Feeling those first-tee jitters? In this episode, we break down what causes them and how to stop them from sabotaging your game. Learn three simple strategies to stay calm, focused, and confident—no matter how big the moment. I’m confident you’ll learn:
The Problem
On October 13, 2017, I walked onto the first tee of the final match of the U.S. Mid-Amateur, about to duke it out against Matt Parziale for 36 holes to decide the championship. There was a couple dozen people out at 8am ready to watch us. USGA officials. Friends, family. The U.S. Mid-Amateur and U.S. Open trophies sitting on a table next to the tee box. You better believe I was nervous.
But was I nervous? Or was I actually anxious?
In his book Unwinding Anxiety, Judson Brewer says this: “anxiety and its close cousin, panic, are both born from fear”.
Our brains crave certainty about the future. If we are uncertain of how things could go, and we don’t like that uncertainty, then we will be scared of that uncertain future. Which is just a way to describe anxiety.
As Brewer says it, “Anxiety is born when our PFCs don’t have enough information to accurately predict the future.”
What’s a PFC? A PFC is the prefrontal cortex. It’s the part of our brain responsible for future planning. So when that part of brain, which needs info, doesn’t have info, it goes into overdrive to try to create that info through running simulations of how the future could or might go.
Enter the first tee box. The first tee box of any round has all the ingredients for a perfect anxiety recipe. You have something important to you, you have desire to do well, you have memories for how past rounds have gone, and you have uncertainty about how this round could go.
Here’s some of the symptoms of anxiety:
No wonder you’re jittery, because you very well might be anxious.
Which is exactly what I was on the first tee of the final match of the U.S. Mid-Amateur. All the ingredients were there and were doubled and tripled. This was obviously important to me. Winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur is the goal of every tournament-playing mid-am golfer. I wanted to do well, because winning means an exemption into the U.S. Open and an invitation to The Masters. I had past memories buried deep within me of dozens and dozens of past tournaments that did not go well. And I of course had total uncertainty for how this match might or could go.
So I’m anxious on the first tee of a USGA Championship. That’s not super surprising. But here’s the thing: this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. There’s nowhere that states “you must be anxious on the first tee of a tournament.” Anxiety doesn’t have to be our reality.
Anxiety is unhelpful, because it causes our minds to dwell on the past (to drum up past info) and to race into the future (to simulate possible outcomes). All while the important stuff, aka the shot we need to hit next, is in the present.
So we need a framework for alleviating this anxiety when it comes up. Or to keep it from ever arising.
I want to go through three strategies for challenging the anxiety that causes those first tee jitters.
Strategy 1: Awareness
Strategy #1 is awareness.
If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you know that I almost always list awareness as the very first step in almost any mental framework. That’s because awareness is our first line of defense. You can’t fight what you don’t know.
Awareness in this case is turning your attention inward to notice how you feel on the first tee. Actively paying attention to how you feel isn’t something a lot of us golfers do. We’d rather stuff it down and get on with hitting the shot. But this leaves your mental state entirely up to chance. In order to change things, you first need to be aware of those things.
So how can we be more aware? A good strategy I like is to use the walk up to the first tee as a trigger. You make a plan before you even get to the course that you’re going to check your mental state as you walk up to the first tee. Maybe you’re parking your cart and after you get out and get your driver and walk up to the tee you’re internally asking the question “ok, how do I feel?” Or if you’re walking, as you approach the tee and you put your bag down, that serves as the trigger to remind you to do that internal check. Or you can find your own version of this, but make sure you plan ahead for awareness. Hoping that you’ll be aware in the heat of the moment is a great way for it to never happen.
So you’ve brought your awareness to how you’re feeling on the first tee, now you can stack on strategy 2, which is your pre-shot routine.
Strategy 2: Pre-Shot Routine
Your pre-shot routine, or your process, or whatever you want to call it, is the steps you take before hitting the ball to ready you physically and mentally to be present and freed up on this shot.
I’ve talked about my own pre-shot routine before in the episode of The Mental Golf Show appropriately titled “My Pre-Shot Routine”, so if you’re interested in what I do you can go give that one a listen.
But essentially, your first job is to be present. So how can a pre-shot routine help you do that?
I encourage you to incorporate some sort of grounding technique into your shot process. A grounding technique is something that brings your attention from wherever it might be in the past, future, score, other people, etc, back to the present.
A really good, simple grounding technique that you’ve no doubt heard people talk about before is breathing. Breathing is such a good grounding technique because it simultaneously relaxes your physical body and brings your mind back to the present. But only if you do it correctly.
Breathing just to breath might slow your heart rate down a little, but it probably won’t do much else. Attentive breathing, however, is a much more productive way to breathe. You’re breathing, while paying attention to your breathing. So now you’re probably going to breathe a little slower and more intentionally. And you’re also going to be bringing your mind to your breath, which, not surprisingly, is in the present. Building a habit of doing this at some point during your pre-shot routine, or even the whole time you’re paying attention to your thoughts as you’re walking up to the first tee, will be a reliable way to be more present on every shot.
So you’re more aware of the potential anxiety as you walk up to the first tee, and now you’ve anchored yourself back to the present with your process including some attentive breathing, now let’s finish it off with the most important strategy: Pre-Acceptance.
Strategy 3: Pre-Acceptance
What is acceptance? As Raymond Prior puts it in his excellent book Golf Beneath the Surface, “Acceptance is seeing things as they are, not as we think they must or should be. Acceptance is an acknowledgment of our current reality.” If you were to put this concept into something you could say on the first tee, it would be, “This shot can go anywhere and I’ll be ok.”
If you can stand on the first tee and say with full authenticity, “this shot, this hole, this round can go however it’s going to go, and no matter what I’ll be ok” then you are essentially bulletproof. You confidence is totally unshakable.
Now, bulletproof, unshakable confidence does not mean nothing bad will happen. It means that bad things will happen and you won’t be shaken by them. Those things won’t change you.
This is the first thing I would do differently if I could go back to that first tee of the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur. I would remind myself of the mentality I had the 7 rounds I had already played that week up to that point. It was a very simple, peaceful mentality that sounded something like “No matter what happens here this has been an awesome opportunity to test my game on the biggest stage.” I’ll admit- that changed for that final match. The potential payoff, and therefore the potential consequences of defeat finally hit me. And I lost that bulletproof, unshakable confidence that acceptance can give you.
So pre-accepting the potential outcome, both on the big scale of the entire round or tournament, and on the small scale of this first tee shot, leads to tremendous freedom. And will of course alleviate the jitters that naturally arise as a symptom of anxiety.
First Tee Jitters Are Normal
It’s really important to make sure we all know this: first tee jitters are natural and normal. They are your brain’s natural response to being in a situation that’s important to you and you want to go well, while also not knowing anything about how it could go. Because of course we can’t know how it’s going to go. So acceptance of that fact is essential. The future is uncertain, and that’s ok.
So remember: if you realize that the first tee jitters are causing more harm than good, it’s probably a form of anxiety. In which case your strategies are to be aware of its presence as you walk up to the first tee, go through your process to ground you in the present, and pre-accept the result, knowing nothing about you will change no matter where this first tee shot goes.