Golf is a mental game. You can have all the mechanics right, but if you don’t have the right mentality your confidence can quickly erode.
You have to be tough and have a positive outlook to be a great golfer—and you can’t let the misses you’ll have affect your game.
To have the right golf mentality, never, ever put yourself down. If you think that you stink at golf or that you’re going to miss a shot because you missed a similar shot in the past, the chances are high that what you think will become true. What you think becomes what you are. Don’t work against yourself. When you think negative, you are programming your mind to be negative.
Most people don’t even realize they have negative dialogue in their minds until they start listening to what they are thinking. When they do realize they have negative dialogue going on and they work to stop it, they soon realize that negative dialogue is often a habit—a bad habit. It’s a bad habit that must be stopped and reprogrammed.
You have to change your internal dialogue to become a successful golfer. If you don’t, missing a putt may put you off your game for months.
The negative dialogue that is a habit will say: “I hate putting, and I never read the green right.”
The moment you hear this dialogue going on in your head, stop it and replace it with something positive such as: “I want to get this putt as close as I can and I’m going to make it work.”
Once you recognize the negative thoughts going on in your head and how you are sabotaging your own golf game, you can start developing your mental game and become an optimistic player, rather than a pessimistic golfer who lets every bad shot, or round of golf, set them back.
The next thing you should know about the mental side of golf is that it is easy for people to put up barriers in their minds.
What kind of mental barriers have you set for yourself regarding golf?
Many beginning players never perform past a certain level because they don’t expect themselves to. If you are a golfer and you think that you’ll never break 90, or staying in the 90s is good enough, the chances are high that you’ll never score in the 80s. Why? You have limited yourself.
What do the pros of most any sport have in common? They keep reaching for the next level, no matter how successful their current level may be.
Take away the mental limits you have set on your golf game and know that the sky is the limit. While it’s true that everyone goes through a bad round or two, this doesn’t mean you are incapable of improving and going to the next level. Chalk up a few bad rounds of golf to experience and move on. Don’t let a few bad experiences develop into mental limitations and how you see yourself as a golfer. If you let that happen, you’ll never play at your best.
The next aspect of golf’s mental game is understanding that it’s a game that’s all about focus. Developing focus takes time and a lot of practice.