Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Serious golfer? You know you’ve got the talent—but your brain keeps getting in the way. Think Above Par helps you master the mental game of golf, stop overthinking, and quit worrying about what others think on the course so you can play calm, confident, and consistent golf every round.
If you’re a serious golfer who knows you’re leaving shots out on the course, Think Above Par is your go-to podcast for mastering the mental game of golf. Hosted by Kathy Hart —a former Tour player, Top 50 Teacher, and Certified Mental Coach—each episode helps you strengthen your golf mindset, manage pressure, and play calm, confident, and consistent golf.
You’ll discover why you underperform under pressure, how to stop overthinking your swing, and what to do when you’re worried about what others think on the golf course. Whether you struggle with performance anxiety, perfectionism, or negative self-talk, Kathy shares proven mental-game tools to help you unlock your talent, enjoy the game again, and lower your golf scores.
Learn how to think above par—so you can play below par. Subscribe now to your weekly dose of golf mindset coaching and start transforming your golf brain today.
Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Stop Trying to Focus for 18 Holes
•Kathy Hart Wood
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Ever feel like you should be able to stay focused for all 18 holes?
Yeah… good luck with that.
In this episode, I’m giving you permission to stop trying to focus for four straight hours like some kind of highly caffeinated golf robot. Your brain is supposed to wander. It’s human. It’s normal. It may even start thinking about dinner, the beverage cart, or why Betty won’t stop talking right before you hit.
The real skill isn’t perfect focus. It’s learning how to refocus.
You’ll learn why losing focus doesn’t mean something has gone wrong, how to bring your brain back to the shot in front of you, and why your pre-shot routine can become your best little reset button. We’ll also talk about what happens after a bad shot, when your focus gets stuck on the mistake and suddenly one swing turns into four holes of mental drama.
Golf is not a game of perfect focus. It’s a game of repeated refocusing.
So if your brain wanders off like a puppy rolling in a dead frog, don’t panic. Just bring it back to the fairway.
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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. Hope everything is amazing in your world. I wanted to talk about focusing today, and I have good news. If you're a person who loses focus on the golf course and you get upset with yourself, you're like, gosh, I just need to focus more. I lose my focus. I lose my concentration.
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Right?
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Is that you? Can you relate to that? I have good news for you. You are supposed to lose your focus being a human. This is fantastic news. In fact, about 50% of the time, we lose focus. Have you ever been on the 16th hole and your mind wanders and goes back to what happened on number six? Or what happens to me a lot of times, or did happen to me a lot of times, or what has happened to me a lot of times is I'll be playing golf and I'll be standing. Or have you ever stood over shot and noticed that your mind is wandering? It's not on the task at hand. You're thinking about why Betty won't stop talking, why John is wearing pants on a hundred-degree day. Then you go to where's the beverage cart girl? I haven't seen her in a hot minute. And I wonder what I'm gonna have for dinner. All over the ball, when is your turn to hit? And then you think there's something wrong with you. But I'm gonna tell you there's nothing wrong with you. There are studies on this, one called The Wandering Mind, that 47% of the time our minds wander as humans. This is not a problem. I have stood over many a shot, and I used to think what was wrong with me. I just remember I couldn't stop thinking about what I was gonna make for dinner. Dinner used to be such a burden for me as far as I felt like a short-order chef because nobody liked the same things. So I'd stress about it, but it would be something that I would think about a lot while I was playing golf and I had to go home and cook for my kids. Like, what am I gonna make for dinner? Where do I have to go? And it's my turn to hit. What is going on? I'm losing my focus out here. So I just want to share good news is that you're not supposed to stay focused for four or five hours while you're playing the game of golf. And if your mind wanders to really kind of odd things like I just mentioned, this is not a problem. You're totally human with a human brain doing its 47% thing, right? So it's not about focusing better, which I have a lot of people who come to me and they're like, I need to learn how to focus or I need to focus better. It's not about that. It's about refocusing, it's about witnessing your brain wandering and then bringing it back to focus, to the task at hand, to the present moment, to what you're doing at this given moment in time. This is where, by the way, a pre-shot routine comes in handy. This is where a trigger for your pre-shot routine comes in handy. So, in other words, maybe you close the velcro on your glove, or you tap your hat, or you tap your foot, or you do something. You have a move or a trigger that gets you engaged and back and focused in the present moment. I think it's very, very useful to let your mind wander in between shots and let it go wherever it wants to go. Sometimes it's probably a little better to have something to talk about. So, in other words, something to engage your head. If you want to talk about benign topics, movies, books, something for your brain to do in between, and then you re-engage your brain before the next shot. That is a useful thing to have in your arsenal to occupy your brain. So witnessing your brain going and wandering can seem like a problem. And you might be blaming some of your golf on it, where you take a swing and you really weren't thinking very clearly or you weren't very present. This is normal. The goal is to refocus your brain, bring it back to what you're doing. That you can learn. That is a skill. Golf is not a game of perfect focus, it's a game of repeated refocusing. So expect your brain to spend 50% of the time while you're out there on the golf course playing to be somewhere other than the game of golf. Thinking about what you're gonna have for dinner. Or we're the beverage cart girl. The way that you train your brain is just like you train a puppy. You may have heard me make this analogy before. If you had a puppy on a leash and the puppy wanders off and goes into the bushes or starts smelling deer poop or rolls in a dead frog, this is what puppies do. This is what puppy brains do. This is not a problem. You bring the puppy back to the sidewalk and you refocus it as many times as you need to. So theoretically, a puppy, if it was your brain, would spend 50% of the time off of the sidewalk and 50% of the time on the sidewalk. Okay, and by the way, I have no idea what the studies are on animals or dogs. I'm just saying I'm using this analogy that we shouldn't be shocked when our brain goes over there and does the puppy thing. Right? Sometimes your brain will be over there sniffing things. Sometimes it'll be rolling in a dead frog. You're like, what the heck is it doing? That's gross, right? Your brain can be kind of the same way. You're like, what am I doing? Why am I thinking about that thing? Bring it back, pull it back by the leash, bring it back to the path, back to the fairway, back to the task at hand, the shot in front of you, and refocus as many times as you need to do that. Now, if you're in a pressure situation, you're playing in tournament golf, your brain is likely to go off path more often. So knowing how to refocus your brain and bringing bringing it back to the task at hand is gonna serve you in those moments when you learn that skill and how to refocus. And this is also where this is gonna be really important because your focus follows emotion. So if you hit a bad golf shot, let's say you hit the ball into the water, our focus narrows in because we're frustrated, we're upset. And it'll start focusing more on the water. It'll start focusing on the trouble. And your focus can stay there for hole after hole after hole on the bad shot, on the emotion that you're feeling. And while we might be frustrated because we want to be focusing on the shot at hand, our brain has narrowed its focus so much that it's paying more attention to the emotion that we felt and the trouble that we experienced. So it's not the bad shot that's the problem. It's just one shot. The problem is where your attention goes for the next 14 minutes or so after it. The sooner you can make those mistakes neutral, process those emotions, you can get your focus back to the task at hand. The more you're wrapped up in that emotion or the missed shot, the more your focus stays narrowed, very narrowed on what you did or the mistake that you made, and then it compounds after that. So it's not about trying to stay focused for 18 holes. In fact, I had a client who I encouraged to get into a state of calm, certain, and confidence. And he went out and he played an amazing round shot in the 60s. I'm gonna say 67. And I said, That's fantastic. Look at you, you have so much evidence that it works. And he took me very seriously and literally. And he said, I can't do that anymore. I said, Well, you can't shoot 67 anymore? That's a great round. Why wouldn't you want to do that? He said, I'm exhausted. I can't stay in a state of calm or certain or confident or something useful for 18 holes for four hours. I'm exhausted. I said, Oh, of course you can't. And the point isn't to be there and focused in between shots, let your mind wander like it's meant to do and bring it back to focus over the golf shot because it will cause mental fatigue if you're forcing it to stay focused for that long. And then after a bad shot that has some emotional sting to it, it can be useful and help us focus a little bit better. But if it's too much emotion, our focus becomes so narrowed that all we're doing is focusing on the shot that we missed. The mistake four holes ago, and it's compounding and affecting us going forward. And that's where processing an emotion after a bad shot becomes very useful. And that's also why you can't seem to let go of some of the mistakes that you made previously in the round, why you seem so focused on those and not so focused on the present moment. So every time your brain goes off path and you bring it back to focus, you're repeating something that is a skill that you're learning. This is what's going to take you to the next level. It's not about losing your focus, it's about refocusing. How quickly can you refocus? This is what I talk about with processes too inside my programs. If you're in there, is that when we have a process to do this, it becomes so much easier on our brain to refocus and have a plan for whatever the situation is that's in front of us. All right, my friends. So good news. If you're wondering where the beverage cart girl is or what you're gonna have for lunch over a golf shot, you are totally normal. It is an opportunity for you to bring your brain back to the present moment and learn the skill of refocusing. All right. And if you want to learn more about my program, go to course.masterygolfbrain.com. I'd love to see you in there. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.
