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
You Can Make a Mistake and Still Play Great Golf
•Kathy Hart •Episode 288
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Have you ever stepped onto the golf course thinking, “I can’t afford to make a mistake today”?
It may feel true—especially during a qualifier, club championship, or important round—but it creates pressure, tentative swings, and even more mistakes.
In this episode, Kathy explains why trying to play mistake-free golf works against you, how perfectionism turns one bad hole into a bigger problem, and what to focus on instead. You’ll learn how to stay patient, neutralize mistakes, and keep playing freely through all 18 holes.
Because good golf isn’t mistake-free golf. It’s refusing to turn one mistake into a whole dramatic miniseries.
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'm super happy that you're here. I recently went out to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole and Grand Tetons. And oh my gosh, I had the most amazing time. If you have not been out there and you like nature and animals and hiking and outdoor things, it's amazing. You know, I talk about how I'm like a random animal encounter kind of person. I love all that stuff. I've gone on a safari when I played on the South African tour. I was just blown away. I just looked random. Animal encounters are my favorite. And there were plenty of random animal encounters out there. Not enough for me. I didn't get to see a moose, and I really want to see a moose, so I'm going to go back out. But saw plenty of buffalo right next to my car. It was super cool. Went on some long hikes, and it's an amazing, majestic part of the country. So, with that being said, back to golf. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about today, I have no segue from Yellowstone and Buffalo and Nature into what I'm going to talk about. But it was a topic that came up, especially with a lot of qualifiers going on, but you can relate to it whether you're doing a qualifier for a USGA event or not. If you've ever had the conversation in your head about I can't afford to make mistakes. And this comes up for a lot of people when they're doing one-day qualifiers because there's one around and you're trying to be the low person. And your thought is, I can't afford to make a mistake. But you might feel like that with a partner, you might feel like that in your club championship because it has equal weight as a qualifier, or some other event that you might be playing in, you might have that thought, I just can't afford to make mistakes. And I want to talk about the weight of that. It might be a sentence in your head that feels very, very true. And one of the things that I say is that something can be true, but not useful for you to say to yourself. So for instance, I used to tell myself that putting was the worst part of my game. And that's true, that was true. It was the lowest stat. There was something going to be on the bottom, but it didn't feel good to remind myself of that. Now, saying to yourself, I can't afford to make mistakes might be true to a certain extent. Like I can't afford to make a nine, but you can afford to make a bogey, right? So if you catch yourself first with a sentence like that that is true and you hear yourself saying it, like I can't afford to hit it in the water. That's true, but it doesn't, it's not useful for you to tell yourself, don't hit it in the water, or that I can't do that. I can't afford to miss this three-foot putt. Okay, maybe, but also it's just not a useful thing to say. So I want you to catch those sentences that are true that are also not useful. That's one thing. And then saying to yourself that you can't afford to make a mistake, think about that. How much pressure are you putting on yourself to not screw up, to not make a mistake, whatever that is for you, whatever your definition of a mistake is, because golf is full of mistakes. So you putting that pressure on yourself to not make a mistake is not going to help your golf game. It is going to lead to more mistakes, right? Can you feel the weight of that? If you're going to go out and give a speech and you say, I can't screw up, I can't flub a word, I can't misspeak, misspoke, I can't say the wrong words, I can't mispronunciate something. You're going to be so in your own head that things and words aren't going to flow out of your mouth. You're going to do the same thing on the golf course. You're going to swing tentatively, you're going to steer it, you're going to try and guide that golf ball around the green. You're probably going to overthink and overanalyze shots so that you make the correct decision and you don't make a mistake. And then the third thing I'd want to point out is that is it true? I mean, can you go out on the golf course and make a mistake? Can you make a bogey or can you make a double bogey? There are times where people go out and play out of their minds and don't make any errors, so to speak, and they make all the putts and they do all the things and they shoot out of their mind and they qualify. That can happen. But if you're playing in a club championship, which this might be relatable to most of you that are listening to this, or a bigger event at your club or a league, is that if you look at the people who won, they made plenty of mistakes. But they didn't make the mistake mean anything. They didn't create a story around it. Right. So if you make a mistake, a double bogey, let's say, and then you can hear yourself creating a story about how I've blown it, or now I need to make some more birdies coming in, or I can't afford to do that, or now I can't afford to make any more. If you start feeling more pressure, right, you know, for instance, that you're putting a lot of emphasis on that one mistake. Right. I have said that a double bogey is just two back-to-back bogeys. If you made two back-to-back bogeys, you probably don't create a big story around it, but you make one double bogey and you do. I'm like a par and a double bogey, they equal two bogeys. Right? It helps neutralize it just a little bit so that you can keep moving forward because it's about how you want to show up on the rest of those holes. If you have the thought I can't make any mistakes and you're playing pretty well and you have three holes to play, man, you're gonna really be guiding it coming in. So I want you to listen for that thought. The other thing is that that comes from such a sense of scarcity. What it's saying of you is that you don't believe in yourself to be able to put a bunch of good rounds or good holes together, or maybe that you only have so many putts that you can make, or so many pars that you can make, or so many birdies that are available to you. So I want you to listen to the answer to the question when you ask yourself, why can't I make a mistake? Because all of you might have a different answer, but the answer is going to be really revealing about the thoughts that you have about you and your ability to show up on the golf course, a limiting belief that you have, something that holds you back about your golf game. Mine would have been, I can't afford to make a mistake because I don't make enough birdies, because I don't make enough putts, because I don't have the faith in my putting. Therefore, I can't afford to make a mistake. Right? So that put more pressure on me to hit it closer, to make sure I two-put, make sure I don't make any errors from T to green, because I felt like I had a limited number, I had a scarcity on the number of birdies I can make. So, what's your answer to the question of why can't I make a mistake? It might be totally different than that. It might not be a scarcity, it might be what you think other people are doing, but I'm gonna offer to you that one of the things that is really going to work for you in your favor is patience. Like the minute that you make a mistake, I've had more people come back to me and share with me how they got off to crappy starts, made a double or a triple, and then rallied and surprised themselves and got out of their own way and didn't make it anything bigger. And then what happens is everybody else is out there struggling a little bit too and making some mistakes too, because they're experiencing the same things you are. They have the same thoughts that you have. They have the same brain, they're fighting that same brain. So patience when you're on the golf course is a beautiful thing for you to tap into. I'm just gonna stay patient. I'm gonna keep plugging along. I'm gonna put my head down, look at the lane in the bottom of the pool and keep swimming until I tap the wall, that's 18, and put my score up there. I'm not gonna give up on myself. I'm gonna have my own back. And I'm likely going to make mistakes. My job is to not make it a big mistake. Your job is not to take something that could be a bogey and turn it into a triple bogey. Minimize those errors and those events where you hear yourself saying, I can't afford to make a mistake today, and you feel all that pressure. I promise you, your ability to get through that round and not make a mistake is nearly impossible because you're teeing yourself up, pun intended, to make more mistakes because you're putting so much pressure on yourself. That is not playing from a state of calm or certain or confident where you can access your talent. So the question becomes, what do I want to think about the mistakes that I'm gonna have today? What do I want to believe about myself to be able to persevere and stay patient and keep plugging away and keep swinging at as many shots as I can freely and thinking freely and clearly? And the other component of I can't afford to make a mistake is really getting aware of any kind of perfectionism that you have in your expectations of yourself on what good golf is actually supposed to be, what it's supposed to look like, or even your definition of a mistake. Because really, isn't every shot, approach shot that doesn't go in the hole a mistake? Because that's what we're trying to do. So golf is just full of mistakes. It's just your definition of it. So what's your definition of a mistake? What's your tolerance for them? And what's your expectation about how you're supposed to hit it on any given round? So hearing that sentence that I'm not supposed to make any mistakes today or that I can't screw up or can't have any blow-up holes can be counterproductive for the way that you're going to show up and actually produce more of what you're trying to avoid. So ask yourself some powerful questions, listen to the answer, and then set an intention for how you want to show up on that day and ultimately just stay patient and keep plugging away and have your own back. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week. And I'd love to see you inside your mental caddy at your mentalcaddy.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.
