Do you have shots that just make your head explode when you miss them? Maybe you hit a ball to the right or you hit a fat shot or you scull it out of a bunker and you just get instantly mad or disappointed or shame yourself. That's about your relationship with bad shots. And that's what I'm going to talk about today, is how we can shift that so you can shift your experience and your scores.
All right, let's get to it. 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. Hi, golf friend. Welcome back to Think Above Par. Super happy you're here. So I want to talk to you today about your relationship with your bad golf shots. And this is the thing about golf. Golf is a game of misses, right? It's been said that it's not how good your good shots are, it's how good your bad shots are. So the better you get at missing the ball, the better of a golfer you become.
So in other words, you might hit some beautiful shots, but your miss might be a top, or you might scull it, or you might chunk it really badly, or you might hit it sideways a long way off the tee, maybe 50 yards or so off the tee, right? Those don't work very well because they're not moving you one the tops, and the skulls aren't moving you forward very well.
And the other way, you're not keeping your ball in play. So they're not very good misses. This is what's challenging about a bunker for a lot of people, is that our miss is so bad out of the bunker, we either leave it in the bunker, we scull it out of the bunker, or we get it on. So the better your misses out of a bunker, the better bunker player you are.
It's not that you're not going to miss it. It's that your miss is getting better. So this is a beautiful thing for you to start looking at your golf game, as in, what are my misses and how can I make them better? Not how can I make them necessarily go away? Because you don't have to hit perfect golf shots to score well, but how can I make my misses better?
So in other words, if I hit an Approach shot. Am I getting it up at least pin high? Am I getting it up close to the green or am I chunking some and sculling some or topping them or hitting it off the toe or shanking it? Those are shots or misses that just don't work very well. You get your ball up to the green or you get your ball pin high, right?
It's just a chip at that point. But if you top it or you chunk it, you might have another full swing in. It's not very good. Miss. What I want to do is talk about your relationship with those. So you have them. We all have them. It's golf. We're going to have misses. And a relationship is just really thoughts. That's all it is. Your relationships with people, golf course shocks that you hit, clubs in your bag.
Golf courses, we have relationships with them, meaning we have thoughts about them that make us feel a certain way that creates our relationship with them. Right? So you might have a horrible relationship with your driver. Like, I can't stand my driver. My driver and I don't get along very well. Say that, right? You have a horrible relationship because you have bad thoughts about it. You're not seeing the results that you want.
And. And I'm just going to say your results with that club are not going to get any better until you shift your relationship with your driver. But let's talk about your bad shots, because your relationship with your bad shots is going to affect your results and it's going to affect your experience on the golf course, because we're going to have them. So the better we get not only at improving our bad shots, but improving our relationship with them, our thoughts about them, how we feel about them, the dialogue and the story say about the shots that we miss that don't go the way that we have them pictured in our head is greatly going to affect your results, your score and your experience, how much fun you have or how much fun you don't have on the golf course.
Okay? So the first thing that I want you to do is I want you to find that shot. Just one. I mean, you might have a series of shots that you have bad relationships with, but I want you to find the one where your head kind of just explodes. You instantly get ticked off, mad, disappointed, shame yourself. You instantly have a reaction. And I'm not saying that you're throwing a club or you're doing anything.
It can be internal. Nobody might know it. But your head kind of explodes inside, right? Okay. So for me, my example is. Is fairway Bunker shots. If I hit it fat out of a fairway bunker, my head instantly explodes. Like, it just. I get really mad. The reason I get mad is because I didn't advance the ball very far. It's a bad miss. It's not a useful miss.
It doesn't get up close to the green. I can tolerate, honestly, a shot that. That's a little fat, baby fat, right? So maybe doesn't get on the green, but it's close. I can handle that a little bit better. The other, the other shot that's not my favorite, that I have a bad relationship with, the miss is. And I have a better relationship with the shot is a bunker shot that is about a wedge that I have to hit.
The golf ball, it's past the length of being able to take sand, right? So I need to hit. I need the ball to touch the club face and it's. I'm going to have a wedge in my hand. Doesn't matter which wedge, I'm going to have a wedge in my hand. That miss also makes my head explode because I'm either going to hit it fat or I'm going to scull it and hit.
Then it's going to go over the green. And most of the time, okay, to be really honest, I'm usually really mad at myself for being in that bunker because I work really, really to avoid that. Those bunkers I will do a lot because I have a bad relationship with it. So I'm usually already a little ticked off at myself. I have to manage my mind, and I do that.
I know, I know my situations where I get a little sideways, I need to pivot, and I do that most of the time, right. When I put myself into that spot, because I've been trying not to put myself in that spot for the. Every time I play golf. Okay, so what is your shot that you have that relationship with? It could be putts, too, right? A little three footer that you miss.
You might. Your head might explode a little bit. Could be a bunker shot. So for. And like I said, it could be more than one. Find one. We'll work on this one as an example, and then you get to work on the other ones. So find that one shot, and then I want you to ask yourself, what's the story you have when you miss it? What's the language and the dialogue in your head when you miss that shot?
And this is where it gets tricky, because for me, for many years, when I hit that shot, there was so little space between the miss and the reaction in me of being mad and angry, right? So I would miss the shot and instantly be mad. So to me, the shot made me mad. I spent decades and decades saying, those shots make me mad. Shots don't make you mad.
Shots don't make you disappointed. There was a thought in there, right? So then I was always at the effect of that shot. I couldn't change things. When I hit it fat out of a ferry bunker, I got mad. I met the effect of it. So sometimes that doesn't seem like there's a lot of space in there between the reaction and the emotion. And so sometimes it doesn't feel like there's a lot of space between the miss and then the reaction or the emotion.
But I want you to find the thought. So for me, it was, I should be better. I shouldn't miss these. I go into creating all kinds of stories. So for me, it was, I should be better than this, or I am better than this. I shouldn't keep missing these shots. I know better. I know how to hit the golf ball before the sand. That's what creates the anger, right?
So find your thought and then identify how it feels. And this is the thing that happens is most of the time, we're going to be really angry. We're going to disappointed, or we're going to have shame. We're going to beat ourselves up, right? So for me, I'd have some anger and then I'd have shame. Saying I'm not good enough and that I should be better is shame. So that's a bad relationship.
It's not a healthy, useful relationship. It doesn't serve me with that shot. So. So then what I want you to do is I want you to ask yourself, what are you making it mean? So what are you making it mean that you missed the shot? In my case, I made it mean that I'm not good enough. What are you making it mean about you? And then the last question is, how long does it last?
How long do you stay in that state? Because the longer you stay in the state, that state, the more it's going to impact the rest of your golf game, the more it's going to affect your experience and your shots, how well you hit it. Does the dialogue that you say about those missed shots boost up your confidence or deflate your confidence? Because every time you're moving on that seesaw, so to speak, of moving further away from confidence, then you have more work to get yourself back to a place where you feel halfway decent.
And shame is a heavy one on the golf course, that takes a little bit of time if you shame yourself. And in no way am I saying that you're supposed to like the miss. The job is to go out and have the miss and pivot and make it neutral and make it mean less. Change your relationship with it. And to change your relationship with the missed shot for your own benefit, for your future self, is to quit arguing with it.
Right? I'm a person who sometimes hits fat ferry bunker shots. I keep arguing with it, saying I shouldn't do it, but I do, right? And so what happens is I don't take the time and the effort to go out and practice that because I'm so wrapped up in arguing that I shouldn't be doing it. You gotta meet yourself with where you are. When you're saying, I shouldn't hit that shot, you're already arguing with reality.
You hit the shot, right? And we're doing it at our own expense. So then what I want you to ask yourself is, what can you say? How can you shift that relationship with your shots and miss shots? And I'm not saying you have to go to liking it. Your first step is less mad. Your next step is neutral. And neutral might be as good as you get. You might not be able to get past neutral to a positive place, because who likes bad shots?
I'm not saying that, but you could be less mad. You could not shame yourself. You could make it neutral. Sometimes I miss those. That's who I am. All right, let's move on. You could pivot faster. Start seeing if you can pivot in one hole, not five holes where you're still arguing that three holes ago you hit a fat thyroid bunker shot because it's going to start affecting your confidence moving forward.
It's going to leave this PTSD in your brain about when you're standing in that fairway bunker shot. You're going to remember that if I don't hit this well, I'm going to feel shame and anger. So you put more pressure on yourself over that shot, trying to avoid that negative emotion. All right, my friends, so look for the shots that you have bad relationships with, and let's start shifting them.
Let's make them a little less bad. Let's start making them neutral. Let's start spending less time shaming ourselves over them for the purpose of your score and your experience. We can stop arguing with reality that we missed the shot and start having your own back. All right? If I can help you anyway, make sure that you reach out to me@kathyheartwood.com or send me an email at kathyathyheartwood.com all right, my friends, have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you next Wednesday.
