How do you motivate yourself through the bad patches -

[Oddsocks]

Ok after reading another thread on here today it seems quite apparent that a lot of us go through slumps, where we could and in some cases should walk off the course. Lots of us have a pattern where our game peaks and gives us inspiration to play/practice more, in effort to improve or achieve our goals, yet in only a short period we are brought back to earth with a bang and we suck again!

I'm at the lowest point at the moment, and my only inspiration to play is that our club has recently drafted in some new eye candy for behind the bar which is pretty pleasing on the eye on a Sunday morning. Go back 6 months, i was at the range on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays and desperate to play at least once a weekend, sometimes twice, yet now once a fortnight seems a mission and i'm finding it hard to be bothered at that.

My question is we obviously all hit these lows, but how do we recover from them, to regain the form we had shown in previous rounds, and get the enjoyment that we know we can achieve from striking the ball well etc.

As it is im sitting here at work, licking my cuts from a 7 & 6 Whooping handed to me by a 20 h/c player Saturday who in he's own words had one of he's off days. now i expect people to have good and bad days, but i've seen this guy play on regular occasions and to lose to him 7&6 when he was playing the way he was has really gave me a kick in the man jewels, I have no issue in losing to anyone who is playing well, but when i witnessed him play some of the worst golf he has ever played in my company, it made me really think " how bad must my current game be ?"

so come on guys... how do you recover from them slumps?

 

[chrisd]

Back to basics OS. Maybe a lesson and think about what I was doing when my game was good and what is happening to it now

There is always an answer out there

Keep your chin up!

Chris

 

[G1BB0]

a tough one OS, maybe dont think about it, put it behind you and try and remember that you can play well and focus on positives.

Its very easy to lose confidence/form, ask most sportsmen/women. Sometimes you can play your way back to form but as the saying goes 'forms temporary and skills permanent' your off 13 so can play a bit so concentrate on your strengths and what got you down to that h/c

most of all, just enjoy the round regardless of outcome, easier said than done but I reckon the 2 take care of each other

chin up fella

 

[Oddsocks]

lessons booked for Thursday Chris in hope that it will turn around for Saturdays team match. Obviously we all know our game and know our limits, and i'm not expecting to go our and shoot near or PB every round, but as a 13 capper when i'm holding a 9iron in my hand at 120 yards and miss greens by 40ft it gets a bit worrying.

 

[chris661]

Dunno but I m going throgh something similar at the minute, was saying on SUnday that I was considering jacking it all in but I know that is just because I am plying crap at the minute. I am going to go for a lesson or two in a while,work on that and maybe only play a handful of times over the winter.

This normally cures me of being crap(ish) which then give me the desire to get back playing a lot especially if I have been spending time away from the course

 

[Oddsocks]

normally a good way for me to regroup is a gap of 3 or 4 weeks, but for some reason this season it just hasn't worked. chris good luck with the lessons mate and i hope they pull ya through

 

[Bomber69]

Normally I would find the answer at the bottom of my 6th can of Bud, but after getting wooped by a 20 handicaper it may well just take a good few more Bud

 

[Oddsocks]

bomber, i got to the bottom of a bottle of vodka saturday, still couldnt find the answer.

 

[fundy]

A lot depends on why youre playing badly. I tend to have a small slump when I repeatedly only play my home course, I get a bit bored and complacent and leads to a complete lack of focus on some if not all shots. Only way for me to snap out of it is to go and play a different course, usually somewhere I havent played before or that I know offers a different challenge.

Obviously if the issue is th a technical fault or 2 have crept in then a refresher lesson with the pro is the obvious place to start

 

[Oddsocks]

this is whats doing me fundy, as a rule i had a couple of basic errors in my swing:

Grip - Too Strong
Swing Plane - Too Flat
No hip turn.

So after a winter of lessons and the same in the spring a new pre shot routine sort of fixed this and even on bad days i could still scramble a score together, for the last 10 rounds, ive tried all my pre shot checks for when it does go bad, yet the old strong draw/hook is back and wrecking cards. Just hoping the pro can sort it before the snow hits as i dont want to end the year on a low.

 

[Whee]

Gotta play yourself back into form and rediscover the hunger for it.

Allow yourself a bad shot every now and again, just move on from it and focus on the positives.

We all dwell too much on the mistakes we make with a golf club in our hands.

 

[fundy]

The destructive hook, a good friend of mine too Im afraid to say. With me invariably the grip is at least part of the problem, with it having got a bit too strong, and also Im likely to have got lazy and hitting it too much with the hands and not rotating the body (especially the hips) enough meaning I have to flip it to get the club back square. Can become a more vicous cirlce too, the less the "big muscles" are used, the more the hands have to compensate, making the variance on accurance even bigger.

good luck getting it sorted soon

 

[SonicBoom]

Well I have never played worse and I have just had lessons. He steepened up my swing and it now feels very odd despite constantly practicing it.
for me the answer is to examine what you are doing precisely. Where does your ball go? What's the flight? That should tell you the story of your swing. That gives you something to work on. I am going to go back to the range this week and slow it all down again and examine what I am doing. My problem has been that I have been thinking about the swing so much I don't concentrate on the actual shot I am trying to play - where to land it etc...
Secondly attitude! I have been playing poorly so now expect to play poorly. I then can't wait to hit a few dodgy shots and then start to berate myself for being completely useless. This obviously makes things worse.
I then have a negative attitude and reach the point where I am not really concentrating but just going through the motions.
So now I need to stop take a deep breath and refocus on what I am doing. I might try to play with someone I don't know as that might break my cycle and thought process.
And if all that fails then I am trying to remember it's just golf, no one dies, so me and my silly little fug is really of no consequence.
Hope some of that might help (both you and me!).

 

[Hobbit]

I always believe its cyclical. I'll play better next week, or the week after...

Other than that, its the craic with the guys that gets me out every week.

 

[One Planer]

Just lately I've been playing to, or close to, my handicap. We've just had our course changes opened (4 shots added to par), played them the first time Saturday and shot 2 over my handicap with a few 6's and a 7.

Sounds to me like it's a confidence thing OS. You know you can play, otherwise you wouldn't be off 13.

My suggestion would be to take a few days away from the game and let your mind settle. Then maybe take a trip to the range and hit a few stress free balls. If you feel good, maybe have a round later in the week. If not go and see your pro.

May just be a case of taking your mind off your game for a few days and taking some pressure off yourself.

 

[GB72]

Not sure that I need to motivate myself. Good or bad, I still enjoy a round and slumps end eventually or result in me taking a lesson. The enjoyment is everything to me. If golf stopped being fun then I would take break and come back to it after a few weeks away. If it was still not enjoyable then I would look for something else to do.

 

[USER1999]

Currently also in a slump. Seems it is spreading.

I guess what gets me through it is shear b mindedness in not wanting to let such a stupid game get the better of me.

That, and I enjoy meeting up with the guys on a Saturday morning for breakfast. Best bit of the week. Can only be ruined by golf really.

 

[CMAC]

havent time to read all replys so apologies if this has been said already (I'd be shocked if it hasn't)

Get a lesson, pro's are tweaked almost daily and they know what they are doing to start with, amateurs go when we have problems, you'll probably find a small bad habit has formed with a knock-on effect of swing disintegration! The pro will spot it very quickly, make the adjustment with homework and bobs yer uncle

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I seem to have more slumps than the Euro on a night out in Athens. For me its having faith in what my teaching pro is trying to get me to do and working on it at the range or on the practice ground. When I'm struggling I tend to accept a 0.1 back before I start and a buffer or better is a Brucie bonus (always been a glass half empty type of guy).

I guess you have a number of options. You can try and play your way through it although thats probably limited to a couple of rounds at weekends now (unless you are lucky enough to be able to slip out midweek). You can stop playing and hit the range and look for a spark (not recommended when the weekend golf is all we are getting so a bit of a double whammy). Have a lesson if it is really that bad. Otherwise why not have one range session a week and really focus on the swing rather than how many balls you hit or how quickly you hit them

 

[Smiffy]

I've got 2 or 3 courses fairly locally that I enjoy playing, (Cooden, Lindfield and East Brighton), because I have good memories of playing them well.
If I am going through a particularly bad slump, I will go out and play one of them. Stand on the 1st tee, and give it a smack. I feel a little more confident and tend to play a lot better than I would do playing a course which may be more local for me but where I know I have struggled in the past.
That's what I tend to do if I am playing really (really) badly.
Or ease up on it for a few weeks, get it out my system by not playing, and then go out again with most (if not all) of the "negative" bits gone from inside my head.