Psychology of the game: How do you keep your head in it?

[MelloYello]

4 hours ago, ae1985 said:

How do I calm my nervousness? Even pointless league matches I get nervous.

 

Experience. 

 

Eventually you'll develop a sense that although there may be some butterflies, you've been here before and you can produce. 

 

 

At some point you have to stand and deliver. Give yourself enough tries and gives yourself something concrete to actually execute and it'll begin to turn in your favor. Start doing it often enough that the self-doubt turns into a more channel-able energy and it'll be a good thing. 

 

For a lot of developing players, nervousness = crippling doubt & bad swings. Until you can develop something you can trust and put enough experience in the bucket to actually embrace the moment it'll always turn out bad. 

 

And sometimes it still turns out bad anyway, LOL. Everyone chunks it occasionally. Golf is a game where we measure ourselves by the gap between those awful moments. 

[tm3]

On 7/21/2023 at 9:49 AM, Mainegrw said:

That all said, how do you keep your head in the game even when it’s not going your way? I know that’s where I’m lacking and no amount of range time is going to fix it. 

Lots of good info already here.  For me, when a round is going south and I can't seem to do anything right I focus on what is great in that moment -- I'm outside, I'm not at work, nice warm weather, short skirt going by on the adjacent hole, whatever.

 

Afterwards, it's fuhgeddaboutit.  Bad round is done, everyone has them, tomorrow is a new day.