Unhelpful Thoughts

[tomshanks]

Played at the weekend and all was going really well until the 14th tee. Standing over the ball ready to go and the old brain kicks in "Tom - we haven't duffed a tee shot all round, would be a shame to do it now" Well you know the rest!

In that situation I know you should probably step away, refocus and try again but I rarely do it.

Does anyone else's brain decide to try and derail an otherwise good round? Any other good tips for dealing with this?

 

[sjw]

Final tee on Sunday has a hedge alongside. I'd been driving really well all day. Right before my backswing, I thought, "don't hook it into the bush." Guess what I did, much to the amusement of the pair standing behind me waiting?

 

[tomshanks]

Final tee on Sunday has a hedge alongside. I'd been driving really well all day. Right before my backswing, I thought, "don't hook it into the bush." Guess what I did, much to the amusement of the pair standing behind me waiting?

It's almost guaranteed isn't it.

 

[Orikoru]

It has been known. I try and minimise the amount of time I stand over the ball so there's simply less time for any negative thoughts to creep in. Just look at where I'm hitting it, step forward, one practise swing and then hit it. The best thoughts are no thoughts at all sometimes.

Playing at Whipsnade yesterday, the 18th has bushes the whole way down the left hand side. My uncle hooked his 1st & provisional towards it when he hadn't done all day. I tugged mine left towards it when I typically hit a fade which would have been ideal. My dad was ok off the tee then hooked his second into there. My uncle found his ball an inch from the rubbish, chipped out and then hooked his 3rd shot straight back in. It was hilarious tbh and a good example on how golf plays tricks on your mind I would say.

 

[IanM]

Pure NLP! Tell yourself "don't" and you will!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Played at the weekend and all was going really well until the 14th tee. Standing over the ball ready to go and the old brain kicks in "Tom - we haven't duffed a tee shot all round, would be a shame to do it now" Well you know the rest!

In that situation I know you should probably step away, refocus and try again but I rarely do it.

Does anyone else's brain decide to try and derail an otherwise good round? Any other good tips for dealing with this?

Develop and practice a pre-shot routine that concentrates your thinking on the shot in hand and that eliminates any decision making you might otherwise make when standing over the ball. Aim to remove all uncertainty about what you want to DO. And do this EVERY shot (you’ll have a different one for putting and also most likely for short chips to the green).

Mine means that I have a picture in my mind of the trajectory of the shot I want to play and a target. I walk to the ball and, knowing my address position from practice, I position the clubhead behind ball and take my stance. As soon as I have done that I immediately look up to my predetermined target spot for the direction of the shot - a target in the distance that has nothing to do with hole itself…so often a prominent tree or mast or house - something so obvious to me that I don’t have to ‘look‘ for it. And having spotted that target I look down and I swing the club. No practice swing; no swing thoughts.

Any pausing in the almost continuous flow of this procedure I stop; walk away; clear my mind, and start pre-shot routine from the very beginning. Pre-shot; address, and swing are all of the one (fortunately for all I play with I do not have to do that very often)

Well that’s what I do…

 

[Maninblack4612]

It has been known. I try and minimise the amount of time I stand over the ball so there's simply less time for any negative thoughts to creep in. Just look at where I'm hitting it, step forward, one practise swing and then hit it. The best thoughts are no thoughts at all sometimes.

Playing at Whipsnade yesterday, the 18th has bushes the whole way down the left hand side. My uncle hooked his 1st & provisional towards it when he hadn't done all day. I tugged mine left towards it when I typically hit a fade which would have been ideal. My dad was ok off the tee then hooked his second into there. My uncle found his ball an inch from the rubbish, chipped out and then hooked his 3rd shot straight back in. It was hilarious tbh and a good example on how golf plays tricks on your mind I would say.

It's all to do with the mechanics of the game. In order to avoid hitting it left you unconsciously swing the club more from "in to down the line", rather than "in to in". This puts the club on an inside track with the club face square to the target line. The result is a hook / pull, giving you the exact opposite of what you want. Before I understood this I used to hook my second shot with a three wood on our 14th out of bounds more often than not, through trying to make sure I didn't come over the top. It's counter intuitive to swing down towards the out of bounds but, like a lot of things in golf, what you should do is the opposite of what seems right.

 

[theoneandonly]

Get a good psr and stick to it.

 

[Fromtherough]

Don’t ever utter the sentence “I’ve had this ball for x holes”. Ever.

 

[Jason.H]

Played with a few guys who feel the need to talk about the card wrecking trees or hazards as we are waiting to tee off. A recipe for disaster

 

[KenL]

Final tee on Sunday has a hedge alongside. I'd been driving really well all day. Right before my backswing, I thought, "don't hook it into the bush." Guess what I did, much to the amusement of the pair standing behind me waiting?

There was another group waiting on the 18th tee? Perhaps the slow round affected your concentration!

 

[Voyager EMH]

Rubbish thoughts are rubbish.
Throw the rubbish out.

As for the "fear" of a bad shot, "Fear is the mind killer".

Have no fear - Think: I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing, this is great, I'm enjoying every second.

 

[Hobbit]

“It doesn’t matter. I can wedge out and wedge on.” And, “I don’t do it for a living.” My go-to thought going down the stretch has always been, “swing slow.” Works for me.

 

[Slab]

“It doesn’t matter. I can wedge out and wedge on.” And, “I don’t do it for a living.” My go-to thought going down the stretch has always been, “swing slow.” Works for me.

One of mine is... swing the club like you didn't pay for the ball

 

[sjw]

There was another group waiting on the 18th tee? Perhaps the slow round affected your concentration!

It had been quite slow, we can go with that I guess!