Keep Your Cool: An Optimistic Approach to Golf<\/b><\/p>\n
Golf is frustrating. When you\u2019re not playing well, sometimes it\u2019s hard to keep things in perspective and remember that you\u2019re out playing a game. The reason for that is simple: for many people, golf is not just a game. It\u2019s something into which they invest countless hours of practice and dedication. So yeah, the frustration is justified.<\/p>\n
But if you want to play your best golf, you\u2019re going to have to learn how to manage that frustration. If you\u2019re still thinking about that last putt that zoomed ten feet past the hole or that tee-shot that went so far out of bounds you didn\u2019t even bother searching for it, there\u2019s no way you can focus your best effort onto your current shot.<\/p>\n
Staying positive, confident and focused on the golf course will not only help you score better, it\u2019ll guarantee a more enjoyable couple of hours. Here are a few good strategies to help you keep your chin up, even when your putts won\u2019t go down:<\/p>\n
First Things First: The Range<\/strong><\/p>\n The best way to remain confident and positive on the golf course is to begin<\/i> confident and positive. Warming up on the driving range before a round is always a good idea, and while you\u2019re out there loosening your muscles, you should be concentrating on one or two swing thoughts to keep with you for the rest of your day.<\/p>\n A good example: let\u2019s say a golfer who tends to pull his short irons left hits the range before a round and decides, for the rest of the day, he is going to focus on keeping his head down through impact to help stop the pull.<\/p>\n Now, the key here is to focus on one or two swing thoughts all day long. Try focusing on any more, and you\u2019ll turn your rhythmic, natural swing into an over-thought shanking machine. The other key is to be consistent. In our example, the golfer still might see some of his shots heading left, but the worst thing he could do is start tinkering with his plans midway through his round. Once he\u2019s chosen his focal point for the day, he\u2019d do best to stay on it.<\/p>\n The Shot at Hand<\/strong><\/p>\n The most important mental skill a great golfer has is his or her ability to focus completely on the shot at hand. Sounds easy, but all too often, golfers are still wondering \u201cWhat happened?\u201d on their last flubbed shot, or cursing the universe for that really bad lie they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n And while thinking about the past is a huge distraction from the shot at hand, thinking too far ahead into the future is just as unhelpful. You might catch yourself thinking on the course, \u201cIf I can just par the next four holes, I can shoot my best score ever.\u201d These kinds of projected goals are disturbances you don\u2019t need.<\/p>\n The goal here is to stay in the present moment. Unless you\u2019re as completely focused on the shot at hand as you can be, not only will you lose the ability to execute<\/i> your shot\u2014you\u2019ll be unable to make the best decision even before<\/i> you pull a club from your bag. You\u2019ve already got a lot to think about when you\u2019re choosing a club: a type of shot and a target; don\u2019t burden yourself with more thoughts in other verb tenses, past or future.<\/p>\n Of course, those kinds of thoughts will pervade\u2014you\u2019re only human\u2014but if you can really focus on the shot at hand and nothing else, you\u2019ll see that the scores you want will be much more attainable.<\/p>\n Double Negative: It Ain\u2019t Just Mental<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course you want to have more fun on the course, and you want to feel less frustrated, but keeping a positive attitude during your round will not only help you mentally\u2014you\u2019ll swing better, too.<\/p>\n Getting down on yourself shows up in your body language, which has a much bigger influence on your swing than you might think. If your chin literally gets down, it gets a lot tougher to get your full shoulder rotation on your backswing. If your body tenses because you\u2019re frustrated, nervous, or timid, there\u2019s no way you can swing your natural, fluid swing at the ball.<\/p>\n And although your body language affects every part of your golf game, nothing is affected by negative thinking as much as the short game. This is the area of your game where you need to rely on feel and touch, and if you\u2019re tensed up by negative thoughts or by being unfocused, you\u2019re going to waste a lot of strokes on bad chips and putts.<\/p>\n Keeping Things in Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n So yes, there are incentives to keeping a good attitude on the golf course: you can focus to make better decisions, you can feel and swing better with a more relaxed body, and you\u2019ll be able to score better than those times where you let your emotions get the best of you.<\/p>\n But forget the incentives. Keeping a positive attitude on the course is the best way to enjoy golf. Even if you\u2019re not playing up to your standards, things could be worse than playing a game you love. Keeping things in perspective will make the game more enjoyable for your playing partners and for you. That\u2019s not to say you should be emotionless during your round; it just means you should learn when to let negative thoughts fade, and learn how to re-focus on what you\u2019re trying to do. If you learn to do that, you won\u2019t only be better at the game of golf, you\u2019ll enjoy it more, too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n S\u00b2 Tip<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n Staying positive in a negative situation can lead to lower scores and increased satisfaction in golf.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Success Story<\/b> <\/em><\/p>\n Congratulations to the University of Alabama Men\u2019s Golf team for rattling off 11 straight victories dating back to last season. The Crimson Tide continue to sit at the top of the NCAA Men\u2019s golf ranking. Alabama will look to keep the streak alive and defend last year\u2019s national championship.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Another\u2019s Words\u2026<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe mind messes up more shots than the body.\u201d<\/p>\n – Tommy Bolt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keep Your Cool: An Optimistic Approach to Golf Golf is frustrating. When you\u2019re not playing well, sometimes it\u2019s hard to keep things in perspective and remember that you\u2019re out playing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/04\/putting.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432","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=2432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12328,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432\/revisions\/12328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wedevelopyou.com\/riggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}