If you have ever knocked a few balls around, you’ll know all too well that golf is fickle old game. One shot the ball flies exactly as instructed and you think you’ve found the secret to playing great golf. You proudly stride to your next shot thinking you’ve mastered the game and can’t see what all the fuss is about. And yet the very next shot, your body feels like it’s having its first introduction to this strange metal stick called a golf club! It feels different somehow, unfamiliar even. You don’t know what will happen but go for it anyway – oh dear! And so you feel like you’re starting all over again, waiting for something resembling control to make its return!

The truth is, golf balls rarely go exactly how and where we want. Even the great Ben Hogan said that if he hit the exact shot he intended 3 times in a round, it was a good round. He further said “Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots”. So if that was how the greatest ball striker of all time experienced golf, what are the rest of us supposed to expect?

Well most of us expect a lot more than 3 perfect shots per round, that’s for sure! And what happens when, god forbid, it’s not perfect? Disappointment, frustration, anger? And what happens to your confidence? We stand over the next shot afraid of messing it up, afraid of it not being perfect, afraid of “failing”.

If we hit many more imperfect shots than perfect shots, golf, as Bob Rotella put it, “is not a game of perfect”. Golf is game of imperfection, of bad shots, of failing, over and over! So if you’re afraid of failing, you’ll spend most of every round feeling afraid!!

Is that how you want to play your golf??

So how can you start to think differently?

1. Release past fears – The most dramatic and pervasive solution exists off the golf course. It is to unburden yourself from old fears that you have been carrying around. These fears don’t have to relate to golf, as fears in any area of life can contribute to how you react on the golf course. For example, a 10 handicapper I was working with recently had been carrying around fears about not being good enough dating back to his relationship with his alcoholic father as a kid. So every time he played an important game, these inner fears got pushed up to the surface, leading to even more failure and intense reaction to the failure. If you are carrying such fears that you refuse to address, you’ll look for mental tricks and sticking plasters to cover up wounds that need addressing properly
2. Release present fears – By releasing past fears you stop pressure from turning molehills into mountains. But in the moment before shots you may still experience molehills! So if you’re worried about messing it up, allow any thoughts of failure to surface. You might even imagine the extremes of what might go wrong, just so that you have acknowledged them. Fear feeds on fear, relying on the shadows to stay repressed and hidden. So when you acknowledge them, you shine the light on them and remove their power.
3. Recover from bad shots – Despite your best efforts, at some point you will play imperfect shots – or bad shots as Ben put it! As this is a given, how you respond to these ‘bad’ shots will make the difference between a virtuous or vicious circle that will span the next few shots, rounds or even years. A player I’m currently working with has a four handicap and has only been playing for a year. When his improvement hit a plateau recently, his reaction was to get down on himself, creating a vicious circle. In asking him how recovered from bad shots, he said he just didn’t! He’d try to forget about it and move on, but it never seemed to work. The trouble was he was still busy being disappointed whilst trying to play his next shot. From my point of view, success comes from embracing failure like a wise old friend coming round for a cup of tea and a chat! Because without failure, you’re never stretching yourself or learning – never improving! Getting down after a bad shot is easy. Learning from every shot takes commitment. The crucial skill is to replay the shot in your mind playing it WELL. This way, your body will have to learn what to do differently next time and your mind will be left focusing on a successful shot, freeing you up to move on to your next shot.

I hope my mental golf tips help you play fewer ‘bad’ shots and help you recover and learn quickly when you do. I’m happy to answer your questions about playing fewer ‘bad’ shots to help you develop your golf psychology. I’m also giving away audio mental golf tips through a series of six free tipcasts to help you through the toughest parts of the game. Sign up for my newsletter now if you would like to receive these.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach