The Mental Side Of Golf, Just As Important As Your Golf Swing

Too often, golfers underestimate the mental side of the game of golf.  They spend so much time focusing on their golf swing and their swing mechanics.  But especially for most amateur golfer who plays one time a week or less on average, getting the perfect golf swing mechanics is just not going to happen.

So I recommend that one of the things that you spend a little more time concentrating on your mental approach to golf.  This is one area where you can really take some strokes off your game with minimal effort.  But it requires some discipline and focus.

One of the first things that I recommend, especially to higher handicap golfers, is to look at course management.  If you play the same course on a regular basis this is very easy to do.  One of the keys to good course management is to play within your game. For example if you shoot, say 95-103 or so on a regular basis, you don’t want to consistently try to reach the par 5’s in two with a driver, then 3 wood.

So here is one example of course management. If you sometimes struggle off the tee with the driver, when you reach that par 5, tee off with the 3 wood, then hit 6 or 7 iron and leave yourself a short pitch to the green. If you are on in 4 and two putt, that is bogey.  Bogey golf equals a 90 for the round.

So play the course the best way for your game, not the way your 12 handicap buddy does or necessarily the way the course is designed.

Another part of mental golf is when you get into trouble.  Let’s say you find yourself off the fairway with a decent lie but you have several trees in the line of your next shot.  I so many times hear golfers say “Trees are 90 percent air.  I know I can hit through them”.  Then they proceed to try and hit through a narrow gap in the trees.  You know what the results almost always are.

We’ve all seen Tiger and Mickelson and other pro golfers make those miracle par saving shots and somehow we believe that we can do it too.  But part of a good mental approach to the game is just taking the safe recovery shot, give up one shot rather than end up giving two or three shots by trying something heroic.

The third part of the mental side of golf that I talk to golfers about is not over reaching.  What I mean by this is to really forget about trying to shoot par.  It’s amazing to me how many 18 to 25 handicappers I see trying to reach par on almost every hole.

Too often, we are trying to shoot par and we get that number hung in our mind and the more we don’t make that number, the more frustrated we get.

Enjoy the game!