Taming Golf Course Intimidation: Overcoming People, Shots, and Daunting Holes

In this episode, Kathy dives into the sneaky world of golf intimidation—whether it’s that monster par-3 staring you down, the big-hitting player in your group, or that nagging feeling that’s got you second-guessing your game.

Kathy shares why intimidation is more about our thoughts than the hole or the person on the tee box next to us. You’ll learn why intimidation is just a choice (no, really!) and how to switch from feeling intimidated to feeling calm, confident, and ready to play your best.

Expect some laughs, “aha!” moments, and practical tips you can bring to the course this weekend.

Get the book: Mastering Your Golf Brain: A Guide to Self-Coaching

Stay in the loop at KathyHartWood.com

Transcript

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it.

Hello my golf friends. Welcome back to Above Par. Hope you're having a beautiful day, enjoying some beautiful golf weather. Golf and golf weather. Hope you get both of those right now, this time of year. So today I want to talk about intimidation. Golf intimidation. Being intimidated on the golf course, maybe being a person who intimidates other people, which can be common in sports, especially if you've played other sports where it could be something like trash talking or trying to dominate somebody or try to frighten them.

So according to dictionary, according to Webster's dictionary, the meaning of intimidating is causing a loss of courage or self confidence producing feelings of fear or timid. Timidity. Timidity. How do you say that word? Timidity? Timidity. Okay. You know what I mean? Timid with it. Is that like humidity? Timidity. Wait, timid. I'm going to work on that one. Okay, but you know what I'm saying? Causing one to be timid.

I'm going to have to play like, you know how they announce it for you or pronounce it rather for you. I'm going to have to do that later. But anyway, okay, so I crack myself up. I don't know how to say that word. Okay, so I lost my train of thought. Causing a loss of courage or self confidence producing feelings of fear. Okay, so I want to go through some different situations on the golf course where we can be intimidated.

So most of the time when I run into people talking about intimidation, they state it like it's a fact, like that person was intimidating or they intimidated me. Okay. And I think it's important and useful for you to decide if it's actually true and where it's coming from. Because I think intimidation is a choice. Personally, I think it's something that we can be really self reflective on and understanding and questioning why we are intimidated in that situation.

And when we think it's a fact that we're intimidated or that a hole is intimidating, I'll go through some different scenarios. And golf, where people use that word, when we state it like it's a fact, then we have no choice, we have no control, we have no agency over the situation. It just is. It becomes just something that you're subjected to at the Effect of Love. And I want to help you get a little bit more agency and control over intimidating situations for you.

So I think it's going to fall into two main buckets, in my opinion, or at least for the purpose of this podcast, right? If you can exchange the word frightening or fearful or I'm afraid, where you're using intimidating, right? Then it is the emotion of fear, which is coming from a thought. It is not true that something is intimidating without you producing a thought about it that produces the feeling of intimidation or fear.

So in other words, people will say this hole is really intimidating. The drive, super intimidating, right? Maybe a putt might be an approach shot, and then we'll state it like it's a fact because we're using it as a descriptor, right? It's an adjective. In that case, we're describing it as something. And if you use an adjective such as that to describe it, it's going to invoke an emotion which is not going to serve you in that situation because you are not going to be calm, certain, or confident when you're intimidated.

They can't coexist. So if you're using it as an adjective to describe something, I want you to remember that holes and drives are neutral, right? You want to make them as neutral and factual as you possibly can. Let's say I'm trying to come up with a hole that everybody remember. But let's say at TPC Sawgrass, the 17th Island Green, one could say that's an intimidating shot. That's an intimidating hole.

It's just a hole, right? It's just a par three that has a green surrounded by water. That's it, right? We can make it really neutral and factual. The minute I say it's intimidating or scary, right now, I'm going to not be very free when I'm standing over the ball and swinging. I'm not going to think very clearly. Your brain doesn't want to be scared. To your brain, being scared is fight or flight, right?

So if you're describing situations on the golf course that are actually just facts and you're using and explaining it as if it was intimidating or frightening, right? You're not serving yourself. It's not helpful. It's the same thing as saying something's hard or impossible or. Or a hole is super tight. It's just not something that's useful for your brain. Because while one could argue that it is super Tight in that situation, let's say.

But the facts would be it's. The fairway is 20 yards wide, whatever, 25 yards wide. There's trees on this side and trees on that side. And we want to make it as neutral as we can for our brain. So then we get to think what we want about the neutral situation. Right. Instead of placing an emotion in describing it, we're placing an emotion in the situation or in the fact.

Right now, we already are creating a story in our head about it. So when we describe people as being intimidating in that situation, could you exchange the word fearful or I'm afraid of them. Okay, now, if this person is going to hurt you. Okay, I get it. Because now we do want to be in fight or flight, right? If you're playing golf with someone who you think is going to hurt you, this is a problem.

Right? They're very intimidating. I thought they were going to maybe, you know, hit me. I don't know. Right. Then that works. But most of the time, and when you're intimidated by a person, it's because they're making you feel less than. In some way, they are affecting your confidence. They might be making you feel like not enough, not smart enough, not long enough off the tee. Right? You're intimidated by someone's distance.

Like that's intimidating. Well, think about that. Is it. It's just making you feel less than. Distance isn't intimidating. It's just distance. It's a fact. They hit it 200 yards. If someone has a very strong personality and you don't so much, you might say that they're intimidating. Okay, now to be really vulnerable and honest, I can't tell you how many times people have said that I'm intimidating. And I used to get very offended by that.

Actually, it was ever since I was very young. I got really offended by that because I didn't perceive myself as being scary. And that's all that I heard because my dad was super intimidating to me because I was afraid of him. So I perceived myself as being scary like my dad. I personally don't think I have a mean bone in my body, so it didn't resonate with my brain.

I didn't understand really what they were seeing in me. That was creating a feeling of intimidation in them. I didn't. I didn't want to. I don't want to intimidate people in that way. And actually. Okay, just to bring up another point, I can't do that. You're the one that allows that to happen. You're the person who decides that it's intimidating. But I'm going to get to that in a second.

What I came to learn and what someone brought to my attention was that the way that I carried myself was intimidating. Maybe the way that I interacted socially was intimidating. There. Different parts of my personality were intimidating the other person. It made them feel less than. Of course, I never want to do that either, but I didn't have any control over that. I'm just being me. Right? So if you are with someone in your group and in your head, you're thinking how intimidated you are by this person, maybe you're afraid to speak up, maybe they're very loud or outspoken or very opinionated.

Are you afraid of them? Are you actually fearing for your life like you're scared of them? Or are they making you feel less confident, insecure, self conscious? Right. If that's the case, there's a sentence in there, there's some, some work that you can do on yourself, your relationship with yourself. It's a, it's a, it's a beautiful opportunity to take a look at that. What do I think about myself that's making me feel intimidated around this person, that I'm less than them?

I mean, it might be an opportunity for you to step into something. It might be something that you admire about that person, or it might be a place where you're recognizing that when people are loud and outspoken, you shrink and you quiet down and you don't speak up or you try to avoid conflict. It's just really good place for you to start noticing those areas of yourself that you could have some growth.

Often I find with women particularly, and men too, I shouldn't just stereotype, that is that people who use the rules can often use those to intimidate other people, make them feel less than. It's not scary for someone to state a rule to you or to sit there and say you didn't drop the ball the right way or you didn't do that properly. Right. It just makes you feel not so smart, like you don't know what you're doing.

You become insecure, you're not sure, Right. And then we're intimidated. The thing that I want you to know is there are people who are more susceptible to being intimidated by other people. Those might be people pleasers, shy or soft spoken people. Right. It's easier for you to get a little bulldozed over by stronger personalities. And the other thing too that is really interesting is that I'm going to say in general again, when A woman is confident.

She walks into a room confident. She steps on the first tee and she's confident. She's walking tall. She carries herself in a certain way. If you are not confident or you have a lot of insecurities, right. You may be intimidated by that. It's unfortunate, really, that more women don't walk around with confidence. I'm not talking about arrogance. I'm not talking about being cocky. That's a whole different thing.

Just an inner knowing. It's a state of being confidence that you get to walk around with. And when you are truly confident, you want everybody else to be confident. You don't need to brag or show people that you're confident. You know what to do. Right? There's less judgment. It's so interesting that many women are not comfortable with being confident. I would like more women to be confident and walk around confidently because the more confident you are, the less intimidated you are.

The more you're having your own back, the more you're saying nice words to yourself. You're not beating yourself down. There's less judgment. Right? And then we have space to allow other people to be the way they are. That person can be loud and obnoxious and in your face. Right? But when you're confident, you let them be that way. Right? And then they don't intimidate you or make you feel inferior or less than.

So being intimidated or feeling intimidated always comes from a thought. And it's coming from the thought that I'm either afraid or I feel less than, less confident, more insecure about myself. It's impacting my relationship with myself. So intimidation is a choice. Unless, of course, you're fearing for your life. Right? But intimidation is a choice. You are deciding and choosing to be intimidated at that moment by what you're deciding to think and choosing to think because it's an emotion.

Emotions come from thoughts. It is never a situation or a person or words people say or a hole or a putt or a shot that is intimidating. It is your thought about it. So the next time that comes up for you on the golf course, I want you to ask you two questions. Am I afraid? Okay. And if I'm afraid, what are you afraid of? Most of the time, we're afraid of just an emotion.

Unless our life is in the line. What emotion are you afraid of? Or are you feeling less than at that moment? Is that person making you feel insecure? Which that person can't do? It's your thoughts about you that are making you feel insecure. So I think intimidation is a beautiful place for us to really look at the different situations and the people and the places where we have that feeling and that emotion or we say those things to ourselves that we're intimidated.

And it's a beautiful place for us to grow and learn and shift and pivot and choose to be less intimidated so that we can play golf from a more calm and certain or confident place and we can walk around with self confidence. All right, my friend, look for the places you are intimidated. And if you are an intimidator, which I didn't bring up, I want you to question why you're doing that.

Why are you trying to make people intimidated? Why are you trying to scare them? What are you getting out of that? Are you trying to get a competitive advantage or are you trying to make yourself feel better by making someone feel less? Most of the time I'm going to tell you, if you have someone in your life, your golf life or your life who is intimidating you, like purposely trying to intimidate you or scare you, usually when you get in their face, they back down.

If you call it out on them or say words or set a boundary, they back down. All right, my friends, golf intimidation. See where it shows up in your life. All right, have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye. And if you're ready to level up, or if you feel like you didn't get what you wanted out of your golf game this season or you felt like you underperformed, I'm looking for four to five serious golfers who want to play to their potential and feel proud of the way that they showed up the results they create on the golf course.

So if that's you and you feel like you're ready, make sure that you look at the show notes for a link to schedule a short 10 minute clarity call so we can see if we're a good fit.