The head game

JohnnyDee

JohnnyDee

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My game is in the mixer and I don't know what to do.

In any given round I can hit some good shots but I can also, and indeed frequently do, hit an awful lot of terrible ones.

Playing in the Snappers v Farts meet at Forest Pines last weekend was a perfect example. I was pants, absolute pants, hitting some diabolical shots and missing some rediculously short putts that normally I would never miss.

My problem is really between the ears though. I stand over the ball and can only conjur up images of disaster. Visualising a perfect parabolic flight with the ball coming to rest a few feet away from the hole doesn't spring to mind.

No, what does instead is the ball squirting 45 degrees to the right and ending up deep in the heart of a hideously adhesive bush. That's more like the mental picture I have.

It's really all down to my irons to be fair. I got through a real bad bout of the shanks 12 years ago, but now there seem to be one or two lurking every round. My irons feel like squirming snakes in my hand and if I get into the rough, then it's just terrifying. Awful contacts and duffs abound, I rarely hit a decent recovery.

I played yesterday and had the first 100 + gross round (101) in 15 years. I have just slipped into category 3 as a result and I'm running scared.

Anyone been there and bought the t-shirt? Have you emerged stronger on the other side, and if yes, what / how did you do it?

It's looking like a course of lessons (or hypnotism might be better) but I am just currently baffled as to what's gone so badly wrong.
 
JohnnyDee said:
My game is in the mixer and I don't know what to do.

In any given round I can hit some good shots but I can also, and indeed frequently do, hit an awful lot of terrible ones.

Playing in the Snappers v Farts meet at Forest Pines last weekend was a perfect example. I was pants, absolute pants, hitting some diabolical shots and missing some rediculously short putts that normally I would never miss.

My problem is really between the ears though. I stand over the ball and can only conjur up images of disaster. Visualising a perfect parabolic flight with the ball coming to rest a few feet away from the hole doesn't spring to mind.

No, what does instead is the ball squirting 45 degrees to the right and ending up deep in the heart of a hideously adhesive bush. That's more like the mental picture I have.

It's really all down to my irons to be fair. I got through a real bad bout of the shanks 12 years ago, but now there seem to be one or two lurking every round. My irons feel like squirming snakes in my hand and if I get into the rough, then it's just terrifying. Awful contacts and duffs abound, I rarely hit a decent recovery.

I played yesterday and had the first 100 + gross round (101) in 15 years. I have just slipped into category 3 as a result and I'm running scared.

Anyone been there and bought the t-shirt? Have you emerged stronger on the other side, and if yes, what / how did you do it?

It's looking like a course of lessons (or hypnotism might be better) but I am just currently baffled as to what's gone so badly wrong.
Click to expand...

Very much in the same camp. Some decent stuff in practice, especially around the short game at the moment but step on the course and it's a nightmare. All sorts of poor shots and zero confidence. I've tried the Rotella books and re-visited NGT but I seem frozen in swing thoughts and scared of where the next ball will go. The teaching pro I use is big on NLP and tempted to just book an hours worth of lesson time and go into this a bit more. If you do find an answer though please let me know
 
It's actually very simple. The correct set up and trust yourself. You're second guessing yourself, filling your head with distracting noise. And accept that you will hit bad shots, and when you do you need to let them go. Thinking about the last (bad) shot instead of the one you are about to hit lacks focus.
 
Hobbit said:
It's actually very simple. The correct set up and trust yourself. You're second guessing yourself, filling your head with distracting noise. And accept that you will hit bad shots, and when you do you need to let them go. Thinking about the last (bad) shot instead of the one you are about to hit lacks focus.
Click to expand...
Pad that out for a full hour and Homer will give you 50 quid.
 
Hobbit said:
It's actually very simple. The correct set up and trust yourself. You're second guessing yourself, filling your head with distracting noise. And accept that you will hit bad shots, and when you do you need to let them go. Thinking about the last (bad) shot instead of the one you are about to hit lacks focus.
Click to expand...

This........
 
I've felt pretty much like that for a couple of years now. Like you I had a run of shanks which led to a general loss of confidence in my irons, which then transferred to chipping and finally driving. Stood over the ball, all I could think about were the things that might go wrong with the shot.

I don't think there is an easy cure, at least not for me, soon after starting the game I tried to develop a classic swing and since then have spent far too long messing around with things instead of just trying to put a score together.

I recently played a round with a guy at my club who has an individual swing; open stance, hooded club at address and a steep downswing but he's very consistent with it and hits a long, high fade. I'm sure he doesn't think about the crap I do when he's stood over the ball and he plays to a solid 4 handicap.

I'm slowly coming out of the wilderness and starting to regain some confidence in my irons and chipping, but after years of books, magazine tips, videos and the occasional lesson I think I'll always have a head full of crap when I'm playing.

The advice given by others above to clear your head and just trust yourself is very good, if you can do it....
 
11 holes this evening and walked off 2 under gross playing off the whites.

I resolved to relax, not try to smash it and just play steadily. Upshot was better ball striking, better control, distance and scoring,

It's totally mad. Golf just messed with my head.
 
I totally lost the plot a couple of months back with my irons, luckily my driver and short game was still good so it saved me from some disaster scores.

It is totally a head thing and the harder I tried to sort it the worse it got, I just totally lost the confidence to hit an iron. But I did find a way through it.

I changed all of my grips out for a different style, so that my clubs would feel different. I then went to the range and just kept hitting my 7i until it started going well. I didn't aim at anything, I just put some sticks down to keep me set up square. After a while it stared to go well. So I went and played the 3 holes that go around the range from the front tees with just a 7i, 9i, GW and putter. Went, par, par, bogey. Since then I have not looked back, something must have just clicked back into place.

Sometimes at golf I think we just try too hard and then get too mad when it isn't going as planned. Accepting that we all hit bad shots and screw a hole up is part of the game, just look at Speith at the Masters. You can't over analyze a bad shot and try to figure out why you did it. Walking off from a bad shot trying to figure out if you shifted your weight correctly, or you got a bit quick, or you swung too flat, or you lifted your head isn't going to help with the next shot. You know how to hit the ball, so just trust yourself and keep focused and let it just happen.
 
Establish a clear precise pre-shot routine that
1. Lasts less than 5 secs
2. Includes a trigger

This should act as the buffer between deciding what you have decided to do and both give you confidence it will happen (follow routine and it will be OK) and leave you no time, or opportunity, to do any thinking about 'how to perform'.

Basically the just do it Hobbit references, and you would appear to have found in your recent round.
 
Went out after work to try and get more golf in and not look for answers on the practice round. Minimal warm up (few swishes) and off on the harder back nine. Hit first drive well, hooked 7 iron into long grass and lost. Hit it well up to 15 without making a score then slice into long grass, good provisional, slice and lose that. Poor drive at 16. Push off 17!and lost ball and sliced OOB on 18 and then dunked pitch in lake.

Minimal thoughts and trying to trust what I'm doing. Had a lesson recently and all good in that but can't take anything on the course . Hoping it was partially rushing after work but think I'm looking for excuses. Going to try again tonight. Determined to play my way out of it rather than bash balls. Just hard to keep going with no light at the end of a very long tunnel
 
Disclaimer: I'm rubbish
But: I've been rubbish for so long there might be a nugget in there somewhere.
When I came back to golf I tried building a proper swing. It ended up far too flat, hence push/push slice/shank.
I then accepted my inability, concentrate on set up, position at the top. And see what happens after that.
I'm told that the more upright the back swing, the less likely the shank.
But that might just be because I originally learned in the 70s.

🤔🤔🤔
Dunno if anything in there for you. If it's tosh just slap me.....
 
Hobbit said:
It's actually very simple. The correct set up and trust yourself. You're second guessing yourself, filling your head with distracting noise. And accept that you will hit bad shots, and when you do you need to let them go. Thinking about the last (bad) shot instead of the one you are about to hit lacks focus.
Click to expand...
For me the tough thing used to be having so many bad shots I didn't know where to go. When I can get it down to one main bad shot I can live with it. IE a straightish fade turning into a pull slice is OK. It's when it turns into a pull hook I start pooping.
 
The windier I'm getting the longer it's taking me to pull the trigger. As Duncan mentioned in an earlier post I need to get a much snappier pre-shot routine. Currently I'm Sergio when he had the grip and re-grip horrors.

Played this morning and although I drove and putted well the irons were still a real mixed bag.

Because nearly every round has a shank or two lurking in the shadows I just can't get comfortable on the shot, knowing that one's just waiting to bite me on the derrière. As a result my short game, never the best but much improved last season, is back in the badlands once more.

Anyone ever tried hypnotism - either for sport or quitting fags etc.- and did it work?
 
Last edited:
JohnnyDee said:
The windier I'm getting the longer it's taking me to pull the trigger. As Duncan mentioned in an earlier post I need to get a much snappier pre-shot routine. Currently I'm Sergio when he had the grip and re-grip horrors.

Played this morning and although I drove and putted well the irons were still a real mixed bag.

Because nearly every round has a shank or two lurking in the shadows I just can't get comfortable on the shot, knowing that one's just waiting to bite me on the derrière. As a result my short game, never the best but much improved last season, is back in the badlands once more.

Anyone ever tried hypnotism - either for sport or quitting fags etc.- and did it work?
Click to expand...

Must be a Berkshire thing. Hit 6/12 fairways today and the others were only in the semi by a few feet so driving was fine. One green in regulation tells everything. So nervous with my irons and while I don't fear the shank I'm just so regimented and rigid over the ball with the irons and swing feels "by numbers" and not something free flowing as it use to. Think I am too scared of the outcome rather trusting it
 
HomerJSimpson said:
Must be a Berkshire thing. Hit 6/12 fairways today and the others were only in the semi by a few feet so driving was fine. One green in regulation tells everything. So nervous with my irons and while I don't fear the shank I'm just so regimented and rigid over the ball with the irons and swing feels "by numbers" and not something free flowing as it use to. Think I am too scared of the outcome rather trusting it
Click to expand...

Look on you tube at Flomotion. A new technique that is being taught in France and now here. You can simplify the technique for yourself but it works. I've never had a lesson but have tried it in practise and it just frees you up.
 
Two quick stories.

I played a round with a 6 handicap earlier in the year. Retirement age, technically hideous swing, club closed at address, two to three ugly practice swipes at the ball that hit the ground two feet behind the ball before every shot. If he actually used the practice swing he woul not break 150. But after the three practice swipes he would just let it ride.

Standing on the 15th he was a few over par on the day, he knocked it in the green side bunker and said something like "oh, here we go, I can't get out of bunkers". Despite his good play to that point he did not believe he could get out and nor did I. He had 5 or 6 in the bunker, chucked the club and lost his mind. On 18 he actually putted out of the bunker, put it 30 feet by and was over the moon.

Second one. I'm on holiday and my little one is learning to swim without arm bands. Yesterday she swam from step to step without them. What a beauty! So proud of her self.

Today we got the camera out so we can video it and show grandma. "I don't think I can do it daddy". 6 or 7 attempts, no go. Stick the camera away, bosh, step to step and I think she could have gone all the way back too, looked easy!

OP: it could be worse, you could be visualising the perfect arc, landing softly and sitting down by the pin and then hitting it in the rough.

Nick/Crow: I love your swing! Hogan-esk. I'll swap you.
 
I think we've all been there to some extent. I've struggled recently due to a situation not of my making at my club for which I have been blamed. The culprit has now left the club and guess what? Better atmosphere and lack of pressure means I'm heading back to where I was prior to all the cr@p starting.

In terms of the shanks, my pro has me doing a drill where I hit my 7i, but address the ball with the hosel. I then hit it as normal, the drill/set up encourages me to make sure I hit the right swing path to get the ball with the centre (ish) of the clubface. It's worked for me so I'm sure it can work for anybody :D
 
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