grass from someone who drags his feet, pitch marks, and general wear and tear concentrated around the hole prevent your ball from rolling on the pristine line you see in your head.
Did we forget to mention that mower lines, uneven grass, grass clippings, dew, fertilizer, pebbles, and sand can also contribute to even the best-stroked putts going off-line and missing the hole? How do you like your odds now?
Coping With the Pressure
From time to time, the shot you want to play may be simple, but the environment and situation you face may make it seem more difficult. Pitching a ball over a bunker and onto the green, for instance, may be something you normally pull off with no trouble. But pitching a ball over a bunker and onto a green when you’re one stroke ahead of a competitor on the last hole of a tournament or a $10 match against a buddy makes the shot seem worlds more difficult.
Pressure and nervousness over the result of the shot can make you second-guess your strategy or stifle your technique. Suddenly, the pitch shot that seemed second nature on the third hole is life or death on the last hole.
Ken Venturi, who won the 1964 U.S. Open and went on to enjoy a long career as a CBS golf analyst, often talked about the thrill of competition and how exciting it was to come down to the last hole with your heart beating and a chance to win. In your case, the situation may be the chance to shoot your best round ever, to break 90 for the first time, or to impress your boss during a round. In any case, golfers find ways to deal with stress and nervousness in varied ways.
Accepting the fear
The more competitive you are, the more opportunities you face for fear to take over, and the more you have to be able to manage your fear. Fear controls the mind. Fear causes you to top your drive off the first tee because you’re not thinking about making a comfortable, fluid golf swing and just rolling with it. You think about who’s watching your shot; you feel the eyes of all the people around.
If you’re a 30-handicapper and you just play to hit and giggle and get exercise, you don’t have any fear. You just want a walk in the park to enjoy the scenery. That’s terrific, but because you’re reading this book, you probably don’t represent this type of player.
If you are or want to become competitive, however, you constantly try to get better. And the harder you try and the more you press, the more opportunities you face for fear to enter in.
Some sports psychologists, stress management experts, and hypnotists suggest that you make a conscious effort to recognize that you are, indeed, in a stressful situation. Tell yourself something like, “Heck yes, I’m nervous. What a tough spot. I need to get this ball over the bunker and onto the green to have any chance to win. I have good reason to be nervous. I should be nervous.”
You recognize the situation for what it is and allow yourself to take your nervousness into account when you prepare for the shot. Knowing that you have to carry the bunker and get the ball onto the green, and that you have to do it with frayed nerves, is important information.
After you size up your situation, and perhaps even embrace it, you can put the fear aside and control it. Just as you recognize a patch of long grass, the wind, or airplane noise from above, recognize the drama and marginalize it just as you do the other factors.
Take some deep breaths. Shake your hands out. Roll your head around. Think happy thoughts. In the golf movie Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler’s title character mentally takes himself to a “happy place.” Your happy place may be different from Happy’s, but the idea isn’t as silly as the movie makes it seem.
You can also cope with a tough situation by distracting yourself for a few minutes. Talk to someone in your group about something besides golf until it’s your turn to hit. That way, you can skip over the two minutes of nerves and focus on your shot when your turn comes around.
If you can’t completely let go of your fear, you can make it work for you by turning it into something less scary: caution.
You often hear risk-taking golfers described as fearless. Arnold Palmer played that way, and so did Phil Mickelson — especially early in his career. But Mickelson didn’t win so much early in his career, when he often tried to pull off low-percentage miracle shots. He was bold, he was dashing, and he was famous as the “best player never to have won a major championship.” Fearlessness can get you in as much trouble as playing scared.
But Phil changed. He was still bold, still willing to go for a miracle when that was the only way to win, but as he got a little older he took fewer foolish chances. Mickelson finally bagged his first major, the 2004 Masters, at the age of 33. Now he’s got four majors (as of this writing), and he’s not finished yet.
Phil didn’t suddenly start playing scared. He started playing smarter. Rather than go for broke, he sometimes laid up — hit his ball short of trouble, in good position for the next shot.
Ignoring the result
Forget about the outcome. Forget that a chip can set up a par-save, or that your putt is for birdie, or that if you hit the green you can 2-putt for your best round ever. Forget that your opponent is watching and that you need this putt to tie the hole.
Zero in on the simple physics of the matter. The club goes back on the line . . . the club swings through . . . the ball goes toward the hole. The ball either goes in the hole or it doesn’t. Simple as that.
If you want to be fatalistic about it, wouldn’t you rather miss boldly than cowardly? You can live with making a confident swing and missing the shot or putt, but a weak, trembling, terror-provoked yip is a haunting indignity.
Pacing your swing with a phrase
Golf is a mental challenge, but you have to play in the subconscious to achieve success. To “lose” your mind, you may consider coming up with a little phrase, ditty, or song that can occupy your thoughts while you swing. Some PGA Tour players whistle to relieve tension and maintain their tempo. Some golf teachers advocate mental catchphrases such as “super fluid,” “golden laddie,” or even “hamburger,” where you think of the first word/syllable on the backswing and the rest of the word/phrase on the downswing: ham — burger.
Giving yourself some kind of magic phrase — something fun — can help you ease your mind into the subconscious when you swing the club. If you think about that little key word or ditty every time you hit a shot and the result goes well four or five times, you feel pretty comfortable the next four or five times you try it. You can count on doing the same thing — with the key being the hypnotic phrase, a phrase you can rely on under pressure, becoming part of your routine.
Visualizing the Shot
Many psychologists say that the subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between a real event and an imagined one. If you can clearly visualize a shot and its result, it may be easier to implement and achieve.
Whether you’re in the boardroom dreaming of your round to come later that day or standing in front of the ball preparing for a shot you’re about to hit, taking the time to imagine your shots can help you emulate your vision — to literally live your dreams! Just follow these steps:
1. Stand directly behind the ball, keeping it between yourself and the hole.
Of course, if you’re doing some daydreaming visualization off the course, you’ll have to do this step mentally.
2. Envision the journey you want the ball to take.
Is the shot a pitch or a chip? Do you want the ball to fly high or hop low? Where do you want the ball to land? Will it roll a long way after it lands, or will it hit and stop quickly . . . or even immediately?
Is the shot a putt? Will the ball break right, break left, or roll straight? Is the putt downhill or uphill? Have you watched the way the ball rolled when your playing partner or opponent putted from a similar line or distance? Do you want your ball to behave similarly?
One sports psychologist advocates imagining that you can burn a fiery pathway to the hole with your eyes. Whatever colorful vision works for you and gives you confidence, use it!
3. Regardless of the shot type, see the ball roll into the hole.
4. Go ahead and hit the shot!
Your execution may not always match your imagination, but you can certainly give yourself a better chance by imagining a good “flight plan.” A good mental road map helps you steer the plane in the most efficient manner without getting lost.
Staying Positive
As the old adage says, “Attitude is everything.” A positive attitude can do wonders for your golf game; even if you’re having a bad day on the course, staying positive can at least help you enjoy it more. The following sections help you keep from becoming your own worst enemy.
Before every swing, picture a great result. This practice is more than optimism; it’s science! Sports psychologists teach visualization for one simple reason: It works. Just as negative thoughts can derail your swing, positive thoughts — and images — can and do help you hit the ball better.
Don’t be too hard on yourself
Ten feet isn’t that far, is it? When you stand behind a 10-foot putt and look at the space between the ball and the hole, it really doesn’t look that far. How many times out of ten attempts do you think you can sink a 10-foot putt? Six times? Eight? Every time?
What’s a reasonable expectation? Your mind may tell you that you can make a 10-footer all the time. Statistics, however, say that PGA Tour players — the guys who play golf every day, practice all day long, and hit thousands of putts; the best players in the world — only make 10-footers half the time!
If PGA Tour players make only 50 percent of their 10-foot putts, why should you expect to make them 60 to 80 or even 100 percent of the time? You’re expecting an impossible level of consistency! So don’t beat yourself up and tell yourself that you’re a lousy putter when you miss a 10-footer. Have you ever made an expression of angst after lipping out a putt (rimming it around the cup without holing it)? Don’t do that. You damage your ego and your short game (and, depending on the outburst, quite possibly your putter).
How close to the hole do you expect to chip the ball every time? Two feet? Four feet? Less? More? Remember the difference between a goal and an expectation (see Chapter 4 of Book III for info chipping goals and expectations). Just because you didn’t chip the ball to within 3 feet of the hole doesn’t mean you’re a lousy player!
The minute you tell yourself you’re a lousy putter or a crummy chipper as you walk off a green, you make a huge negative imprint on your psyche. Killing your confidence is a big mistake; the next time you come up to a putt, you tell yourself that you can’t make the putt because you missed the last one. You make yourself aware that you’re a lousy putter, and that’s what lousy putters do — miss putts.
When describing a putt he missed, Tiger Woods has often said, “I hit a good putt; it just didn’t go in.” Use similar positive self-talk to turn a positive into a negative.
Keep your confidence
Self-doubt can turn the best golf swing into a mess of flying knees and elbows. This point is especially true when you’re facing the wide variety of unsavory situations waiting to strike on the course: divots, high winds, trees, and so on. (See Book VI for more on these troubles.)
How can you beat those nagging feelings of self-doubt? Practice. The idea may sound obvious, but too many golfers rely on hope to keep them out of trouble. They say, “I hope this works,” and flail away, trying to hook a shot between trees, over a lake to a postage-stamp green. But if you’ve never hooked a ball on purpose before, what hope have you got?
Your chances are far better if you can say these magic words: “I’ve hit this shot before.” That means working on your techniques — not just a couple of times, but until they feel familiar. That way, you’re not guessing and hoping when it counts there. You’re trying to repeat past successes.
Say you have a 40-yard shot over a stream. You know you can hit the ball that far. After all, you just hit the ball 225 yards off the tee; therefore, you can certainly hit the ball 40 yards with just about any club in your bag! You can easily carry the ball 40 yards. No way you should dunk it in that stream.
But unless you practice that type of shot and feel comfortable with the club that you put in your hand, the shot can give you trouble. The minute you start having doubts about making proper contact with the ball and lofting it up and over the pond, you have a problem. Mishits happen when the mind starts wavering.
If, on the other hand, you remain confident and no doubt clouds your mind, you can execute the shot because you know you can, without a doubt; you know you’ve hit this club and this type of shot before. Let the clouds of doubt blow from your mind and see the sunny, clear skies of confidence. Get comfortable and free up your mind so you can play subconsciously: target, swing, green. Instead of looking at the stream, find the spot on the green where you want to land your ball. The stream all but disappears.