Category: Mental Game

The Hole Where Everything Fell Apart

I was one over through six holes.

Not playing out of my mind, just… solid. Fairways, greens, a couple of decent putts. The kind of round where you start doing quiet math in your head about what this might turn into.

Then I missed a short putt on the 7th.

Not even a bad stroke. Just misread it.

Tapped in, walked to the next tee, and something shifted.

I pulled my drive left. Tried to “fix it” on the next shot and pushed it right. Walked off with a double.

And just like that, the round was gone.

Not because my swing disappeared — but because my head did.

It’s Not One Bad Shot — It’s What Comes After

Bad shots happen. That’s golf.

The real damage comes from what you do after the bad shot.

I used to think I lost rounds because I hit poor shots. Now I know I lost them because I couldn’t reset. One mistake turned into two, then three, then a hole you’re trying to forget before you’ve even finished it.

It snowballs fast.

And the worst part is, it feels like you’re still in control while it’s happening.

You’re Carrying the Last Shot Into the Next One

This is the mental leak most people never fix.

You hit a bad shot, and it doesn’t stay back there. It follows you to the next one. You’re standing over the ball, but your brain is replaying what just happened.

Trying to correct it.

Trying to avoid it.

Trying to make up for it.

None of that helps.

You’re basically hitting the next shot with leftover frustration, and it shows.

The “Make It Back” Trap

This one got me more times than I can count.

You mess up a hole, and suddenly you’re trying to get those strokes back immediately. You start aiming at pins you wouldn’t normally aim at. You take on shots you wouldn’t usually consider.

You get aggressive in the wrong places.

I’ll say this clearly — trying to “make it back” right away is one of the fastest ways to ruin a round.

Golf doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to recover all at once.

You recover by not making things worse.

Your Expectations Are Quietly Killing You

I used to go into rounds expecting to play well.

Not hoping. Expecting.

Sounds like confidence, right?

It’s not.

Because the moment things don’t go according to that expectation, frustration kicks in. Now you’re not just dealing with the shot — you’re dealing with the gap between what you thought would happen and what actually did.

That gap is where bad decisions live.

Lowering expectations doesn’t mean giving up. It means allowing the round to unfold without forcing it to match some ideal version in your head.

The One Thing That Surprised Me

I once played a round where I told myself I didn’t care about the score.

Not in a fake way — I actually meant it. I was just going to hit each shot, walk, and repeat.

I ended up playing one of the most consistent rounds I’d had in a long time.

What surprised me wasn’t the score. It was how calm everything felt. No rush. No pressure to fix anything. Just one shot at a time.

It felt almost too simple.

Which is probably why most people don’t stick with it.

You Need a Reset Between Shots

This isn’t optional.

If you don’t have some kind of reset, you’re carrying emotional baggage from shot to shot.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be as simple as taking a breath, looking around, or focusing on something unrelated to golf for a few seconds.

The point is to break the chain.

Why this works is pretty basic — your brain needs a moment to let go of the previous shot. Without that pause, everything blends together, and your decision-making gets worse.

You start reacting instead of choosing.

Overthinking Isn’t the Same as Focus

I used to stand over the ball with five swing thoughts.

Grip, takeaway, tempo, weight shift, don’t slice it.

That’s not focus. That’s overload.

And when you’re overloaded, your body doesn’t move freely. It hesitates. It tightens up.

Pick one simple thought. Or none.

Sometimes the best swings happen when you’re not trying to control every part of it.

You’re Not Supposed to Feel Perfect

This is something I’m still working on.

There’s this idea that before a good shot, everything should feel right. Comfortable, confident, clean.

That’s not always how it works.

Some of my best shots have come when I felt slightly off, unsure, even a bit tense.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with committing anyway. Not waiting for perfect conditions.

If you only swing when everything feels right, you’ll be waiting a long time.

The Score Isn’t the Problem

I used to check my score constantly during a round.

After every hole. Sometimes mid-hole.

And every time I did, it changed how I played. If I was doing well, I got cautious. If I was struggling, I got desperate.

Both are bad.

The score is just a reflection of what’s already happened. It doesn’t help you hit the next shot.

But it definitely influences how you approach it.

The Round Is Longer Than You Think

One bad hole doesn’t define anything.

But it feels like it does when you’re in the middle of it.

You’ve got time. More holes. More chances to play smart, steady golf.

The problem is, most people don’t give themselves that chance. They mentally check out or start forcing things way too early.

The round isn’t over just because it stopped matching what you wanted.

But your mindset might already be acting like it is.

The Range Session That Made Everything Worse

I spent an entire afternoon trying to copy a tour pro’s swing I saw online.

Paused the video. Rewatched it. Tried to match the takeaway, the position at the top, the way the club dropped in transition. I was convinced if I could just get those positions right, everything would click.

By the end of the session, I was hitting it worse than I had in months.

Not a little worse. Completely lost.

That was the moment I started questioning the whole idea.

You’re Copying a Snapshot, Not a Swing

What you see in slow-motion videos are positions.

Not the actual movement that creates them.

That’s the trap.

You see a perfect position at the top of the backswing and think, “If I can just get there, I’ll be fine.” But that position is the result of a specific motion, timing, flexibility, and sequence that you don’t see.

You’re copying the end product without understanding how it was created.

It’s like trying to copy a finished painting by staring at it long enough.

Your Body Isn’t Built Like Theirs

This one is uncomfortable but true.

Tour players have different levels of flexibility, strength, balance, and coordination. Their swings are built around what their bodies can do consistently under pressure.

Yours isn’t.

Trying to force your body into positions it can’t naturally reach or control leads to compensation. You might get there once or twice, but it won’t hold up.

And when it doesn’t, your timing falls apart.

I Tried to “Fix” My Backswing for Months

I got obsessed with having a “perfect” backswing.

Thought that was the key.

I shortened it, lengthened it, tried to get the club more on plane, less on plane. I was chasing this idea that if it looked right, it would work.

What surprised me was how little it mattered compared to what happened on the way down.

My contact didn’t improve. My ball flight didn’t stabilize. I just became more mechanical and less athletic.

That was frustrating.

You’re Ignoring What Actually Matters

Here’s the opinion I’ll defend all day.

Most golfers should care less about how their swing looks and more about what the club is doing at impact.

Face angle. Path. Low point. Contact.

Those things decide where the ball goes.

Not whether your backswing looks like a tour pro’s.

You can have a swing that looks unconventional and still play great golf if you control those impact conditions.

Plenty of good players do.

Timing Is Doing More Work Than You Think

When you copy a pro’s swing, you’re also copying their timing — or trying to.

That’s the problem.

Their timing is built from thousands of repetitions, their physical abilities, and how they sequence their movement.

When you try to force their positions, your timing changes. Now you’re trying to match something your body doesn’t naturally produce.

That’s when you get those swings that feel completely out of sync.

One shot feels okay, the next feels awful, and you have no idea why.

You Don’t Need Perfect Positions

This is something I wish someone told me earlier.

There isn’t one perfect way to swing a golf club.

There are patterns that work, sure. But within those patterns, there’s a lot of variation.

You don’t need your club to be in the exact same spot as a tour pro at every checkpoint.

You need something repeatable.

Something you can rely on when the pressure’s on, or when your timing isn’t perfect.

Because your timing won’t always be perfect.

The Range vs The Course Problem

Here’s where copying swings really falls apart.

On the range, with no pressure, you can sometimes get close to those positions. You can slow things down, think about every movement, try to make it look right.

Then you get on the course.

One ball. Real consequences.

Suddenly you don’t have time to think about five different swing positions. Your body reverts to what it actually knows, not what you practiced for an hour.

That’s why it feels like your swing “disappears.”

It didn’t disappear. It was never fully yours to begin with.

What You Should Be Doing Instead

Focus on ball flight first.

What is the ball doing? Starting left, right, curving, flying too low, too high?

That tells you what the club is doing at impact.

Then make small adjustments based on that.

If the ball starts right, your face is likely open. If it curves too much, your face and path relationship is off.

You don’t need to fix ten things. You need to influence the outcome.

That’s a much more direct way to improve.

I’m Still Not Sure About “Feels”

There’s a lot of talk about swing “feels.”

Do this, feel that, imagine this movement.

Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it confuses things even more.

I’m not fully convinced there’s a universal set of feels that works for everyone. What clicks for one person might do nothing for another.

So I treat feels as temporary tools, not permanent solutions.

Use them if they help. Drop them if they don’t.

The Swing You Trust Beats the Swing That Looks Good

I’ve seen players with technically beautiful swings struggle to score.

I’ve also seen players with unconventional swings play consistently solid golf.

The difference isn’t aesthetics. It’s trust.

If you trust your swing, you commit to it. If you’re constantly trying to adjust it to match something you saw online, that trust never builds.

You’re always in between versions of your swing.

And that’s a tough place to play from.

You’re Chasing the Wrong Goal

Copying a tour pro’s swing feels productive.

It looks like improvement. It gives you something concrete to work toward.

But it’s not the goal.

The goal is to hit the ball where you want, more often.

And that doesn’t require your swing to look like anyone else’s.

It requires you to understand your own tendencies, build something repeatable, and stop chasing positions that don’t belong to you.

That took me way longer to figure out than it should have.