by Michael Riggs<\/p>\n
We all remember our third grade teacher telling us about the three tenses of verbs;\u00a0past,\u00a0present, and\u00a0future. What Mrs. Carlsile left out, though, was to play golf\u00a0effectively\u00a0(and live life, for that matter) there is only one tense that matters. Everything that has happened on the golf course up to the shot at hand is in the\u00a0past. Overly simple, right? Wrong. I have yet to work with a player (over 2,500 and counting) that isn\u2019t challenged by the proposition of letting the\u00a0past\u00a0be the past\u00a0and not letting thoughts and\u00a0emotions\u00a0from\u00a0past\u00a0shots bleed into the current shot. Whether the previous shot was a pure 7 iron to two feet or a driver that sliced into the drink; each shot is over and done and must be left behind. Bringing the frustration of a mishit or the elation of a great shot into the current shot process will most certainly pull your\u00a0mind\u00a0off of the job at hand.<\/p>\n
You are six over with three holes to go, your best round ever is staring you right in the face — as long as you don\u2019t blow up and bogey your way in. Ooops, there is that ever magnetic future<\/strong> tense pulling you away from the here and now. As a result, your mind<\/strong> shifts from the details of the current shot onto the fears or aspirations of the next shot. The game cannot be played effectively<\/strong> in the future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One hundred and fifty five yards out, slight wind at your back, perfect lie in the middle of the fairway, firing at a back right pin with no real trouble back or right of the green. It\u2019s time to go at the stick with a solid 8 iron. High and stop.<\/p>\n This is present<\/strong> tense thinking. Regardless of the shot that got you to this point or the birdie putt that will follow this shot, the only shot that matters is this 8 iron.<\/p>\n Target. Solid swing.<\/p>\n One of the most elusive pieces of the mental game<\/strong> puzzle<\/strong> is the need to \u201cget now and stay now\u201d.<\/strong> Learn to let go of the past<\/strong> \u2013 good or bad. Practice disregarding the future<\/strong> \u2013 good or bad. Develop the ability to lock in on the now \u2013 good, no bad.<\/p>\n Thanks, Mrs. Carlisle.<\/p>\n S\u00b2 Tip<\/strong><\/p>\n Before every shot, tell yourself that this shot is the only one that matters.<\/p>\n In Another\u2019s Words\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”– Will Rogers, humorist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Michael Riggs We all remember our third grade teacher telling us about the three tenses of verbs;\u00a0past,\u00a0present, and\u00a0future. What Mrs. Carlsile left out, though, was to play golf\u00a0effectively\u00a0(and live …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,157],"tags":[154,27,155,156,158,159,160,161],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-golf","tag-effectively","tag-emotions","tag-future","tag-get-now-and-stay-now","tag-mental-game-puzzle","tag-mind","tag-past","tag-present"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/10\/national-cancer-institute-N_aihp118p8-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12387,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/12387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}