Keeping your cool

[NikeTaylormade891]

on the course

I know that this may be in the wrong forum, but they say that golf is as much mental as making shots. I need help in both areas, lol, but the mental side of the game is always a glaring problem. Is there some good ideas to help keep calm when things go bad. I know that getting mad just makes you play worse but that is easy to say. When I get on the course I think I care too much and when my round goes bad I know it cannot be salvaged and blow up. Help would be appreciated :crazy:

[taylormadefan]

I commend you for wanting to improve your mental game. IMHO there are two things that really make consistently good golfers:

 

1. A bulletproof short game

2. A strong metal game

 

How to keep your cool on the course is easy. Take things one shot at a time and don't get too caught up in outcome, get more involved in process. Actually doing those two things is VERY difficult.

 

Have you read any books yet? I'd strongly reccomend you read Bob Rotella's Golf is Not a Game of Perfect and Pia Nillson and Lynn Marriot's Every Shot Must Have a Purpose. Both are great books on how to "think" your way around a golf course and just as important, practice like you play (easier said than done).

 

Secondly, even after you read these books and understand the priciples they talk about, actually applying them and sticking with them takes TREMENDOUS discipline.

 

It's easy to stick with your pre shot routine and picking out small targets when you're knocking down flag sticks, but to do it when you're struggling is very difficult.

 

More to the point of your question, the most difficult time to keep your cool is when you've missed 2 consecutive 4 footers for par and have just sliced your tee shot OB. It's then that you really need to take things one shot at a time and realize that you can't do anything to change what's occurred in the pas and can only worry about what's going to happen with this shot now.

 

I'd definately pick up those two books, both are a lot of fun to read and are easy, so you should be able to finish them in about a week.

 

AFter that, remember to practice the ideas and theories they present and you'll be well on your way to building a geat mental game.

[GolfFitPro]

Here are a couple of articles on the Mental Game. Hope this helps, Anthony

 

http://www.golffitnessproducts.net/control-fear.html

 

http://www.golffitnessproducts.net/non-thinking.html

 

http://www.golffitnessproducts.net/keeping-cool.html

[hksaikung]

yoga and particularly yoga breathing (pranayama)

 

excellent to calm you down :crazy:

 

ujjayi

[badstrick]

Anthony,

The mental game is the way you shave strokes once you get to about a 10 handicap and below. I am a scratch golfer and it has taken me about 10 years to get there. My best advice to you is to remember that this game we play is a game of misses. What you can hope to do is put a good swing on the ball and hopefully it will go towards your target. Above and beyond that everything else is out of your hands whether it hits the cartpath a sprinkler head or so on. I always try to play golf in the now, not present or the future but the now one hole at a time and once you write the score down that hole is done! I hope this makes some sense to you. Losing your temper shows that you care about the game and that is not such a bad thing you need to learn how to channel it though. Good luck!

badstrick