When coaching I instil the importance of maintaining focus on your own golf game and getting in your zone. But what if that zone makes you practically ignore your playing partners and becomes detrimental to your popularity at the golf club? I know many golfers who feel like they can’t be too focused as they don’t want to come across as being rude.
Is there a balance that can be struck? The subject arose recently when my pupil Matt asked me this very question. He’s been working hard with me this season on the mental side of his game – focusing on routine, acceptance, and trusting the process.
It paid off early at a recent event: an eagle on the short par-4 4th, a string of 10–12 foot putts, and he turned in one over. He was so locked in that he forgot to pull the pin out for his playing partners a couple of times. He couldn’t tell what they’d scored, he had to ask after every hole as he was fully in his own headspace.
The back nine started well, hitting fairways and keeping his rhythm, but things slowly unravelled. His partners began finding trouble, and he found himself helping them look for balls more and more. A fast, low-handicap group behind them started pressing, waiting on tees and approaches. His tempo collapsed, he was rushing, skipping parts of his routine, and hitting poor chips and long-range putts under pressure.
(Image credit: Future)
The result? A +12 back nine that felt far worse on the card than it looked on the course. Even his partners said it didn’t seem like he played that badly. But the truth is, his focus had shifted from his game to everyone else’s.
Matt’s tale isn’t unfamiliar. We’ve all been there. I know some golfers who refuse to play with beginners because they struggle to maintain focus on their own game.
Many would suggest that if you really want to play your best golf, then switching off from the rest of your group is the way forward, just look at tour players. However, I’d argue that one of the joys of golf is the incredible array of different people that we get to play with. By blocking them out, surely we are losing out on one of the main reasons so many of us play. If you use golf for business networking then this approach would make the entire outing pointless.
I believe you can play great golf and…
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