Perform Your Best Under Pressure in Golf

Despite the hope promised by 'hot new' golf products, the sad truth is that only a small percentage of golfers ever improve.

Handicap statistics compiled by the National Golf Foundation and United States Golf Association show that most golfers establish their level of competency after a few years. After that, they seldom vary their scores by more than a stroke or two.*

Most golfers' lack of progress is due to improper mental training. Golfers tend to obsess over equipment and technique. They neglect the mental side of golf and their short game.

To play better golf, you need to build and practice a consistent swing that you trust.

Forget the right forearm and the left hip. Forget pushing, pulling, and rotating. Make your game as simple and repeatable as possible. Focus solely on doing what is necessary for you to square the club to the target line at impact.

To square your club to the target line at impact, the following four ingredients are a must:

- A good grip
- The proper set up
- The right swing speed
- Gaining a feel for the swing

The first two ingredients are easy if you don't already have them. A good pro at your club can give them to you in a few minutes.

The second two are tougher, because your mind can creep in and create errors. A common cause of errors in your swing is overtightness in the muscles, which happens when you tense up.

When your muscles tighten, your swing slows, you cannot connect to the feel of the swing, and your drives get shorter and shorter.

This is why it is so important to develop enough mental toughness on the golf course so you can relax. Not only do you enjoy golf more, your drives become longer and more consistent.

How to perform your best under pressure in golf

Most sport psychologists will never tell you that virtually all golfers have the exact same reaction when they are not playing well under pressure.

First, they become frustrated and a bit angry. Second, they lose their confidence, worried they're going to get worse and worse. Third, put pressure on themselves to feel better, fast.

None of these reactions leads to consistent, magnificent golf performance.

Performing your best under pressure in golf is a matter of emotional self-mastery
in the key moments of a round.

Mastering fear, frustration, and performance anxiety

To be confident and consistent under pressure, you must know how to handle your fear, frustration, and performance anxiety.

Why? Because these negative feelings can destroy your ability to trust yourself and your swing.

For example,

(a) Let's imagine that you start slicing the ball.

(b) Instantly, you become upset, because you want to be more consistent. Frustrated, you try and guide or steer the ball, which interferes with your swing technique enough to erode your game.

(c) By knowing a better way to handle your frustration than trying to steer the ball, you can prevent this from happening again. As a result, your emotional climate does not change; you play even better after your bad shots.

(d) As you get better at mastering fear and frustration, you become more unflappable, more consistent under pressure, and more impressive to everyone - especially yourself.

Since you found this article, you probably already know that there many sport psychology techniques out there. You’ve probably even tried some of them.

The problem is that most of these techniques don't work.

Why So Many Sport Psychology Techniques Fail Long Term

Affirmations, positive thinking, and visualization (or whatever) pump you up temporarily, but the moment you stop doing them, your fear and performance anxiety come back.

This is because you are using a lone technique that may or may not cure the situation you are facing in golf.

Let me give you an example...

Have you ever been told that to re-gain your confidence, you need to think more positively?

Did it work?

I'm betting that it worked sometimes, but other times, it only made you more frustrated.

There are times under pressure when positive thinking is the wrong technique—it’s just not helping you. In these situations, you're better off not pressuring yourself
to be positive.

Here's why: being positive means finding something good in the situation, e.g., 'It's great that I lost that tournament because I need a day off.'

The problem with trying to be positive in all pressure situations is that there may not be anything good about the problem you are facing. Trying to force a positive reaction in such a situation will only deflate you.

You can see now that there are many other sport psychology techniques than positive thinking.

Here’s one:

The time: 1972.
The place: The British Open.
The combatants: Lee Trevino vs. Jack Nicklaus.

Nicklaus - at the top of his game - was charging.

On the 17th Trevino hits a series of bad shots. Although he maintains his one-shot lead, he loses his focus.

What's more, his troubles are being shown on TV sets all over the world. Everyone sees what's happening. "Trevino's blown," somebody in the crowd yells.

Trevino's caddy turns to hurry to the 18th tee, but Lee grabs him: "No, not yet," he says. "Let's wait for Tony (Jacklin) before we walk back there." (Jacklin was Trevino's playing partner that day.)

In a calculated move, Trevino waits for Jacklin to hole out. He has one goal in mind: recapturing his mental focus. Then Trevino walks to the 18th with Jacklin.

When he gets there, he doesn't linger:

He grabs the driver, tees it up, takes one look, and hits it, blasting a long drive down the middle of the fairway.

"At long last," Henry Longhurst intones on the BBC, "we've seen the shot that won the Open."

Trevino closes out Nicklaus with a par, out-dueling him for the claret cup.

Bringing Yourself Into the Now

Instead of always trying to force a positive mindset, you can try Trevino's strategy. Take a mental "time out" and use it to bring your focus into the Now. The present moment is all that matters.

The easiest way to do this is to acknowledge your negativity. Accept it without resistance. It is a natural consequence of not performing the way you want.

Once you've taken a few moments to do that, shift your mind to the future. If you're still angry, use your anger to help yourself focus on the next shot. Say to yourself, "I'm better than this," and get your focus absorbed in your upcoming shot. What is the right focus you need to hit the ball well? Is it your stance? Your swing rhythm? Whatever it is, put your attention on this focus.

If you are thinking to yourself, "I really, really need to learn about the mental game of golf," then YOU'RE RIGHT.

You certainly do need to get it handled.

You need to learn how to become mentally tough on the golf course RIGHT NOW. And the very way to learn how is to get yourself a copy of my new book, "Breakthrough Golf! Lower Your Score Now Using the Mental Toughness Secrets of Professional Athletes."

I spent literally YEARS figuring out all of the hundreds of ideas and step-by-step techniques that I teach in this program... and you can have it in your hot little hands to check out at NO RISK, because it comes with a 100% money-back guarantee.

I'm THAT confident about it helping you.

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I'll talk to you again soon.

Your friend,
Lisa Lane Brown
Author, Breakthrough Golf