I Want to Love the Game… But I Suck

If you’ve ever said, “I want to love golf, but I suck,” this episode is for you.

We’re digging into why your relationship with golf can feel so up and down—and how tying your love of the game to your performance is messing with your experience.

You’ll learn how to:

• Stop making your score mean something about you
• Detach your self-worth from your handicap
• Enjoy golf more—no matter how you’re playing

This isn’t about fixing your swing. It’s about fixing the way you think.

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Website: KathyHartWood.com

Transcript

If you've ever stood over a ball thinking, why do I even play this stupid game? This episode's for you. Today we're unpacking why your relationship with golf might feel off and how to stop tying your love of the game to your handicap, your score, or your place on the scoreboard. Are you ready? 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. Hello, my golf friend. Welcome back to Think Above Par. I am super happy that you are here. I have decided, okay, I've talked about this. Just. This just popped into my head.

I've talked about changing my introduction to this podcast because I'm like, I need to come up with something different. But I have to tell you, and it's super fun that I run into people who either recognize my voice from this podcast, which I did not know I had a distinctive voice, but clearly I do. I know I say wonky words every once in a while because of my Rochester Buffalo accent.

I guess at least I'm blaming it on that. But I didn't know how many people loved my introduction of hello, my girlfriend. So I am choosing not to change that, as I sometimes wake up in the middle of night thinking of different things to say to just be a little bit more creative or different, so it's not so redundant. Actually, there's probably some of you that I probably annoys the heck out of, but I'm just gonna.

I'm just gonna keep it because I can't come up with anything else. And there are some people who like to hear it. So, hello, my golfriend. I am super happy that you are here, and I hope you're out playing this game of golf that you love, Right? Because that's what I'm gonna talk about today. I had a client who I give this client a lot of responsibility. No, I give this client a lot of credit on being responsible for.

For multiple podcast ideas because she is just full of topic ideas every time that I talk to her. And she said to me, I just want to love this game, but I suck at it. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be a great podcast episode because I want to talk about that, about how we love the game of golf and how we tie it to our performance.

So if you can relate to that, if you can relate to the saying that. I just. I'm. I want to love this game so much. It's a big part of my life. It's a big part of my community. It's what I do. I might live in a golf environment. I have a golf family. It's my activity that I have. I want to love it so badly, but I suck.

Can you relate to that? I can. I for sure can. I quit the game of golf for 10 years because I wanted to love the game, because of exactly that thought. I wanted to love the game, but I just felt like I sucked at it. And I was a golf pro. And really what it was is that I just hated my experience on the golf course. I hated the way that golf made me feel.

And golf wasn't responsible for making me feel a certain way, but I thought it was. I hate how I felt walking off of the golf course. Right? So if this is a sentence that you have in your head or that you've ever had, I want you to listen up because I want to reframe that for you a little bit. Let's say if we can change our relationship with the game of golf and the relationship that you have with your performance and how that plays a role in your relationship with the game of golf.

Because it's important to understand that love is an emotion. It's a feeling that comes from a thought. And when we tie love conditionally for the game to a score, to a number, to a placement, to our performance, to winning or losing, to maybe missed shots, we tie it to things, situation, circumstance, facts. It's going to be challenging to have a love relationship with a game of golf. We often talk about there's a love hate relationship with this game, right?

And the reason is it's rarely do we go out and have a beautiful relationship with our game of golf all day long. Like I loved golf all day. Golf behaved. Golf was my friend, golf was fun. Golf produced nice results for me. I love golf, right? Because we're going to go out and play golf and sometimes it's going to kick us in the butt, and sometimes it's not going to be so nice, and sometimes we're going to be disappointed, we're going to be frustrated.

We might have fear and anxiety. We might attach a lot to our score that makes us feel crappy about ourselves. And therefore we don't love the game like I hate this game. It's a love hate relationship. I hate the game. Today I'm going to play one more time and then I'm quitting. I'm gonna give it one more chance to see if it can change and I can have a better experience.

I can feel better about the game of golf because this is why this matters. Because how you feel about the game of golf, your relationship with the game of golf, your thoughts about it are going to impact how you play. You know someone who goes out there and says, I love this game, it's so much fun, they're gonna scan for evidence of how it's so much fun. But someone who's going out there and making their relationship with the game of golf, their love of the game of golf, their like at the game of golf, conditional.

Like, I'm only going to like it if I see certain things, right? It's going to put a lot of pressure on your golf game. Because of course we want to like the game. We might have a lot invested in it. I need to like this game. I have a country club membership. I got all the equipment, I paid for all the lessons. I want to like it so badly.

I'm invested in this house that's in this golf community. All my friends are here. I just want to like it. I want to love it like some of the other people they, that I play golf with, they just seem to love it so much. But that's not me. Not all the time, right? Then you put pressure on yourself and your golf game to produce a result, a number or a placement, like I said, or a handicap, so that you get to have a sentence in your head.

Because this is true for so many golfers. Most golfers believe that their enjoyment of the game is based on their performance. And I'm not here to say that playing well isn't more pleasurable. Shooting a great number is more fun than shooting a high number. We can all agree that's true. But this is the thinking that then creates this love hate roller coaster, this love hate relationship. Because if we are saying that enjoyment is based on my score, then what we're also saying is that my displeasure with the game, my hate for the game, is also based on my score.

But what if your love of the game wasn't based on how well you play and if that made your head explode just a little bit? Just hang in there with me, okay? So me, for me. I'm going to tell you my story about how I quit. You've heard me talk about this Me playing golf and my relationship with my putting. And I struggled with my putting. And it turned into that I didn't like the way that golf made me feel.

And I had the sentence in my head that, golf is no fun if you can't putt well. And so what that sentence did for me was put more pressure on. On my putting, because I wanted to like the game. It was my life. I was, you know, a top 50 teacher. I taught all the time. I lived at the golf course. But I didn't really enjoy going out there and playing the game because golf wasn't fun unless you could putt.

And then, of course, I would not putt very well. And I'd like. See, golf is no fun. I don't want to even be out here. I don't want to hit 15 greens and shoot 75. That is no fun. So I chose to quit. And I quit for about 10 years. I didn't totally quit because I was in the golf industry. I would go out and play with students.

I'd play in a random scramble, but I just didn't really play. I took a break. I raised my kids. I hit balls. I'd practice. But I didn't really go on the golf course very much because I didn't like how it felt. I didn't love the game. And the thing is, is that what I was doing, which it took me a while to realize, was I was attaching my identity to my score.

In a nutshell, it really wasn't about loving golf. It was about loving myself. Even if I didn't score very well, I, of course, blame golf, but really, underneath it was my relationship with myself, what I was making that number mean about me, what I was making a three putt mean, what I was making a missed birdie putt, a missed short putt, what I was making that mean about me and my ability to play the game and my ability to score.

That's what wasn't fun. That's what I didn't love. It wasn't the game of golf as a whole. It was how I felt about myself because of the game of golf. So my turning point for me and golf was when I changed my relationship with myself. Where I didn't make a score mean anything about me, where I didn't make a missed putt mean anything about me. It didn't dictate my relationship with myself.

When I could separate those two, golf became so much more fun because it didn't matter what my result was. My relationship with myself was whole. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy not playing well, but I wasn't putting the pressure on myself to make putts or to shoot a number so I could feel good about myself. And so when we say that we want to love the game of golf, really what we want to do is we want to have a better relationship with ourselves based on how we're performing.

We're not having our own back. We're beating ourselves up. We're judging ourselves. We're shaming ourselves. And that is not fun. Okay, so let me go through a few key points with you as you go through the thoughtwork for golf. Love, let's call it so. The first one that I want you to note is that love is an emotion or a feeling. It is not a score. A number does not make you feel anything.

It is neutral. It is your thought about the score. And you can say, that was fun, but the reason it was fun, you get to ask yourself the reason it was fun. It can be the experience and the people you're with. But if it's the number that was fun to shoot, why? What's the thought behind it that lets you feel that level of fun and that enjoyment and that love of the game?

It's probably along the lines like, I can do this. I'm pretty good. Things are going my way. Maybe all those lessons are paying off. You choose to love the game of golf based on what you think, not a number. The thought you suck, while you might think it's a fact, is actually created by your thoughts, too. Your judgment and your sentences about yourself and sucking right at golf is based on a thought.

That's it. It's what you're choosing to think, right? Going back to me and my putting, I would have told you that everybody on the planet would agreed with me that I'm gonna. I struggle with my putting, that my putting sucks. But in reality, when I finally stopped and paused and thought about it, the truth is, is that maybe I had 34 putts around. There are a lot of people that I teach who would do a backflip if they could do a backflip for 34 putts.

So that's not true that that sucks, because for some people, it's amazing. It was just my opinion of it, my judgment of it, that it sucked and that it wasn't good enough. And because that wasn't good enough, I wasn't enough. Therefore, I sucked, right? I suck is I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. But that doesn't feel very good. That Feels horrible. So if you say I suck playing this game, of course you're going to blame the game, you're going to blame golf.

But really what it is, it's your sentence about your performance. And this goes to a little bit to expectations about the game and really about your ability and being realistic about what you can do and meeting yourself where you are. Because the truth of the matter is, sometimes I3 putt, sometimes I top it, sometimes I shank it, sometimes I chunk it in the water, sometimes I hit it out of bounds.

I think that's for everybody who plays the game. So when I do those things, I don't need to say to myself that I suck. I had this huge conversation just yesterday, actually, about suck being a swear word. And my husband thinks it's a swear word. And my daughter and I were like, that's not a swear word. So if you're being offended right now by the word suck, it's just.

It's a universal golf term. I think that we say to ourselves often in the golf world, that is a reflection of how we think about our game of golf. So if that word is offensive, I apologize, but I don't. I don't deem it a swear word. Plus, there are studies that you actually live a happier life if you swear. So I don't even know if that's true. Actually, that.

Actually, I did Google that yesterday because this conversation came up, and while there's no studies on it, there is some data. So go ahead and Google that. Do you live longer? Are you happier if you swear? As golfers, I think we're gonna be. We're gonna be doing pretty good because there's a lot of swearing on the golf course. Okay? So one of the things that I would encourage you to do if you do say you stink, I'll, like, clean it up right now.

Right. Is that I want you to ask yourself, what do you make that stinking at golf mean about you? If your game stinks, what is really behind that? What are you making that mean about you as a person? Is yourself worth riding on? Basically, the numbers on the scorecard or the shots that you think you should see, Pretty little shots that go high in the air and land next to the pin and stop instantly.

And then last thing that I want you to think about is, like, why do you play? Like, why are you playing the game of golf? Are you playing to produce a number? Are you playing to improve yourself? Are you playing for the social aspects of the game of golf? Because we need to surrender a Little bit to the fact that you decided to play this game. You also decided to tee it up on the first hole with the anticipation and the possibility that you're going to be disappointed and frustrated and angry and feel some stress and some fear and some fear throughout the round.

That's what we sign up for. But if you're signing up to play the game of golf and you think in your head that you should have a beautiful day and feel great for four hours, you're going to be disappointed because golf is frustrating. There's going to be times when you're going to be frustrated, and frustration is not a problem. We're signing up for that. And if you can accept and surrender to the process of playing this game and improving at this game, then you get to love it because you love the process.

I love that it's challenging and that it's never the same. And no round is the same, no experience is the same. My game isn't the same. I'm not done. I'm continually learning and growing and challenging myself mentally and physically. I love the process. Some days are going to be great, Some days are not going to be so great. And I'm open to all of that. Bring it on.

And if you can enjoy the process, then you're going to love the game of golf. And if you can detach your identity from your number or your score or your placement, you're going to love the game of golf. And when you can clean up your relationship with yourself, especially in saying that you suck at at something, if not just the whole game, then how you feel when you play is going to change.

Your experience is going to change. All right, my friends, you get to decide how you want to feel about the game of golf. The relationship is yours to define. It does not have to be conditional. And I encourage you to write down, what do you want to think about the game of golf? What do you want your relationship to be like? Can you accept rounds when they don't go your way?

Can you accept big numbers? Can you detach it from your relationship with yourself? And when you can do that, you're going to love the game so much more. All right, my friends, I want you to share this with somebody who's in kind of a golf funk with their relationship with the game of golf. And I encourage you to make sure you get on my email list@kathyheartwood.com join so that you can be the first to know on all the new programs I have coming up this year.

All right, Have a beautiful week. And I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.