Simple swing thoughts when things are going awry

Have played a few rounds lately where I start off well, but have that one bad swing that just kills my round. I know it's one shot at a time and you're supposed to forget the last shot, but it always gets me overthinking and it makes the rest of the round full of horrible overthinking. Anyone have a simple swing thought they go to to avoid the million swing thoughts? Thanks

Here's two for you:

Swing the club iwith both hands until until its over your trail shoulder allowing your body to respond naturally;swing the whole club toward the target striking the ball on the way, allowing your body to respond naturally. Steve

I don’t have a swing thought when I’m playing. But I do have a pre shot routine that allows me to remove all swing thoughts.

Managed this from spending my time on the range, for about the last 50 balls out of 150 I’d perform my pre shot routine and aim at the targets. No two clubs are the same, every ball, new club new target. In the beginning if my technique that id worked on during the session had broken down then I’d go back to that tech work for a few balls.

what this allowed me to do was to make sure that when I begin my pre shot routine my brain goes on auto pilot and I am able to just swing the club.

IMO, it will be trial and error to work out what will work on you, whether it be something you’ve come up with yourself or a piece of information or a feel that you have attained through a lesson.

Also, take your glove off after each shot, once the glove comes off it’s no more thinking about golf until you reach the ball. Talk smack with your buddies or do something to take your mind off of the shot.

what works for me won’t work for others so trial and error until you find something that works.

#1 is "swing to the target."

But as an aside, don't go down the rabbit hole that many do, including myself, of assuming that you need to change something because you hit a bad shot. I know I am bad about doing this when faced with something adverse.

"Oh, I hit push-fade drive last time, I better move the ball a little further back with this drive."

"Oh, the last wedge I hit was fat, I better get my weight a little further forward this time."

Sometimes you just put a crappy swing on it.

A few things from varying sources. I'm a natural hot head who's really been working on this and have made it a game within a game for myself to get better in this aspect. From you saying that "one shot kills my round" I can tell your mind isn't where you want it to be. One shot didn't kill your game. You allowing one shot to cause other lost strokes is what makes your round less of what it could be.

Watch other sports and see the ebbs and flows. Playoff baseball was great for this. I remember seeing a team give up 3 runs in the first inning and come back to win. The manager pulling the pitcher in the 1st to limit the damage mattered a great deal. I likened this to you humping it for a double instead of a triple or a triple instead of a quad and then shooting 89 instead of 90 or 79 instead of 80, etc. Hearing the fans and feeling the emotion of the team giving up the 3 runs made me feel like I do when things start to go to shit on the course. Ride the ebbs and flows because at the end of the day you'll find strokes you gave away and wished you had back after the angry or anxious moments are gone. College basketball is good for this as well. Choose one day that a team you love has a big game to watch as if your emotions could determine outcomes in the game. A manager/coach can't act like a fan because he has to do the best thing for the team, not what makes him feel better right? Act that way about your game. You aren't allowed to let nerves, anxiety or anger to affect your game because you have to do the best thing for the team, who happens to be you. Add pressure in practice. Play games, keep scores. It'll help prepare you much better than block practice. Read or listen to some Bob Rotella stuff as well as David MacKenzie. I feel like MacKenzie fits my overthinking mind better as Rotella paints in more simplistic strokes. I've suffered from panic attacks since I got out of high school. I quit playing baseball because of it and thank God that the job I've been at for my entire adult life required me to travel and face my fear. In that time I've been to pyschologists and I've heard tips along the way. One of them was to use your 5 senses. Look what is around you and tell your mind what you see. What do you smell? What do you feel touching you? What do you hear? It will take your mind off your irrational fear. If you are nervous and waiting to hit, use this. Take yourself out of the game by looking at the strands of grass, the shapes of the clouds, hear the birds. Only come back when you have to.Have a rock solid routine that you end up doing the same thing every time and has you hitting the ball or making a putting stroke at the same time every time. You'll do it unconsciously pretty quickly. If you cannot complete it, step away, restart. If I could make a suggestion, when you go to address the ball, walk to it slowly and you better walk like you're Brooks Fucking Koepka to it. Don't nervously hussle to it. Slow it down. Scared little kids run back to the dugout after striking out. You're going to walk slowly back to the dugout looking back at the pitcher as if you're telling him, "I'll get you next time." It's a mindset. Rotella said in a seminar I went to, "you have to have a very inflated view of your golf game," It's true. Winners are stupidly confident, even when they shouldn't be. Personally I've had some success with the last thing I say in my head after my second look at the target (I look twice as part of my routine) is either, "I'm the best mother fucker on this course" or I've told myself prior to setting up that after my second look to cue yourself in some form that you're not allowed to think after my second look, react and accept the result. So I might say, "no more thoughts, just swing" or "commit and live with it". Those sound slightly negative, but they work for me. While not robustly positive they prevent "I'm scared I'll shank it", "I'm scared I'll hit it OB.". Find pressure and run to it. Play with better players. Play as a single if you can so you get partnered with strangers. The more you face your struggles the better you'll react to them. This sounds opposite, but you have to care less. I listened to Brad Faxon last week on his show telling the audience as a closing thought that you have to care less about making a putt so that you can allow yourself to make that putt. It sounds counter intuitive. Look up the eastern religion Toaism (Daoism). It's pretty much like that. Lots of info here and long winded so I apologize. I'm telling you from someone who is terribly afraid of failure, you can make improvements. Get the most out of the game you have by being in the right place mentally. Then work on your game to get better with technique, etc. You'll never be able to find one thought or get your swing to a place where your mind will not rip it apart if you let it.

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I will definitely note this and remind myself going forward that mindset is everything. Makes me think of that quote "whether you think you can or can't, you're right"

Makes a lot of sense. I feel like I tend to slow down the swing to try and ensure good contact, but the result is the direct opposite.

Swing the club on a dynamic plane not the static plane established at address. As you revolve the plane revolves with you.

Remember, focus on process ... and not results

ie High finish to target vs. don't fat this in the pond

Nobody cares about your results but you .. keep it in perspective. Gio Valiente is pretty good

A few things are great for me:

Lack of tension

Target oriented

Shot shape visualization

Not giving a crap if you butcher a shot, even +7 cappers hit skankers

I really like the Tour Tempo tones. When my brain is too full, I just think about that "dun....dun..dun" and it clears out the rest.

For me just thinking and getting to a perfect finish position does wonders.

The right mindset allows you to play to your potential more often. It won't fix fatal flaws, but it'll not hold you back when you're not playing as well as your talent should allow you to. The right mindset will also allow you to trust the process of improvement and embrace hitting it like trash when working on mechanics at the range or get you through the boring task of putting 3' putt after 3' putt because you know it'll make your game better despite you wanting to do anything else in the world other than hitting those 3' putts for 30 min straight.

LOL, for me it’s just another bad shot so nothing to get worried about.

You really have to know your swing to know what kind of thought you need to get going again.

Agreed.

If busy managing and playing the game one stroke gone bad anywhere does not make a difference to the point it can't be recovered from- so keep playing. A more general awareness of difficulty might call for aggressive swings to a conservative areas until the stroke settles back into a groove.

Visualize what you want the club to do from a foot before impact to a foot after impact. If you know how the club is supposed to move you will hit it decent. The problem with most other swing thoughts is that they only focus on one part of the swing and do not address the potentially hundreds of other flaws. If you're moving the club correctly through impact though it really doesn't matter what else is happening. You might lose a little swing speed doing this, but you'll be able to hit the ball well enough to finish your round out solidly. Then go to the range and fix and fine tune what you want.

Don't focus on your pivot in the downswing, allow the pivot to react to the path of the club head.

I think about Kate Upton. That usually gets me back on track.

Smooth tempo. Good tempo can cure a lot of ills in the swing especially when on the course.

Daniel nailed it??!!

Best post I’ve read in these types of threads in a while!!

Very Nicely Played Brother?

Regarding swing/mechanical thoughts during a round, especially a “pressure” round, ie., tourney, legit money game, etc., I have never had em. If the best in the world don’t use em(Scr•w Jack and his “I can have five swing thoughts simultaneously in my head,” ??He also said that he’d never missed a 5’ putt or less on Sunday with the tourney on the line, even though he’d done just that two weeks prior and it was on tape, lolol. No he wasn’t full of sh•t, as Rotella explained to some dumbfounded reporters standing beside him in the back of the presser, it’s just that in Jack’s mind, it NEVER happened. But there ain’t no Jack’s in this thread so forget about swing thoughts under the gun)

i visualize my preferred swing, and not just SEEING it in my mind’s eye, however also FEELING it!!

Feeling it is critical for me cuz this takes the place of mechanical/swing thoughts cuz I feel my body/club positions in the places that I want them, though I’m thinking of them in the bigger picture of hitting/stroking a successful shot at the pin/cup.

Also, I NEVER hit a practice shot on the line or a putt on the green without going through my PSR(Pre-Shot Routine) and on the line, my Post-SR.
For Daniel, his “off trigger” was removing his glove and that’s a great one, however for me, it was when my Post-SR was complete, I would then put my club into my bag, and when my club hit the bottom of the bag, that was my “trigger.” My regular caddy knew this and Whenever I had a new caddy when traveling, I would tell them up front not to reach for my clubs, any club, as I would replace them myself.

I stopped reading the responses at Daniel’s(another bad habit, lol?), so as I type this I do not know what was said below Daniel’s and above mine though I’d imprint his in your bank, utilize it and see the improvement.

The other thing that I hear a lot is “well, I tried visualizing and it didn’t help,” lolol

First, the mental game is much more difficult to master than the physical/mechanical!!

MUCH MUCH MORE DIFFICULT!!

You think that I’m full of sh•t??

Go to ANY Professional, USGA or Top Am event a day or two before the tourney starts, walk down to the line and just take a stroll from one end to the other and observe all these guys/gals.

They ALL hit the ball better than 99.9% of the any golfer on earth!!

You’re looking at the very creme de la creme~

Now fast forward to Friday evening or whatever the half way point of the tourney is and know that approximately HALF of those individuals that you watched that day are slamming trunks and heading out the gates

Why???

What, did they “lose” their swing from that walk from the line to the tee???

At that very time they could take ya down to the line(after placing their clubs snuggly in their trunk), grab an iron, ball and pick a flag in the distance, any flag any distance, and pepper it with balls.

You’d both be thinking “WhyTF couldn’t I/he/she do that out on the course?”

it wasn't mechanics Bromeisters?

Playing, Swinging & scoring when the temperature gets turned up or the gun cocked has little to nothing to do with the physical swing, barring an injury, and EVERYTHING to do with the mental game.

It starts with a bullet-proof PSR

If you don’t have one, you will NEVER EVER consistently swing, Play & score well “under the gun,” as Sam used to say or beat anyone that does.

Secondly, being that the mental game is much more difficult to master than the physical, common sense should tell ya that it takes as much, if not more time, effort and focus than the physical/mechanical(For me it was much more).

I was taught to visualize at the age of 15yo by my football Mentor for use on a football field, though I later would take it into my academic world, and later my professional, social and golf word. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many hours that I have spent visualizing my swing, stroke, shots and outcome, though do know that since I turned 24yo, I have NEVER Played a single round, money game or tourney, without visualizing that whole round, shot by shot, AT LEAST one time the evening before the round, and for my bigger rounds, 2-3 times. The great thing is that unlike your physical/mechanical game, ya don’t need a club, ball or a range or course to perfect your mental game.

All that you need is some quiet time where you can focus on whatever you are working on, anytime, anyplace or anywhere.

Just as it takes tens of thousands of hours to master the swing, so to does it take AT LEAST that amount of time, effort and focus to master your mind and learning to control it under the gun, instead of it controlling you, as it does all of the “trunk slammers” in the parking lots of the courses all across this great earth of ours?

Oh yea, I’m full of sh•t, lol?

Upon scrolling to get your name, I caught all of Lefty Light’s numbered pieces of advice & Cardoustie’s post.
@cardoustie‘s always got great stuff though being a Plus and an Elite Player, he gives short snippets like Sam & Pete did, versus spelling it out, ala, Daniel & Lefty. If you’re wondering whoTF Sam & Pete are, it’s Sam Snead and his Bro, Pete, who was my Teacher/Mentor for 32+ years.

FWIW, Sam NEVER entertained ANY physical/mechanical swing thoughts on a course, only VISUALIZING & FEELING the swing/stroke, ball flight and outcome that he wanted on his next shot, and ironically, the poorer that he was striking the ball, the harder he would visualize the FEEL of his preferred swing, never thing about body/club positions, planes, etc. That was for the line, not when he was under the gun.

Apologies for the novella?

All the Best to Ya Brother?

Fairways & Greens 4ever My Friend⛳️
RP

Great stuff as always Richard
(and @Forged4ever meant to type "used to be elite and a plus")

Quoting myself because I need to follow my own damn advice.

Shot a miserable 85 over the weekend with 7 3-putts. I 3-putted the first 3 holes and 5 of the first 7. Got to tinkering and completely lost the plot. Couldn’t get the speed on the dormant Bermuda and was uncomfortable over everything

Hit 6/9 GIRs on the front and shot 45. This game.

As a rule, a mid-capper will, in dispair, abandon the thought of settenig a new course record and inevitably nail his second shot right on the nose.

My only thought is: I hit my second shot FIRST.

Just listen to Richard. He knows his stuff ?

A friend gave this great swing thought when things go wrong on the course, "What are the poor people doing today?"

For me, I need to relax and smooth out my tempo and focus on visualizing what I want to do. The more I focus on swing thoughts the more issues I have. Though as others have mentioned, it is different for everyone.

Tempo tempo tempo and target. Try not to fix anything in the course and smile and loosen up. Usually when you’ve lost all hope and don’t care you play better lol

I've always wondered what you meant by "swing the club...over your trail shoulder." I'm interested in knowing what kind of motion you use to accomplish this swing thought. Thanks.

As for my simplified thoughts, I try to shorten my back swing and make a good (sync'ed) weight shift.