On Golf Improvement Generally
You have two basic choices, you can learn to love all the challenges of golf or you can be controlled by them as they play havoc with both your emotions and score card.
“Golf Perfect” does not exist unless you think you can do what Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and every other top golf player could not do. You must enjoy the process of learning, failing and learning again and take heart from the fact that failure is the route to success. You cannot learn a thing without first attempting to do it, often very badly, until it is learned in your golf mind properly, then it will come out in the body.
If you wish to improve your golf play, set a goal, work out a plan to achieve it and then just stick to the process of working the plan. The goal will arrive in due time. If you need to change the process, by all means make changes that you think will help the journey and don’t worry about trying to set the “perfect” process right from the beginning.
The challenge of golf improvement is not to get to the end, for that is not possible. It is to see how far you can get and enjoy every minute of the journey you make. The more you stress out about your golfing journey the harder it will become and the worse the results will be. Conversely the more you allow the challenge and journey to be enjoyable the quicker and farther you will go.
On Individual golf shots
On the course while playing you will be faced with many smaller challenges in the form of individually challenging shots, swings and situations. You must learn to love the contest of these situations because they will always arise.
What good does it do you to groove a good golf swing but hate challenging shots that call for manipulation, creativity and mental toughness? The golfer who bemoans a tough lie and is fearful of the result will invariably fail.
The golfer who looks at any challenging situation as just that, a challenge to be enjoyed, will have far better results. How does it help to be mentally negative when you are faced with a tricky shot? Surely you agree that a positive mental attitude is the best way to approach a tricky shot and gives you the best chance of playing it well?
Next time you are faced with some “bad luck” or an errant shot has placed you in a challenging situation think about this.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you do not play the shot well then you can console yourself that it was a tricky situation. If you play it OK you’ve done great and if you play it well you can be very proud of yourself. Approach it positively knowing you can only win and no golfer is expected to play challenging shots well 100% of the time.
Staying in the present when you play any shot is important and when faced with shots that can get the emotions going (fear and anger) it is very important that you remain firmly in the present where fear and anger cannot exist. If you are worried about the outcome you are in an imagined negative future. If you are remembering past bad shots like the one you are faced with, you are reliving a negative past and bringing it into your focus for the shot that faces you.
Love the challenge of the shot and fixate all your attention on what you want the ball to do, where you want it to go, how it gets there, where it lands, how it bounces or rolls and finally where it stops. Focus on your desired outcome, relish the challenge, know you can only win from a tricky shot and then let go and play it.
