Are You Developing A Successful Golf Mindset?

Golf is the one of the oldest games in world history still being played today. It’s a game steep in storied traditions and played by the wealthiest to the poorest who can afford to pay for green fees and clubs. It was born on the heather-clad, rocky shores of Scotland in the mid 1500’s and the game has evolved through hundreds of years. Queen Mary herself is credited for the birth of the game. She would get so mad and frustrated at English politics that she would go outside on the castle grounds and hit stones with sticks.

Golf clubs were formerly made of hickory wood are now composed of military space-age metals and composites made up of graphite and titanium. Golf balls also evolved from feathers to rubber wound threads surrounding a rubber core are now as advanced as the golf clubs.

Only one thing that hasn’t changed in the hundreds of years since the sport began, and which can momentarily turn grown men and women into frothing, enraged lunatics who have seemingly lost all sense of decorum and reasonable behavior. That is the simple mistake of a golf club failing to connect and striking a small white ball properly. Sending it not on a straight true path but on a wildly curving arc into the woods, or even worse out of bounds. It has turned more than one Dr. Jekyll into a seething Mr. or Mrs. Hyde, hurling golf clubs into the air, breaking them like matchsticks over their knees, bellowing obscenities into the air instead of yelling fore.

Sometimes this game which prides itself on sportsmanship, honor (what other sport requires players to turn themselves in after a rules violation?), and above all else good conduct. It can have the exact opposite effect the angry, outraged, the yin to the sport’s gentle seeming yang. If anyone can describe these fractures of personae, it is the local golf pro. Odds are he or she has seen it all before. They have witnessed the breakdown of a happy go lucky golfer into an enraged, bellowing course malcontent.

The learning part of the game is no fun. The biggest desire of golfers taking golf lessons is consistency. With so much information about the golf swing in print and on TV, the most overlooked area of instruction is the golf mindset of the person taking the golf lessons. They want their problems fixed now not tomorrow.

They are willing to spend thousands of dollars on new golf equipment that can majestically give them that extra distance. Buying new golf balls that can stop instantly on greens and backspin to within a couple of feet from the hole. Taking countless hours of lessons from teaching pros. Some teachers are legit but many shouldn’t be teaching at all. They do more harm than good and makes the golfer even more confused and frustrated.

Instead of looking at the root cause of your problems. The most overlooked areas of golf instructions in regards to cause and effects is the mechanics of your golf swing. In order to improve consistency golfers need to develop the knowledge of their golf swing and what the club head is doing at impact.

Jack Tinsdale has been teaching golf for more than 40 years, and has been licensed as a masters teaching pro in Rochester,NY.  When asked to describe one of his favorite golf stories, he didn’t hesitate.

“This is a great story,” he began, eager to revisit the topic.

“I remember a very prideful man in the Rochester teaching community. He wanted to take up golf with the men’s club, and he wanted to be good.”

“So, he took lesson after lessons, and hit range ball after range balls. I mean, he just pounded ball after ball after ball.  He did improve and his scores did go down. Finally, after about 18 months, he wanted a video diagnosis of his swing. Which we had the tools to do. So we taped him, then sat him down to look at his swing, and he said,  “Are you kidding me?  That’s me?”

“He was like, This is bull. “I thought I looked better than this but I look like  a 30 handicapper.” He was going to quit the club that day and told me he was going to take up fishing. He couldn’t bear the thought that people who saw him play golf with that swing, which was a perfectly OK swing. That’s the thing about golf  the learning period is no fun, and people just get impatient and quit.

You see he was one of my good friends  and I wasn’t going to allow him to quit. He enjoyed being with others in our group and this was an outlet for all of the pressures that he felt teaching during the week. He had a temper and would let you know about it.

My friend who is now deceased was quite the character. Looking back on it now it’s pretty funny. You could say he was like Old Faithful, he would allow the pressures of playing start to build up with every mistake he made until there she blows with every curse word and throwing clubs imaginable. It got to the point where he’d warn us. He’d say, “here we go, it’s time to throw a club.”You could see it coming. First, he’d start by banging his club on the ground. He’d do that a few times until that wasn’t enough  and then he’d just throw it. Then it’d be out of his system for a while and he’d be fine.

I’ve seen the same emotions and behaviors with the golf professionals I have caddied for. I have seen it with doctors, lawyers and business men. I have seen it with everyday folks who would never act this way at home. People who are well rounded in life,   meticulous and perfect at what they do in the real world.  They come out to play and want to be automatically perfect and shoot par are the same ones who fail miserably at this game. They can’t be this bad and it drives them insane. I mean completely wacko!

Golf is like a fine art. It’s like a dance that you need to have rhythm and tempo. You need the proper mindset of being patient and allow for the fact that most of your hits are going to be misshots. That the percentages of hitting perfect shots is 1 in 10, maybe 2 or 3 in 10.

Get it out of your head that you need to remain focused and precise or you’ll pay the price.  It doesn’t help that golfers in your group are whispering while your teeing off about negative things like don’t miss it or look out for out of bounds.

Psychological warfare was invented, I believe to torment your fellow golfers. These same golfers get out there after spending hours on the driving range and putting green, and they just flat out hit  terrible shots.  Man are they angry. It becomes a game to see who can blow up first. You could be a real nice guy, really mild mannered but, that’s golf. It’s a game you play but you can never beat it, and that drives the same golfers crazy.

They figure they’ve put in the time, that this kind of thing shouldn’t happen to them. Then they go out take five perfect practice swings, then dump it right into the creek.  But you know what?  That’s golf!  It’s not real life!

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Improve Your Golf Swing Mindset & Motion – Funny videos are here

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