What Your Golf Game Reveals About You: The Mental Patterns You Bring to the Course

What if the way you think on the golf course isn't just a golf problem?

The patterns you practice in everyday life often come with you to the course. Perfectionism. People pleasing. Overthinking. Catastrophizing. The need for control. Fear of failure. Self-criticism. Even the tendency to take care of everyone else while forgetting about yourself.

In this episode of Think Above Par, Kathy explores how these familiar patterns can show up in your golf game—and how the golf course can become a powerful place to recognize them and practice responding differently.

You'll learn why a bad shot can trigger the same mental habits you experience off the course, how even useful traits can sometimes work against you, and why the goal isn't necessarily to change who you are. It's to become aware of your patterns and ask:

Is this pattern helping me here?

Because golf doesn't just reveal your swing. It reveals your patterns. And once you can see a pattern, you have an opportunity to practice a different response—on the course and off.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

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. So today I wanted to talk about how you have one brain and that you have patterns that you practice in life and they tend to come with you to the golf course. Not always, but golf has a beautiful way of exposing them. And this happened with one of my clients who was talking about a tournament that he had coming up, and he's really worried about the other shoe dropping, so to speak, like catastrophizing his round, that it's totally possible that I could have a series of big numbers out there. And that's one of my biggest fears that that's going to happen. And I said to him, I use the word that you're catastrophizing. And he paused and he said, Wow, I do that in my day-to-day life. Whether it's with work or with relationships, he has a tendency to think about that other shoe dropping, right? Can you relate to that? So if you do that in your day-to-day life, of course it's going to show up on the golf course because it's a pattern. This is what I mean, where you have one brain. Now, I'm not saying that you're going to catastrophize everywhere, but you'll just see that pattern showing up. And this might not be a pattern for you. I'm just giving this as one example. I'm going to give you several. At golf, if you're willing to do this work and be curious, will expose some of the patterns that we have in our day-to-day life, which to me becomes beautiful work. Sometimes these patterns work for us, but sometimes they don't. It's not about you changing yourself as much as it's how can I work with this pattern? How can I now that I am aware of it and recognize it, how can I make it work with me or for me versus against me? I have another client who talked about some challenges in her home, growing up with some people who needed attention all the time, a child who needed attention all the time, special needs. And then she noticed that she's abandons herself a little bit because her focus is always on everybody else. And then when she goes out to the golf course, she's always engaged and very aware of what other people are doing. And then she forgets about what she's doing over her shot. You know, and I told her, I said, of course you do, because that's how you've spent the last few decades is paying attention to the people in your household that were very demanding. And you recognize now how much you have not taken care of you because all your attention has been on other people. And of course you're gonna do that when you go to the golf course. Even though your rational brain says that they don't need my attention, even though your rational brain says nothing catastrophic is gonna happen on the golf course, it is a pattern that your brain has and it brings it to the golf course. And when we can start being really aware of how it shows up in our day-to-day life, and no, there it is showing up again, then we can have it working with us instead of against us on the course and off the course. And this is my favorite part of mental work is that is it's not about what you do before shot so much. It's about you, the player, right? And how you're managing your mind and the patterns in your brain and how they show up and how they either facilitate your ability to access your talent or they get in the way. And if you're curious enough about how they're getting in the way and you start working with them and managing them and shifting them, not only does your golf game get better, but your personal life will get better too if they're not working for you out off of the golf course. Okay, so let me share with you some other patterns that I thought of that can travel between life and golf and see if any of these resonate with you. So, perfectionism, that's it's a huge one that I had and have relative to golf in my personal life. Where perfectionism can sound like where good isn't good enough. And a decent shot feels like failure because it wasn't the shot you imagined. Sometimes mistakes become intolerable, right? Which is also piggybacked a lot with the fear of failure, playing safe, avoiding shots, protecting the score, tightening up when something matters. Like, where else in your life do you have perfectionism or a fear of failure? People pleasing. This is another one I also have. Worrying about pace, apologizing for bad shots, worrying whether others are having fun, not wanting to inconvenience the group, running up and raking someone else's bunker for them. At your own expense. And people pleasing, this is a hard one because there's a difference between being kind, right, and people pleasing, which means you're doing the kindness at your own expense, basically. You might have hyper responsibility or caretaking, which is where you're monitoring everyone else's mood, their score, their pace, their needs, and barely noticing your own mental state. My controllers, right? Are you a controller? So off the golf course, you like to have everything under control. And then you go out and play in the golf course and you can you try really hard to control your environment. And you're playing a game that has very little things to control, which makes it really challenging for your brain. So you end up fighting with the weather and lies and bounces and greens and playing partners and slow play, anything that golf refuses to let you control, which is, right, like I just said, most of golf. You might be a rule follower off of the golf course, like this is the way that we do it. You have to follow the rules. And that might work for you. And the golf course, you might see that you want a precise formula for everything. You might notice it's like, tell me exactly what I'm supposed to think and do. And maybe you have a hard time adapting when situations change. The format suddenly changed, your tea time gets shifted, pace of play changes, and you might be that one of those people who's the quote unquote rules Nazi, right? Really making people stick to the rules. You might be an approval seeker on and off the golf course. You're looking for approval from outside sources, playing differently when someone important is watching, or needing others to think that you're a good golfer. How else does that show up for you off of the golf course? Comparison. You're constantly measuring yourself against other people. Distance, score, swing, handicap, improvement against everyone else. You could be an overthinker. So an overthinker is somebody who feels like more information feels safer. It's where your swing thoughts can multiply. Decisions get so much harder under pressure. It's kind of like letting your brain just run free and letting it go wherever it wants to go, and you can just sit in your own thoughts for a long time. Most overthinkers also have that off of the golf course, too. Self-critical. This is where we believe being hard on ourselves will make you perform better. I should know better than that. I should be better than that. I need to backhand myself a little bit. Impatience. Expecting things quickly, improvement quickly. Frustrated when swing changes or mental skills don't produce immediate results. Maybe you're impatient even with other people out on the golf course. Okay, I did this outing in Orlando, and this ranger came up out of the blue. Like afterwards, we were kind of the hanging out, and this ranger came up and he just started bitching about the people on the golf course who weren't playing fast enough or who were taking their time and they won't move it along. Now, his job is to keep people moving along, but he came in so angry at all these people on the golf course. And I just said to him, So how do you do with the traffic here? Like when someone's driving slow in the fast lane or someone's tailgate, he goes, I can't stand it. He lost it. And he's like, How did you know? I was like, I don't know. I just could tell what an interesting job you're in. You're gonna be ticked off all day trying to move people along on the golf course, especially during the season in Florida. Okay, conflict avoidance. Are you someone who avoids conflict? You won't speak up about maybe music, you're the pace, talking during shots or something bothering you. You just quietly stew instead. Are you a conflict avoider on and off the golf course? Indecisive or self-doubt, where you second guess things all the time, your club selection, your reads, your targets, your strategy. Sometimes you change your mind at the last second. You likely do that off of the golf course in certain areas. Now, I'm not saying everything. You might be like, I'm really decisive about what I'm gonna eat. I'm really decisive about getting up and going to the gym. I'm not talking everywhere, but where does that show up for you off of the golf course? Avoiding uncomfortable emotions. Now, this is gonna be most of the human population. I'm just gonna say most people don't or aren't willing to experience uncomfortable emotions. But on the golf course, what that looks like is you're trying desperately to get rid of your nerves instead of learning to play while nervous. Two different things.

unknown 9:30

Right?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

We're trying to hurry up and get through an emotion versus witnessing it and being okay to be in it for 60 to 90 seconds. So if you habitually avoid emotions off of the golf course, you for sure are gonna make emotions a big deal, ones that you don't like, uncomfortable ones on the golf course. So a couple more that I just want to talk about, even though I have really quite a list, um, is avoidance or procrastination. So if you are an avoider or a procrastinator, you might be someone who doesn't practice the uncomfortable part of the game. They practice what's already comfortable and calls it practice. You could also be a person who procrastinates or waits to really kick it in on the golf course. This happened with another client of mine when we talked about that. I said, Where else do you do then? She said, Oh my gosh, in college. I used to do that. I would wait until the last possible second to start a project. But then I'd kick it in and I'd do really well. And she's she took that pattern with her out into competitive golf. And she would end up being on the 10th, 12th, 14th hole and notice she's like one or two over, and then kick it in and make a bunch of birdies coming in. Kind of interesting to see that pattern. Now, the thing that I want to tell you is you may have patterns that they're not all negative or not useful. You might have some patterns in your life that are very useful. Resilience, where mistakes aren't emergencies. You adjust and you learn, you move forward. You're very resilient and you can take that with you to the golf course. Curiosity, are you a curious person off the golf course? Can you take that to the course? Interesting. Why did that happen? Rather than immediately judging the result. Self-compassion. You can acknowledge disappointment without turning it against you. Or you can be very adaptable. You accept what the day gives you and you figure out how to play from there. Those work. And you can see patterns where you do that off of the golf course, too. And this is an important nuance that I, it's worth mentioning, is that the same characteristic can be useful in one context and costly in another. So, in other words, the rule follower might be incredibly disciplined, right? The controller might be organized and successful. The perfectionist probably has very high standards, and the caretaker might be wonderfully attentive to other people, but there's usually a cost. The question isn't how do I get rid of this part of myself? Is it is this pattern helping me here? You know, controllers usually have a hard time making connection with people, and perfectionists have a hard time moving forward or creating a lot of things quickly because they hold themselves back until something is perfect. A caretaker might do so at their own expense. So there's usually a cost to a lot of these things, but it doesn't mean you have to get rid of that part of yourself. There might be areas where you love the way that that shows up for you. And so I want you to flip it. I want you to think about my life patterns are showing up in my golf if you're curious enough or you're getting something out of this podcast. But if it's true, then golf gets to be a laboratory, a practice laboratory for life. Right? The people pleaser can practice disappointing somebody and making it neutral. The perfectionist can practice learning B plus shots are enough. The controller can practice allowing reality to be reality, not arguing with it. The catastrophizer can practice staying with what is actually happening right now. The caretaker can practice asking, what do I need? Golf is beautiful in this way because the golf course gives you four hours plus to watch your brain operate. And then you get dozens of repetitions. Right? So golf doesn't just reveal your swing, it reveals your patterns. And once you can see a pattern, you have an opportunity to practice a different response. So, what are your patterns, my friends? Did you see yourself somewhere in this list of patterns that I shared? Or maybe you see yourself somewhere else. Or you could be like, Kathy, I have no idea what you're talking about. That's totally fine too. But I hope you found something in this that you can take not only from the golf course to your life, but from your life to the golf course. And hopefully they both get to level up. All right, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.