{"id":601,"date":"2009-10-16T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T13:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/?p=601"},"modified":"2014-03-10T21:50:07","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T21:50:07","slug":"golfers-manage-your-mind-manage-your-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/golfers-manage-your-mind-manage-your-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Golfers: Manage Your Mind, Manage Your Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

I played a round a few weeks ago on a day that was going to be pretty hot, so my playing partner and I teed off at 7:00 a.m. We had the course to ourselves. The range hadn\u2019t opened by the time we started, so a few practice swings to get ready, and away we went. We played fairly well for the first three holes; we were both relaxed and loose.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On the fourth hole, a 174-yard par 3, I put my tee shot just off the back of the green, twenty-five feet from the pin. Beautiful shot. I chipped to 18\u201d. Tour-quality chip. I missed the putt. Nice par, down the drain. My partner was more disappointed than I was. Since I wasn\u2019t too upset about it, he asked me how I handle missing a short putt like that. I said that I might or might not miss the next one that short, but stressing over this one guarantees that I will miss it. The best way to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again is to chalk it up as a bad shot, forget about it, and play on. <\/span><\/p>\n

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This kind of thinking can be applied anywhere. The same golfer who can hit a pin-seeking missile from 160 yards on one hole can yank it 20 yards left on the next. We expect to hit our best shots all the time, but we don\u2019t. Touring professionals don\u2019t. No amount of practice will let any golfer do that. Realize that you\u2019re as good as your best shots and worst shots put together, and they all even out. I\u2019ve never had a score, good or bad, that I didn\u2019t deserve. If you can make peace with that fact, golf becomes much more enjoyable. And you\u2019ll score better, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

See more at www.bettergolfbook.com<\/p>\n


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I played a round a few weeks ago on a day that was going to be pretty hot, so my playing partner and I teed off at 7:00 a.m. We had the course to ourselves. The range hadn\u2019t opened by the time we started, so a few practice swings to get ready, and away we … Continue reading Golfers: Manage Your Mind, Manage Your Expectations<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-game"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4qtRQ-9H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}