Many players know that they have to focus to get the most out of their game. The problem I see is most players don’t know when to turn it off.
We have to remember that the average round of golf for eighteen holes is over four hours. That’s a long to to focus on just one thing. What happens is we begin to lose focus when we are grinding too much. Then our game goes in the wrong direction.
If we look at a Tour Pro they are only getting in focus when it is time to hit a shot. Then after the shot is gone they won’t think about their next shot until they know exactly where it is and what type of lie they have. So many weekend players hit a poor shot and then already think they are going to bogey the hole and look even farther ahead to the end of the round thinking they won’t break 90 today or 80 or even 100. Here lies the problem. When we play like this we take ourselves out of the game before we finish. No it is even tougher to hit solid shots and post a solid score.
The best thing to do is to practice this on the range and during your normal rounds.
Don’t begin to focus until you have ether teed up your ball or approached your ball and can see the lie you are in.
Now is when we go through our Pre shot routine and decide what type of shot we want to hit and gather some information about the shot we are about to take.
Once we commit then we have to pull the trigger. What ever the result we then have to accept it and then decide how we feel about it.
If it is a poor shot we can feel a practice swing that is what we wanted to have happen to give us a positive feeling before we move on. After that we must not worry about the rest of the hole or our score.
Now we can turn our attention to something else like the beauty of the course we are playing or our playing partners. The last thing we want to do is make excuses or have negative self talk. Then we don’t want to think about it till we get to our next shot.
Then the process begins again.
To focus on what went wrong or how it will effect our overall score is to no benefit to our scores. That is fine on the range but not during a round of golf. I always find it is best to talk about anything but my game with my playing partners.
If it is a good shot I soak in the feeling and again let it go. Not looking to far ahead in the round having a final score in my mind. This is staying in the moment and giving each shot the attention it deserved. Then forget about it till the next shot.
If we do this and play each shot like it was our last for the day we will stay on a even keel for the round and our emotions will stay steady. This helps us stay in the moment when we have to and relax and enjoy our round in between shots.
