Golf Psychology

March 2008 - Posts

• Go For a Solid ACE

  Players regularly attend our golf schools expressing frustration about a wide assortment of things with their game.  Among them are: inconsistency in their swing, not being able to take their practice shots onto the course, an array of putting difficulties, dealing with slow players, how wind or cold hampers their play.  There is one thing that is common to all of these scenarios, as well as the hundreds of others not mentioned here.  That common thread is that none of these things are completely within the player’s control.  Even for the professional and elite amateurs with whom I work there is an irrational notion that the harder one works and/or the more knowledge one gains about this game should somehow translate into having control over this game.  When confronted directly with this, anyone who plays this game would admit they don’t have control over it.  Yet, time and time again, people allow themselves to get caught up and distracted by the nuances of this game over which they don’t have complete control. One way I recommend that players focus on those few things over which they do have control is by remembering the acronym ACE.  Attitude, concentration, and effort (ACE) are the only things over which we have control in golf (and in life!).  On the scorecard, I have the player give him or herself a score in each of these categories on a hole-by-hole basis.  On a 1-10 scale, with ten being the highest, I want players to attend to and work on these three factors as they play casual or competitive rounds of golf.  What we see is a tremendous correlation between high ACE scores and lower stroke scores.  The more we focus on that over which we have control, the less frustration, anxiety, worry and anger we will have on the course.  This regularly translates into lower scores and a higher level of enjoyment of the game.   Obviously, simply attending to the ACE variables is not going to overcome a poor swing, the fact that the players in the group in front of you are slow, or the fact that the wind is blowing 30 mph.  What reminding ourselves of ACE does do, however, is put us in the proper mind set to do all that we can to play the best that we can in that moment, whatever the conditions, and leave the rest for others to worry about! Posted Mar 26 2008, 09:55 AM by Jeff Troesch with no comments Filed under: Jeff Troesch, GolfPsych, Attitude, ACE, Concentration, Effort

• Assess, Don’t Guess

  With Spring upon us, this is the time that many junior golfers have slowed down their golf involvement after a hectic year of tournament play. In most parts of the country, high school golf has already begun. From a mental perspective, now is a great time for the players to sit back and take some accounting of what has been going well with their game and what has been going less than well. At times, in the middle of competitive season, it seems as though players are too busy to really work on specific elements of their game. For some it feels like there is a constant “bandaging” of their game in order to get it ready for the next event. In order to get better, it is essential that players take time to assess where their game is and create a plan of action on how they will get better over the winter. To that end, we want to make sure the player is assessing, not guessing! Being back in school means less time to work on the game, so it is important that the time devoted to golf is spent wisely and the efforts are productive and efficient. Make sure that the assessments of the game are specific, purposeful, and honest. Get feedback from the friends who know your game, from your parents, and from your instructor, to get a comprehensive sense of where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Then put together a plan to attack those areas of weakness and continue to build the strengths! Below is a form (Golf-Evaluation-Form.PDF attached to this post) that you could fill out and ask your “advisory team” to fill out to see where you stand on some key elements of the game. I hope this helps you continue to grow and improve as a player! Posted Mar 19 2008, 08:58 AM by Jeff Troesch with no comments Filed under: Jeff Troesch, GolfPsych, Junior Golfers, Golf Evaluation Form

• Are You Taking Enough Risk with Golf?

  Risk-taking is an essential element in growing as a person and as a golfer. While it is true that taking unnecessary risks has the potential to create unwanted outcomes, learning to discern between necessary and unnecessary risks can make the difference between reaching your potential as a player or falling short. Some golfers consistently like to “play it safe” and stay so much in their comfort zone that they never grow or stretch themselves. These people feel frightened or “off balance” when they approach unfamiliar territory. They are so worried about a future “bad” outcome like a missed shot or a lost opportunity that they sacrifice their development as a player in order to hit a safer shot today. How do you get better if you keep doing the same things day after day, year after year? Metaphorically, hugging first base will never allow you to take a chance at stealing second. At some point in every person’s golf career (and life!) there comes a time to cautiously step away from the familiar and encounter the unknown. Yes, it is true that you can “get thrown out” if you try to steal second. It is also true that you can either make it to that next level, or at a minimum, learn from the experience of “going for it” and use that information to push toward more growth on another occasion. Many players leave their driver in the bag on holes where a driver is the obvious play. Others “hate” their 3-iron or sand wedge or putter, and don’t trust those clubs when they’re in their hands. Invariably, after I ask the players with whom I work to rate their confidence in each respective club, what follows is typically an admission that the time spent practicing with the clubs or on the shots disliked is far less than the time spent hitting balls with the favorite clubs. How will you ever get confident with the clubs if you don’t practice with them regularly? My advice- if you’re playing for big money or something incredibly significant, play in your comfort zone and do whatever it takes to score low. If you’re not in this type of circumstance, challenge yourself to use clubs and shots that you don’t like, so that in time you learn how to trust these as well. Perhaps in that day you might not score as well as you might have otherwise, but what you have done instead is make an investment in the future growth of your game! Posted Mar 13 2008, 08:06 AM by Jeff Troesch with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Jeff Troesch, Golf Performance, Risk, Reward, Comfort Zone

• Are You a Scientist or a Judge When it Comes to Evaluating Your Golf Performance?

  One of the biggest variables that effect your development as a player can be the way you evaluate your practice and play.  Remembering this tip to react as a scientist rather than a judge can go a long way toward helping speed your learning curve. A scientist looks at every experiment as an opportunity to gather information and learn from the information gathered.  What variables might be manipulated to get a different result in the next experiment?  With that purposeful manipulation, what is the new outcome?  To a scientist, there is no “good” or “bad” result.  All results simply are as they are, and these results become the feedback mechanism from which something different is tried or previous variables are replicated.  Contrast this with the way a judge would view these “experiments”.  Results are good or bad, right or wrong, horrible or terrific, so-so or “OK”.  There is a lot of emphasis on labeling the result, and less emphasis on the process that created the result.  Are you a scientist or a judge when it comes to evaluating your own golf performance?  The best golfers in the world understand how important it is to examine defeat, recognize mistakes, and pull apart miscues.  They do this in a way that is methodical and constructively critical.  Golfers who think less healthily will simply be critical and this criticism can lead to little or no learning and growing.  All this process does is diminish confidence, tear apart your self-image, and inhibit your ability to change and effectively integrate lessons into your game.  When Thomas Edison was asked by a reporter how it felt to fail over 1,000 times before figuring out how to invent the light bulb, Edison was reported to have responded, “Sir, I never failed, I now know over 1,000 ways how not to create a light bulb.”  Edison the scientist, as a golfer, might have responded to having played poorly in a tournament or hit some poor golf shots in a similar fashion.  “OK, I now know that going for this par-5 in two is unrealistic for me.  Next time I’ll lay up and play to the safer side of the fairway”.  See if you can evolve to the point where you think, “OK, I now know that swing thought, that strategy, that tactic, that game plan, doesn’t work well, what adjustments will I make the next time I’m faced with this situation?”  Typically, this evaluation begins with the two words, “next time”.  Rather than what you should have or could have done, thinking about the changes that you will institute “next time” can be much more beneficial.  This “scientific” approach will help you evaluate your game in an effective, positive, and constructive manner, and perhaps most importantly help you enjoy your game even more! Posted Mar 05 2008, 01:36 PM by Jeff Troesch with no comments Filed under: Jeff Troesch, Golf Performance, Scientific Approach, Thomas Edison, Examine Defeat, Golf Psychology