5 Mental Questions to Ask Yourself
Five Questions to ask yourself about your golf game with a scoring summary.
These questions are a basic starting point to determine how you are emotionally feeling (I call it Vibrating) when you play or practice.
Take no more than 30 seconds to answer each question, and be as honest as you can with yourself regarding your answer.
1. When you stand over the ball on the course before a shot you are thinking?:
2. When you are playing a round of golf, you notice how you feel as you are playing. Your feelings generally are:
4. I have strung some good shots together today so I am feeling positive about my chances.
5. My circumstances do not dictate how I feel, I make it a priority to feel good for any shot.
3. When you practice, you do so:
4. When you practice, your swing mechanic(s), it is more important to make sure you are striking it well than how you feel when practicing.
5. When practicing or playing the ‘chatter’ you hear from yourself in your mind is generally:
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Scoring scale for this exercise:
5-8 pts Mental outlook certainly needs major adjustments to enable better shot
outcomes and begin to lay the foundation for more consistency.
9-13 pts Some improvement is needed in how you mentally approach shots and reflect
on past shots that just occurred.
14-17 pts Pretty good mental outlook, covers the bare minimum needed to begin to be
be able to play more consistently .
18-21 pts Above average mental outlook and focus and energy control of your emotions
(vibrations) when on the course or range.
22-25 pts You are Rockin-it with your mental outlook, basic focus and emotions(vibration)!
These questions are a basic starting point to determine how you are emotionally feeling (I call it Vibrating) when you play or practice.
Take no more than 30 seconds to answer each question, and be as honest as you can with yourself regarding your answer.
1. When you stand over the ball on the course before a shot you are thinking?:
- Multiple swing thoughts
- About a past poor shot you just made or past poor shots you have had in a similar situation.
- About a hazard, or bunker to the side of a hole you are playing that you do not wish to hit your ball toward
- A single swing thought
- How you visualize the shot appearing before your eyes after you hit it or where you see it ending up on the green or fairway after striking it.
2. When you are playing a round of golf, you notice how you feel as you are playing. Your feelings generally are:
- I am seeing too many poor shots today so this round sucks
- I am not hitting it very consistently, thus I do not feel good about my round
- How I feel changes from hole to hole and shot to shot, and based on what I see when I
4. I have strung some good shots together today so I am feeling positive about my chances.
5. My circumstances do not dictate how I feel, I make it a priority to feel good for any shot.
3. When you practice, you do so:
- Going through numerous clubs to hit, making swings, trying to hit the ball solid
- Going through numerous clubs to hit making swings with good rhythm and tempo
- Practicing techniques or methods that you have in mind and trying to incorporate more than one technique or method in each swing.
- Practicing with one specific swing thought or technique you are working on and you are not concerned about hitting it to an exact target.
- Hitting shots with a specific swing thought or technique making sure you have an improved swing technique and ball strike and then hitting the shot landing at your desired target.
4. When you practice, your swing mechanic(s), it is more important to make sure you are striking it well than how you feel when practicing.
- All of the time
- Most of the time
- Some of the time
- I try to mix the two equally
- Never, how I feel about myself in that moment is most important in my golf game
5. When practicing or playing the ‘chatter’ you hear from yourself in your mind is generally:
- Loud and voicterous and a lot, I hear myself thinking and stating many things when playing or practicing ( I hear good and bad thoughts from myself)
- Common and basically non - stop, I hear mainly from myself what is going wrong in my swing rather than what is going right.
- Limited to a degree and the chatter I hear is more centered on ‘staying focused’ on what I am working on with my swing or staying focused during shots when playing on the course.
- Reactive to what has just happened with a shot; it is almost as if I constantly and in reaction mode to what is occurring in front of my eyes
- Positive in feeling, not too hard on myself and if I have just hit a bad shot, it is ok. I do not let it bother me too much because I know that shot just witnessed by me is a reflection of past thoughts and beliefs I had prior to that attempted shot.
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Scoring scale for this exercise:
5-8 pts Mental outlook certainly needs major adjustments to enable better shot
outcomes and begin to lay the foundation for more consistency.
9-13 pts Some improvement is needed in how you mentally approach shots and reflect
on past shots that just occurred.
14-17 pts Pretty good mental outlook, covers the bare minimum needed to begin to be
be able to play more consistently .
18-21 pts Above average mental outlook and focus and energy control of your emotions
(vibrations) when on the course or range.
22-25 pts You are Rockin-it with your mental outlook, basic focus and emotions(vibration)!
