Golf Rock Bottom: Swing or Mind?
By mid-August, my golf performance had reached its lowest point. I can recall with crystal clarity the precise instant when the final remnants of a decent game abandoned me and all optimism vanished.
This occurred early in a scorecard round. My initial drive was a clumsy pull using a 3-wood (played conservatively) that ended up dangerously near some out-of-bounds markers. My subsequent punch-out attempt was executed so poorly that it veered straight left, struck a path, and trickled out of bounds.
I stood in disbelief, observing my own incompetence. I had transformed a straightforward par 4, one of the easiest holes on the course, into a score-destroying quadruple bogey.
At the time, I blamed my swing, but upon reflection, I have concluded that the primary issue was mental. To provide context, I had been struggling with my game for several months.
My scores initially plateaued before beginning to rise gradually. As the quality of my play deteriorated, I began considering resets, adjusting my objectives, and seeking new swing cues. Here are some examples of the swing thoughts I attempted:
- Pause at the top of the backswing
- Push down into my left heel at the start of the downswing
- Hold the finish position
- Weaken my grip
- Maintain my spine angle better through impact
As evident, my mind was in disarray, yet I persisted in believing the issue was purely technical. A contributing factor was that, being deep into the competitive season, I could not step away or hit the pause button.
Competitive rounds continued to arrive, and I relied solely on the hope that a new swing thought would succeed. Although these moments are painful, they are invariably temporary.
In September, I took a couple of weeks off from playing and visited the driving range. Without making any changes, I began striking the ball correctly again. The tangled cycle of destructive thinking began to loosen.
(Image credit: Kevin Murray)
The lesson here is that the mental demands of golf are uniquely taxing. It is overly optimistic to assume that recent poor performances will suddenly improve with nothing more than a new swing thought. Yet, it is a trap I still fall into almost 40 years after I started playing.
A series of lessons to address technical issues would certainly be prudent (I am certainly not claiming I lack swing problems), but so too would developing my own approach to the mental game in general.
What I have realized is that the list of swing thoughts I tried stemmed from panic. They were often decided upon hours or even minutes before stepping onto the first tee.
(Image credit: Tom Lewis)
Is Your Bad Golf A Technical Or Mental Problem?
Clearly, I should have been focusing on performance skills, but instead, I was searching for swing fixes. The results were predictably poor, yet my mind was too frazzled to perceive the reality of the situation. I wasn’t even asking: Is your bad golf a technical or mental problem?
What I would like to ask is – have you transformed your fortunes by exploring different mental techniques? There is a comment box below, and I would love to hear from you if you have. It could provide the inspiration to help other golfers who find themselves spiralling into negative thinking without realizing it, myself included.
