Avoiding Mental Drift While Playing Golf

Normally, or at least hopefully, you begin your round fully focused and mentally ready to play your best golf. And, for the first four holes or so, you do. Then the trouble starts. Your focus wanders and you have a few bad holes and wonder what happened. You were playing so well and then it just fell apart.

You failed to maintain your focus. The complete attention you gave to your previous shots got lost. You went through the motions of making a shot, but your mind was not on the task.

The way to avoid this let-down is to make yourself see every shot fresh. Treat every shot as if it were the first shot of the day. Re-engage your concentration every time you step up to the ball. How?

When it’s time to hit the ball, your mind needs to be on figuring out the best shot to hit from where you are. This is no time to congratulate yourself on the great shot that got you there, or kick yourself for the bad shot that put you where you would rather not be. Your attention needs to be on this one thought: from here, what is the best play I can make?

In other words, given my skills, where should I play the ball so I’m in the best position for my next shot? Take some time to figure this out. Set your mind, even, to playing two or three shots in advance.

For example, say my drive ends up on the right side of the fairway on a par-5 hole. Getting to the ball, I can see that the pin is on the right side of the green, tucked behind a bunker. If I play straight for the flag, I’ll have to pitch over the bunker for my third shot.

But I also see that if I play my next shot to the left side of the fairway, the green is fairly open and even if my pitch is short, it will still be on the green. So I hit my ball up the left side of the fairway.

Getting to the ball, I can see that the pin is in the back of the green on ground that is fairly level. The front portion of the green slopes toward me, so I’ll have an uphill putt if my pitch is short. Better to err on the long side with my pitch. And that bunker is now on the right, so best to be a bit left with the pitch. Left and long is the shot.

It’s thinking like this before every shot that will keep your mind actively engaged with the game.

Finally, go through a pre-shot routine before each shot. That routine can take any form. There is no sequence of steps that is more right than another one, nor any required elements except for making sure you’re aimed correctly and that your mind is focused on what you’re doing.

What you’re doing, by the way, is literally that. What you want to have happen, what you don’t want to have happen, whether you might not be able to do it, these thoughts are not included. Put your mind on being confident that the stroke you’re about to make will be the good stroke that you know is in you.

The last step is to accustom yourself to keeping this process going for a four-hour round. It’s not easy, and it will take work. Good luck.

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