I started playing golf as a teenager - and I played like it! When I was good I was great and when I was bad, uh oh! My golf was inconsistent because my mental golf was a joke! I thought golf psychology was boring – I just wanted to play. I had one friend who really made me laugh – he had a 7 handicap and was down to only 4 clubs left in his bag – he had snapped the rest! I often wondered how good he would be if he had more clubs and, more importantly, didn’t get so frustrated. I said to myself I don’t want to play THAT kind of mental golf, but, despite focusing on not getting angry, it got worse and worse! The better I got, the higher my expectations became, and more my frustration grew when those expectations weren’t met! Once I’d broken a couple of clubs of my own, I stopped playing for a few months, right at my peak, because it was just too frustrating!!!!! It was time to start using golf psychology to develop my mental golf game.

So how about you? Are you still playing like a teenager? Ever get a hot head as the red mist descends? Ever hold on to frustration from the previous shot? You may have read golf tips that say “move on” - but fail to state how. I’d like to share a process that works every time for resolving frustration after a shot AND doesn’t involve snapping any clubs!

An angry reaction to a poor shot is not surprising if we believe we are capable of better. The intention of the anger is a very positive one – to drive us to play better golf – yet by getting angry we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. The frustration then builds for each poor shot and after a while, molehills become mountains and we can end up with “GOLF RAGE” over tiny mistakes!

The key to resolving frustration is to honour the intention of wanting to play better, by LEARNING. For each shot that doesn’t go where you want, learn in the moment what to do differently next time to get it spot on. Every single top professional gradually trains themselves like this, taking feedback from each shot to match their shots with their mental pictures more and more closely. And this is what you now need to do. So when you play a poor shot, do this:

Step 1: Feel the frustration (it won’t go away by just ignoring it!)

Step 2: Ask yourself what you need to learn to do differently next time

so that the frustration can go

Step 3: Feel how good it feels to do it that way instead (key step)

Step 4: Move on to your next shot ready to give 100%

Tiger Woods allows himself 10 yards to complete this process after playing a poor shot. Great golf psychology involves as little thinking as possible, so get the lesson quickly and move on to play clear minded mental golf.

I recommend rehearsing this process a few times now so you get these mental golf tips embedded as a natural response.

I still get frustrated just as I did as a teenager. The difference now is that I learn, the frustration goes, my golf gets better and better, as does my clients’!

Developing your golf psychology is a choice. Excellent mental golf is an active process of making learning more important than old habits. If you would like more golf tips on handling emotions, check out my other articles and sign up for the newsletter to receive the free audio tipcasts.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling