All golfers (even tour players) fail several times during any round of golf. What separates exceptional golfers from the norm is the way they respond to failure.
Golf is a like a petri dish in a laboratory. It is a testing ground for experiments and performance. Golf is a great way to see how you as the golfer responds to failure. Just like the chemist thinks he or she has the answer, tests their theory and then they find failure from what they might have been sure would work. Most of golfers live their golf lives in which failure can be hard to discern. Unless you lose your job or find divorce most of our days seldom give us the simple way to reflect on clear win or clear loss. But in golf every day of practice or golf round played golf can give you clarity. You either won your match or tournament or in practice you are stripping the shot one after the other or hitting inconsistent shots. Those errant shots are temporary failures, unlike losing your job that would hit you hard in the face. So in golf, temporary failure really is a given. No one really shoots a perfect round of 18 under par (54). Though PGA Tour players and amateurs are shooting low 60's at times, these top players are not constantly shooting 58,59 or 60. As a golf enthusiast you know that if you see some player on tv shooting 66 they will be in the hunt in the tournament. But since even 66 is not perfect like the score of 54. So the best tour players are finding failure at several points in a round. Even the best players in the world like Tiger and Jack at their peak had one 5-7 tournaments a year. Their overall average of wins probably was about 2-3 a year. Today many players are searching for their first win on tour. Many tour pros shoot 74-79 and miss the cut. No pay check, they leave and go evaluate what went wrong and work on it. No matter what you perceive the exceptional golfers have to learn to be resilient in the face of adversity and failure. When you are playing well or practicing well it is easy to be in a better frame of mind. But when things go south it is easy to get in your mind and start looking at what is going wrong. We all can relate to that view as a golfer. We may have just hit a great tee shot and then we duff the approach shot, and fear or dismay will set in. Resilient players see each shot for what it is and the next shot they get back in the saddle take on the next challenge. They may be upset for a moment but the refocus quickly and determine the best plan of action for the next shot. If you recall, many people would harp on John Rahm for his being mad and upset for an extended period of time. Today he is a top 3 player in the world and his resiliency is really showing compared to 2- 3 years ago. Some players have memories of blocking out of their mind all past shots, like Jack Nicklaus was really known for. Sam Snead stated later in his career that a key for him after a poor round was to sit in bed before falling asleep and re-play every shot in that days round. Where he had a poor shot at 2pm in the afternoon, at night, he turned the script to reflect the ideal shot. He programmed his subconscious mind to see and feel the best shots, right before he went to bed. He woke up fresh and ready for the next round. Way ahead of his time, he basically downloaded a different program into his computer ( mind) and re-booted his mind over night! That is a really cool thing to reflect on. When you are not playing well and you are missing putts or drives your memories will stick with you like a thorn. People will ask you ( or you ask yourself) what is wrong? It is easy to become discouraged and frustrated. As a golfer your mind can get stuck on a constant film being played in your mind and a constant soundtrack that you hear from yourself about how things are going wrong. Resilient players will not let those images and soundtracks get to them. Sam Snead over rode those programs with his imagination and won the most amount of tournaments of any player in history. Exceptional golfers refuse to remember the bad shots! They are resilient at their mental thoughts and how they focus in the face of adverse or unwanted shots. On a golf course it is best to treat a failure of any shot as a temporary failure or even an anomaly. Golfers mishit shots all the time, even the best players on tour. They hit a shot in the sand or over the green or in the 16th fairway when playing the 18th hole! The worst thing they could do is DWELL on it. But if they are a top performing player they will be resilient and let the last shot go, like water running off a ducks back, and take on the next shot and the next challenge. Maybe after the round they can reflect on the mishit shots and then go to the range and work in the bunker or on the tee. The technique of the swing is always being watched, but the technique of your mind and how it reacts (good or bad) is just as important. Great golfers will not beat themselves up although some people think that most top performers admonish themselves to where they create a huge guilt feeling then get up and go practice. If you were playing with a teammate in a 2 person scramble and your partner hit several bad shots, one after they other, would you scold them? No, you would tap their shoulder, tell them "chin up" you will get the next shot. However if you personally reflect on that simple idea, do you do that with yourself? Do you tap your shoulder and say, he it is ok, lets stay resilient and do our best on the next shot and the next? That is a pretty interesting way of looking at this; isn't it? Good golfers learn from their mistakes and then would evaluate the process of what they are doing for each shot. Was their pre-shot routine spot on? Did they evaluate the situation correctly? Did they account for distance to the green, front of green, middle and back and see the possible 2 or 3 clubs they could have hit? Then was their choice of club correct? Did they totally commit to the shot? Resilient golfers react to a failure of a shot or round or practice session and find resonance with hope and not constant mental words to themselves living in the past failure. The time to rehash your performance in your round of golf or practice session is after those. Never during those. Resilient great golfers are not drudging up on the course the last shot that did not go as planned. They are not whaling in their mind and getting stuck in the past energy and thoughts that then really will change your vibration, emotions, etc. Ugh. Here in June the task is to really learn to be resilient! This is where you can use your journal just after your round at home and go over the round and write it out. When you write it out and record it you then can see trends that seem to come up. Remember, your mind gets hit with a bat in the head when you lose a job. That you can relate to. However the small things in a round that go off script can run down a river and that river is flowing and you do not realize what you are doing. So I urge you to journal after your round to see what you are telling yourself, how you react and how long the unwanted shot sits with you? Learn to discover secrets for yourself that allow you to get back in the saddle for the next shot. Learn to be resilient for every hole you play or every 5 shots you hit on the range or putting area when you practice. Let's get to the course together 2 times in June and really work on this!
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Is it possible to imagine several things at the same time for your golf game or should you limit yourself to one desire?
That is a pretty good question I was asked by one of you in the group. I think the answer is not so simple but it would include some 'musts' that would have to be included. The musts would be the feeling of being ecstatic about your creations you are achieving for your golf game. A Vibrant and really fulfilled feeling would accompany it. Also you would Really being enjoying your golf game when you start to see you imagined changes manifest before your eyes. When it comes to imagining things for your golf game you like any golfer would be tempted to imagine several good things. Just think of your pre-shot routine for each shot you make? You are imagining a lot of things with all those shots. As a side not; each of those imagined shots would have to have the accompanying feelings and sensations with them as if the shot has occurred before you hit the shot. So for this blog I will take on the idea of something really big for you and your golf game. Even this big thing will require the small things to fall into place to create the big enchilada or whole package.. Instead of imagining lower scores, consistent shot shape, longer distance or great putting perhaps consider imagining something else? Imagine being Ecstatic, Thrilled, or Really Excited about your golf game. You could not be ecstatic about your golf game if you were making bogeys and double bogeys. You could not be ecstatic about your golf game if you had a two way miss on drives or really poor approach shots to the green. You could not feel ecstatic about your golf game if you missed those par saving putts or chunked the chips near the green. If you were ecstatic about your golf game but did not have to orchestrate exactly how that awesome feeling came about golf would be much simpler and more fun. You could realize that a key phrase you can start to rely on is 'My golf game is so awesome now'! Do not let your conscious mind and all of its reasoning cloud your mind and insist how or when things will show up and occur. Trying to orchestrate things to how you think they would occur, step by step is a cruel trick you are playing on yourself. Do not get tricked into that dark alley. That would be like me trying to perfectly time when I will hit the scratcher on the CA lottery for $1 million. When your conscious mind wants to insist on 'seeing' visible results in a specific timeline and it does not show up what do you feel? Doubt. Anger. Rejection. Hmmm, those are not high vibrations are they? So a possible way to override the path of creating the things mentioned above would be create a phrase of My golf game is Awesome! Release the need to control you are visibly seeing when you practice or play. Remember, your current golf game is reflecting to you what you feel and think. Those current thoughts and emotions are what are showing up in your reality when you play. You have to really get good at imagining the player you want to be. No more lip service on what you are doing with your golf game. You have to dig deep, find quiet moments to imagine your golf game. You are a conscious golfer and your mind is always feeding you something. So tune out what is not wanted ( like a wayward shot I had on the 1st hole at the Nicklaus course) and only listen or envision what you want to create. The last shot was a result of your past thoughts and emotions, visions, beliefs. Get over that. Fast track to better outcomes away from the course and indeed imagine the better outcomes on the course, no matter what the situation. The habit of seeing only that which your senses are showing you renders you to become totally blind at what could be created; what we otherwise could see and create! As a mental golfer you must cultivate the habit of seeing the invisible! So you will have to deliberately disentangle your mind from the evidence that is in front of you on the practice range or the golf course. The invisible state, your imagination is the KEY to the new door for your golf game. Get in the habit of mentally feeling awesome and sense what that new player you want to be like would feel like. Draw that whole embodied picture to you as you go about your day. Imagine the parts of your game you desire, but absolutely add the awesome feeling that you will have as the whole package.. The whole package of what you desire is what you want to draw your mind to in imagination also. Several of the things you want to see improved in your golf game now are a part of that package. The package will always change to new desires and feelings so have fun with where you are now. If imagining of having a handicap of 3 works now or winning a tournament now is what is needed that is the starting point. That image can grow to larger things later of course. So as you proceed in May reflect on what you are creating? What is the whole package golfer for you for now? What is that ecstatic awesome golfer looking like, feeling like? Remember you will always ignore what you see if it is unwanted just like I did on my first tee shot at the Nicklaus course. Here in May strive to push yourself to see the whole package of who you want to be. Feel that awesome golfer you want to be and do not let go of it. |
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