The Struggle
How many times have you stood over the ball, about to pull the club back, and you’re still having a conversation in your head about what shot you want to hit?
Never? Yeah, me neither. Never happens. Nope.
Actually, I can remember several times I did this just last week.
It usually goes like this: It’s a somewhat difficult shot, it has more than one way to get it close, there’s multiple clubs that could be the right choice, I pick one but don’t really pick it, I really just arbitrarily decide that I’ve been taking too long so “get on with it Josh you need to just pick already”, I step into the ball, and I’m deciding as I’m standing over the ball whether this is the right choice of shot and club. I pull the trigger with a sense of hope, but not the good kind of hope.
Sometimes it works out, which is enough to keep me thinking this is an ok behavior. But if I was truly objective about it, this gives me about a 1 in 10 chance of hitting a good one.
The Solution
In Paper Tiger, over halfway through the book Tom Coyne finally decides he needs to work on his golf psychology. He has meetings with a couple guys that seem way too busy and unenthused by Tom’s goal.
But eventually he gets to Bob Winters (I know three really prominent golf psychology experts with the name Bob 🤔). A lot of what Bob has said so far in their first meeting sounds pretty mental game boilerplate, but one thing he said stuck out to me. He said:
“You have to get to Yes before each and every golf shot. If you can get to Yes, and only Yes—with that mind-set, you are giving yourself an opportunity to succeed.”
This might also come across as another cliché phrase spit out by another one of seemingly thousands of different mental game experts. But this particular way of thinking about commitment is something I’ve come to use in my own game.
I like to ask myself two questions:
- Do I know what I’m trying to do on this shot?
- Do I like what I’m trying to do on this shot?
If I can’t answer yes to one or both of these, I have no business getting over the golf ball.
Another Bob mental game expert (Rotella to be exact) used the concept (I’m paraphrasing) “It’s better to be wrong and committed than right and doubtful.”
This tracks with me. When you’re on a par 3 tee box, and the wind is whipping and you can’t tell how much it’s going to hurt or help, the best thing to remind yourself in that moment is sometimes you can’t know what the conditions are going to do, but you can always know what you’re going to do.
This is commitment. To get to ‘Yes’ before stepping into the shot. To know and like what you’re going to do on this shot.
Then you can make a convicted pass at the ball, and much easier live with the consequences.
One thing for you to work on this week:
Ask yourself before every shot:
- Do I know what I’m trying to do on this shot?
- Do I like what I’m trying to do on this shot?
And get to ‘Yes’ to both of those before stepping into the ball. You’ll get better and faster at this the more you do it.
To-do: Fully commit to every shot before stepping into the ball.