“I’m no good”, “I never hit good shots”, some days Pesky can rule your mind and fill it with all sorts of garbage.
And it can get worse.
The next step is you start believing him. You keep making up stories like, “yeah, I always miss those little putt”, “last week I hit it out of bounds” etc etc. It’s like you give Pesky a reason to keep coming back.
Here’s my take.
You have all the necessary talent to play great golf. You really do. Maybe you’re not going to win the Club Championships or compete with a golf pro, but you’ve been playing long enough and you have enough skill to play better golf than you do right now.
The trick is to ignore Pesky, you can’t fight him because he is always there. You’ve gotta accept he is there but not give him any power. This is difficult but possible.
For me, when there’s lots of internal conversation and story telling happening, it’s a sign that I need to get back to basics and play golf. Playing golf is my term to swing freely and hit the shots that feel good to me. “Playing Golf” gives Pesky the cold shoulder – he won’t like this and he’ll try really hard to creep back in. But you can’t let him.
So don’t worry if the odd bad thought comes in, it’s going to happen. Just don’t give them any power by believing them and making up more stories.
Controlling Pesky is a learned skill, it’s really up to you to take control. So please don’t tell me you’re no good if you keep listening to (and believing) him.
Daniel Gaunt is a great golfer. We played a bit during the 90′s and roomed together during Tour School.
He was way better than me. In fact, he was better than most. He beat Aaron Baddeley consistently and had this incredible self belief. It seemed that real success was only just around the corner for him.
But it didn’t come right away. He struggled and thought about giving the game away. But he stuck with it. He stayed with the game and kept working at it.
A few years ago he shot the day’s best score at The Open Championship (despite being ranked outside the top 1000 in the world rankings) and made the cut. At the time I thought anyone that could do that certainly belongs on the big stage. He’s had a storming finish this year and has qualified for the 2011 European Tour.
Today he is battling it out for the Australian Masters. I watched him on Saturday and was mighty impressed. His game doesn’t seem to have changed much from what I remember. He’s got a great short game and still putts unbelievably well. He has got a unique style but certainly can hit all of the shots. I really hope he does well today – he certainly deserves it after years of frustration.
And Gaunt’s story should serve as inspiration. Sometimes it takes a while to really learn what golf is all about. It takes time to trust your game and believe that you’re good enough to play at your chosen level. Most of all, I think it proves that “your” way is better than anything else.
Good luck Gaunty!
Golf always gives you a next shot. You can hit a terrible shot over the fence or have a shocker of a day and console yourself with the fact there is always the next shot or the next round.
But the problem with this is you can fall into some poor thinking. Because you get another go you might not be giving the shot at hand your best effort. You’re not really getting into the ideal mindset for mastering your game.
A better mindset is,
How would I approach this shot if it was the last one I was ever going to hit?
Would you;
- Worry about the water?
- Be concerned about your swing?
- Panic about missing your target?
Absolutely not. This mindset changes the game. You’ve got nothing to fall back on and you’re attention is snapped back into the moment. And this is exactly where your mind needs to be.
Stop thinking “next” and focus on “last”.
Here’s a better way to practice golf.
Don’t keep practicing success. Push yourself a little so you make a few errors and you feel a little uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean you try the impossible shot – but strive to reach for those shots that seem slightly out of reach. Why?
Because this is how you learn. By feeling and experiencing something new you’ll grow. You’ll change gears and get a little better.
The temptation is to only hit the shot you know you’ll hit well – to practice success. But if you’re going to make inroads and see improvement, you’ve got to be prepared to experience some failure. Here’s a list of things you might want to try next time you’re in a paddock with a few stray golf balls.
- high and low shots
- deliberate draw (or fade)
- full swing but half power (can you go lower than half?)
- play left-handed if you’re normally right
- lob shot with a five iron
I’m sure you can add a few more.
The thing is this: The ideal golf practice session doesn’t need to consist of 100 perfectly struck towering drives – like that’s going to happen anyway.
It’s more likely that your perfect practice session is going to be where you’ve struggled, felt uncomfortable and made all sorts of funny errors. It might even be that you didn’t actually notice success. This is all OK – the skill is in going through the exercise, not hitting perfect shots.
