How to Avoid Big Numbers on the Golf Course

Blow-up holes usually don’t come from one bad shot. They come from what you do next. In this episode, I’m breaking down the four reasons big numbers happen and how to stop piling mistakes on top of mistakes. You’ll learn how to calm down, think clearly, make the smart play, and keep one crappy shot from turning into an eight. Because bad shots are part of golf—but the real damage comes from what you do after them.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

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, and welcome back to Think Above Par. I hope you're having a beautiful week and not having too many blowholes because I'm going to jump right in. That's what I want to talk about today. How to have less blowup holes or big numbers or a series of doubles out there that just doesn't seem very typical to you. Now you might make a lot of doubles based on your handicap, or you might think it's the thing that's holding you back from really stepping up to the next level. Like you can't get through a round without having a blow up hole or a couple double bogeys. And I want to start by saying they're going to happen. We are going to have them. And of course, I don't know what your handicap or how you score, what your game is like, or what parts of your swing are inconsistent and prone to hitting some shots that are going to create some doubles. This part I don't know. So I'm going to speak into it from a couple different standpoints because I think it's important to know where the double bogeys are coming from or the big numbers, triple bogies, quads, double digits. And I want you to think about it. The next time you have a big number, it will most likely start with a poor shot. Not always. It could be a bad break, and I'll talk about that, but let's just assume it's going to start with a poor shot. So that poor shot, bad shot, poor result, miss hit, whatever you want to call it, the first thing you want to do is identify if it was just a swing that you have. Every once in a while you do, and you did at the wrong time. Sometimes we hit a shot that flails out to the right. It was just the wrong time. It was the wrong time because there was water there. Might not have hurt you so much if there was sand or it was open fields and you had lots of green to work with. So making that neutral about you is really, really going to serve you down the road. Sometimes I hit a shot like that. Every once in a while I overhook it. I just hope it doesn't happen on a hole where there's out of bounds on the left. Right. Sometimes I skull it out of the bunker. I hope it doesn't happen when there's water on the other side of the green. Whatever it is, wherever you are with your talent level, it just could be the wrong swing at the wrong time. And that produced a really bad result. The second reason is you could have mentally gotten in your way. In other words, you were nervous. You could hear yourself saying, Don't hit it in the water, don't skull it out of the bunker. And then you got tight. And then your tempo got fast and you weren't thinking very clearly. And you came out of your posture and you peeked to see where it went and your backswing got really short. You did all the things that happen when we get tight and we swing from nervousness or fear. And it was a mental error. You could have swung pissed off. You had a poor hole or you missed a putt on the green before it and you're ticked off. You go to the T box and you rush up to the T-Box and you're like, just let me hit. And you swing out of your shoes and maybe you overhook it a little bit. My dad used to call these fueled by fury because every once in a while these work, which is not very good as evidence that you don't want to swing from that place, but they do work every once in a while, but it's not something that's very predictable because sometimes you're going to overhook it because you're swinging super fast and super hard because you're mad. So that mishit shot had a mental component. It was how you were thinking and feeling over that shot. And that caused that first mishit. It could be course management where you maybe you just got a little too cute. You're trying to hit a shot you don't own. Especially around the greens, I see people do this. They're trying to hit a fancy pants flop shot. It's like I'm going to hit a flop shot on a downhill eye underneath a tree branch and make it stop on a downhill slope and land it within like one inch of the edge of the green. It's like the chances of hitting that chair are like one in a thousand, but no, I'm going to do it today. And then you end up plugging it in the face of the bunker. And now we have a blowpole. Or maybe you went for a pin that you had no business going for because you can only hit it ankle high and you can't stop it on this little section of the green, but you decided, yes, I could possibly stop this four hybrid, land it over the bunker and make it check. You're getting too aggressive and it rolled over the back of the green and you kind of short-sided yourself over there. Right. So those are course management decisions that impacted that missed shot that's going to have some repercussions on the rest of the shots on that hole. And then the other reason, the fourth reason is really it could be bad luck that you made a big number. You hit your ball into the trees and it's really not that dense. You could easily get it out, but you happen to be in the crook of a tree in the roots, right up against the base. I've had this happen. Or you have pine cones all around, you can't move them because the ball is going to move. Like some of that's just bad luck. And I'm going to say that if it is bad luck, or if it is that you just hit a bad shot at the wrong time, you want to make those as neutral as you possibly can. I mean, you get to make all of it neutral, but that you definitely want to make neutral. There's nothing that you could control about that. And the reason that you want to make it neutral is for your next shot. Because now what happens is when we're a little angry or irritated because one of those four things happened, now we're not thinking clearly. And now we compound the issue because we're making poor decisions, because we're not up in the front part of our brain. We're in the back part of our brain where we're irritated or we're scared or we're trying to protect a score or we're tentative. And then next thing you know, we made another poor decision or another poor swing. Either one of those. That would be have you ever laid up and not really thought through clearly? And then you laid up into the water. And we do these when we're not thinking very clearly. So first step is for you to decide which one of those it was. Second one is to make it as neutral as you possibly can. And you want to pivot quickly, mentally, emotionally, for your next shot so that you can make the next best smartest move. Now, I want you to remember that the goal of golf is to get from point A to point B in the least amount of shots possible with what you own on this day at this given moment in time. And so this includes you being really self-aware of what you're capable of that day, not what you could do two weeks ago with the mindset maybe that you had at that time or the rest that you had. What do I own today? What do I own in this moment right now where I'm struggling to get past being so ticked off that my ball is over here in the trees? And I'm going to decide I'm going to try and hit between this little area in the tree branches at the perfect trajectory so that it misses the branches on the other side of the trunk, right? And we make these decisions because we're not thinking clearly. So one of the best things that you can do after you have a crappy shot is not compound on it. And that's for you to ask yourself, like, what's my next best move here? What's my smartest play? How can I be smart right now in this decision? Sometimes it's about getting out of there with a bogey. I've made plenty of bogies. I'm like, okay, that's a good bogey. Let's get the hell out of here. So you get to ask yourself, what's the next best play? Make sure you're using some processes, if you don't have them, to get yourself back into the present moment before that next shot so that you don't act in a way that you can't access your talent. You're going to hit another bad shot. You're going to rush, you're going to swing really hard, you're going to pick out the wrong club. And now you're taking a drop out of the water. Cha-ching, cha-ching. And then you're standing over that one, you drop it, and you're not paying attention to where you're going to drop the ball. So you drop it in a bunch of crap because all you need to do is move a little bit to the back and you would have had a nice fluffy lie. But no, now you're in a divot because you're all ticked off that you hit in the water and you gave yourself a bad drop. Now you're standing over that one, double ticked off, right? You got the double ticks. You ticked, maybe the triple ticks, depending, right? So you just ticked off, ticked off, ticked off. And you've got to create a little space around the mistake. Just a pause. Enough of a pause where you can start to think clearly and ask yourself a powerful question to get a result. Now, I am again not saying that you can't actually hit another poor shot. This is in the wheelhouse. This is a game of golf. But if you ask yourself a powerful question, like what's the thing that I own right now the best that's going to get me from point A to point B? And it might be I'm going to take a half swing with my seven iron and knock it over there to the left side of the fairway and give myself an angle to the green versus trying to hit some punch, cut, knockdown, four hybrid underneath a branch that might just barely cross the river. You know what I'm saying? I've done all these things. And then you're like, what was I thinking? I guess that's probably a good thing to be aware of. If you hear yourself saying, What was I thinking or I wasn't thinking, or I can't focus, you know you're in a position to make more poor decisions because you're not up there in the front part of your brain where you make decisions. And then the last thing I want to tell you is you want to be very cautious of identifying as a person who makes double bogies. Because if you believe as a golfer that you're a golfer who has a blow up hole every round, that's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes who you are. You're going to step into that. You're going to be on 17 and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to get through this round without a blow up hole. And then you make an eight on 18. I'm not making fun of that because it's not, it's not fun knee. It's just your brain wants to be right. And you have a thought in there that says that I'm a person who has a blow up hole. And it doesn't feel natural to play a round of golf without it. Your brain says, We need to kind of screw up on this hole so that we can still keep our identity as a golfer who has blow up holes. Are you hearing me? So if you have a couple big numbers, if you have a couple big numbers at the beginning of a round or the end of a round, you want to be very cautious about saying, I just always have a blow up hole. Or I just can't seem to have a round that I don't have a big number. Or I always have one in the beginning of the round, the end of the round, the start of the back nine, whatever it is. Your brain will look for evidence of it and you'll keep producing this result and then you'll dig that belief in even harder. So I encourage you, even if you have a round with a couple rounds, even with a couple big numbers, be cautious about saying this is who I am now. Make it neutral as well. And then go through and look back at your roundabout exactly why did you make those numbers? One of the four reasons that I stated earlier. And then have a response for that. Have a response for that first bad shot. Have that process in place so you know exactly how to take care of yourself out on the golf course so that you can minimize those big numbers. All right, my friend. And if you want help with figuring out how to develop a process, I show you exactly how to do that inside of my mental caddy. You can download on your phone and you can work with it during the round, before the round, and after the round and develop your processes that are going to help you minimize your big shots and create the results that you want on the golf course. All right, my friends. Have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.