A lot of tour pros don’t give nearly enough credit to how damn good they are at making the ball go where they want it to.
1 Like
Totally right
That is what @iacas is saying
I think I mostly agree with you, but I do have a related question that I’d like to hear your opinion on if you’re willing.
I’m a 13 handicap, my swing has a lot of flaws, this I know. I could stand to improve in every aspect of my game save maybe lag putting, I seem to be able to get close to the hole from anywhere on the green with surprising regularity.
But when I go to the range and practice with specificity I seem to be able to hit my irons much better than on the course, even when I control for the lies. So if I have a good level lie on the course and on the range I mess that up way more often on the course than on the range. By mess up I mean catastrophic mistakes, not the slight mishit that puts the ball 5 yards right of my aimpoint but the shank or a hard pull or a very thin shot. Not asking for a mistake diagnosis, but why do you think it is that mid-high handicappers like me struggle with that so often and how can we practice in a way that will lessen that occurrence? Is that mental?
how often do you do first-shot drills / play holes on the range?
ex: imagine a 400 yard par 4 that you play particularly often, judge a target and start line, hit driver, guess the yardage you have in with reference to your target, pick that club and a target, hit that shot, etc.
even on the course, a lot of people are really good at hitting the second shot (“player 2 is scratch”), but it’s only the first shot that matters.
1 Like
I’ve listened to the audio book and have the physical book for reference. I’d boil a lot of it down to learning in what state you play your best and taking confidence with you on every shot. There is a lot more to it than that.
The biggest mental advantage I see in tour players and elite amateurs I know and/or have spent time with is an extraordinary amount of confidence in their skills.
1 Like
Yeah. Never said I knew everything, never said I knew more than them. Nothing of the sort.
Tour pros don’t give enough credit to the work they put in, just like @anon26814599 said. And average golfers overly blame their mental game so they don’t have to blame their actual swings, physical games. Those are my opinions, but I think I can back them up.
Heading out to play for the day. Have fun bois.
1 Like
god damn this hurts but it’s so right
1 Like
when i stand on the tee and tremble, is it because i am mentally weak or because 15% of the time i hit the ball OB right?
hint: it’s both
Be a Player specifically addresses this in the 2nd chapter. They argue players spend too much time focusing on consistency on the range when golf is a game of variability.
3 Likes
say you’ve listened to Corey Lundberg’s Golf Science Lab and you go to implement his 5-sets-of-5 practice scheme, awesome, you’re excited to get better.
if you hit that first ball short right every time, even if the other 4 are perfect, when you take it to the course, you’re probably going to struggle with a short right miss.
He’s totally right. Most I meet want a quick fix, magic dust or instant results. However to also imply that mental strength or working on oneself is not also important I just find hard to accept, especially the further you get in this great game.
I mean, “mental strength” is insanely hard to quantify or make tangible. @iacas would say the best way to build mental strength is through technique (and so did Ben Hogan in 5 Lessons).
It’s easy to be mentally strong over a 180 yard shot from the rough to a tucked pin when you have worked as hard as FIGJAM. You don’t built that mental strength by thinking about it. Recognizing your pitfalls (and working on them) is very important but not really a “mental game” thing.
I believe I understand what you’re getting at. What I would surmise is that the mental and physical elements of the game are more closely related than they are separated.
There’s no quick fix or replacement for poor fundamentals. In a sense, the physical elements are the only thing that matters. You can’t have a great attitude, make a shitty swing, and end up with a good result. What I would argue is that a much more complete understanding of the mental side of golf has helped me get the most out of my physical abilities, and made it much much much more likely that I will execute shots the way I want to. To summarize it, having a strong mental understanding has increased the likelihood and frequency of well executed shots.
Everyone has hit great shots in their life. It’s unlikely that you can say out loud all of the great things you did in that swing to make it go well. I would guess that everyone out there, like myself, wonders why the great swings and great shots don’t happen more often. I can’t tell you why they don’t. But I will say, that negative thoughts make it much much much more likely that you’re gonna make a shitty swing. As I outlined on the podcast, the negative self talk was one of the biggest developments for me. I was so guilty of saying things out loud that were actively diminishing my game.
“I always go in the water here.”
“I can’t putt left to righters.”
“I topped it here yesterday.”
These are things that are distracting your brain from activating the proper sequence. And the part of the book that I found the most interesting was simply how poor humans are at telling their bodies what to do with their brain. I can really hone in on a swing thought or something technical I’m working on, but most of the time, that’s exposing something else in my swing that’s falling apart. For example, when I’m thinking about the club’s positioning in the swing, my body stops moving. I stop being an athlete, and my game is controlled too much from the left side.
When I’m truly in a right brain state, my best golf is played. Have I put in work to improve my actual swing? Do I have thousands more reps than I’ve had in my life? Absolutely. But I still have days where I really struggle mentally. My game completely stalled out over the last few years, despite plenty of reps. I could not break through. Getting at least in touch with the mental side either weirdly coincided with the biggest leap I’ve ever taken, or it significantly helped drive it.
My best days, and my best swings, are almost always made when I’m in a specific target mindset. I have not mastered that, but I’m letting my subconscious swing the club to help me get a ball to a target. Some days my divots point left, some days they point right. I couldn’t tell you what I’ve got specifically working with my swing, but I feel like I can shape it how I want, when I want.
Do I think anyone off the street can pick up this book and become scratch? No. But do I think you’ll learn a ton of stuff in the first chapter of the book that’s actively prohibiting you from getting a lot more out of your game. One million percent yes. I do not pretend to have the mental game mastered, but getting in touch with the mental side has definitely helped me get the most out of my physical abilities.
February 1, 2019 I was a 3.3 index, playing 100+ times a year. Yesterday, I was a +2.6. I’ve had about an hour of instruction on my golf swing in that time, and about 2 hours of putting instruction. Nothing in those sessions was a complete overhauls or game changer. They helped, for sure, but it took actually believing in myself to be able to get the most out of my game. I’ve had rounds that previously would have gone off the rails get saved by a few deep breaths, and keeping a grounded approach as I stand over a fifteen foot double bogey putt. In a previous life, I would have written off the round before even striking the putt.
In summary: physical skill trumps all, but the right mental approach can definitely help you get the most out of your physical abilities.
14 Likes
Yup. I’ve read the book. That’s partially why I mentioned specific practice in my question. I don’t just pick the same aim point and pound out shot after shot at the same spot repeatedly all the time. I was thinking more about practice where each shot I back away, let some time pass, maybe think about that shot, then pick a new aimpoint/club and start my routine over. Making my practice variable like on the course, but my results on the range are still far better objectively as I record results. I’m struggling to figure out why. The difference isn’t massive, not talking 13 to scratch, but it’s probably 2-3 shots a round.
1 Like
Thanks for the reply, @Soly. I’ll reply in more depth later, as I’m heading out now, but yeah, like Gary Player said (or was it @KVV?) … the harder I work, the luckier I get. Or something like that.
It’s a lot easier to be confident in hitting a shot if you’ve hit it perfectly 10,000 times before, rather than 1 out of every 10,000 times. 
The mental and physical game are definitely linked.
Take care. Excited to see where this topic gets to by later this evening. And in case anyone’s reading me incorrectly, I do think people should read up on mental game stuff. Find the method that works for you. But… it’s also generally something you learn and don’t really have to keep working on, IMO, also. Kinda like AimPoint - learn it, occasionally revisit it for five minutes a month, but otherwise… Learn it and move on.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that improving the mental game makes it so they can magically swing the club better. I think the point is that when you strengthen that aspect, you can play to the best of your ability more often, rather than playing to the worst of your ability.
1 Like
I have little to add to this other than to share that one time in England, my game was completely falling apart and Soly took me aside and said “Let’s take a few deep breaths, be an athlete, and think target here” and I completely turned my game around with no swing adjustments and played the last 8 holes in like 3-over and we won a meaningless match and I played significantly better the rest of our trip and I always think about him whenever I start to get tight and play like shit, and it usually helps.
9 Likes
So we are all saying some sort of the same thing but in a variety of ways, who knew.
I’m not sure how/where or why anyone would think working on yourself and mind can replace working on your technique. I personally have practiced very hard over the years and have worked with many great instructors. I think I’ve been consistent in trying to say (badly as unfortunately I missed far too much school time and education sneaking off to play golf) there is some great value in the mental aspects of the game. These will never replace good technique or physical ability. Yet I am genuinely interested what separates some of the best. Like the gui who slaps it around and shoots low or the picture perfect swing that never brakes par. It’s going to be very different for each of us, which is why I find it fascinating.
1 Like
Many sports have a concept of the “Win-Share” (ex: baseball, and in golf we have “Strokes Gained”). In each win, you only have 1 win-share to distribute, so, to take a “breakdown” (taking SG categories, for example: off-the-tee, approach, around-the-green, on-the-green) and to add another category and assign it any weight does in fact diminish the value of the other categories.