It is human nature to have tendencies and to do “x” when we are under pressure or nervous- I am sure you can think of something your loved one or coworker seems to do all of the time; twisting a ring, tensing their jaw, tapping their pen etc. Do you know what yours are? In golf, we have technical swing tendencies, mental and emotional tendencies. You need a lot of self awareness to know what your own tendencies are, but this is one of the first steps to playing your best and most importantly, enjoying golf. The only skill in golf that we can truly see is the technical, thus the majority of instruction focuses on the technical skills of golf. We lose a golf tournament, top a ball into the pond or slice a ball out of bounds and our technical skills are put under the magnifying glass. Skills that should be assessed, practiced and “blamed” equally for any of the above also lie within. I’ve heard of an LPGA Tour player who was too scared to give a victory interview in English (as it wasn’t her native language). She constantly came in second after she “choked” on the 18th hole. With no changes to her physical/technical game, and a few months of intense English tutoring, she went back out and won on tour, over and over again. Subconsciously she was making mistakes that were costing her strokes, “making bad swings” as announcers would say, but in reality she was avoiding the victory speech. She had to be aware of her feelings when she was playing in order to figure this out and providing s a powerful example of being your own best coach. Nobody could have guessed this or pointed it out to her on the range.
Over the next few months I will introduce to you what I believe are some of the great non-technical skills of the game, through interactive activities that you can do at home and exercises that you can practice at the course.
This first activity focuses on self-awareness and I will bring it full circle in the next edition of the Divot. Below are a list of emotions. From this list I would like for you to write down the one or two most often felt by you when you play golf, even if you only practice at the range and haven’t played 9 or 18 holes yet, you can participate.
Joy, Frustration, Confidence, Fear, Anger, Anxiety, Excitement
Don’t forget to write it down! Stay tuned.
Sources & Inspiration:
Vision54
The Clutch Golfer Formula by Eric Jones and Dr. Glen Albaugh
Psychology Today