What Are Some Of The Ways To Reducing The Pressure In Your Golf Swing?

April 14, 2011 by  


Playing In The Masters Is All About Being Able To Handle The Pressure!

Playing In The Masters Is All About Being Able To Handle The Pressure!

The Masters is one of the most exciting golf tournaments to watch on television. Besides all of the beauty and pageantry of this historical golf course, and the massive galleries it brings out.  Just the drama and suspense of the golfers themselves in trying to tame the beast of Augusta National Golf Club.  This year was NO Exception.  As many as 10 golfers had a chance to win the golf tournament, as they tried brilliantly to navigate through Amen Corner on the final day.  Congratulations to Charl Schwartzel (South African), as he’s the winner of the 75′th Masters.

I feel sorry however for the 21 year old, Rory McIllroy (Ireland). This young golfer played brilliantly for 3 1/2 rounds.  At one point he had a 5 stroke lead,  and looked invincible sinking pressure putts all over the place. Unfortunately, major golf tournaments don’t start until the 10′th hole of the back nine on the final day on Sunday.  So what happened, that he would shoot himself out of the golf tournament with a 43 on the back nine,  for a round of 81?

It’s called PRESSURE.  It’s a golfing mindset that requires untold amount of attention to every detail of your golf swing, course management and planning out the strategy necessary before the round ever begins.  By visualizing in your mind, every shot placement on the fairways and greens. Experience has a way of balancing out the stress and reducing the pressure when faced with the circumstances that surrounds being in competition. Even though Rory didn’t win this time,  he must have taken away from this a lot of knowledge for next time when he’s faced with being in this same kind of pressure cooker situation.

How much pressure do you personally feel in competitions? Is it there just on the first and 18th holes or is it with you throughout? How do you handle it?  Do you perform best under pressure or not? Who can handle the pressure best? Even professionals who have too handle the pressure of high level competition almost week in week out, actually don’t suffer any more pressure than you would in your member club competition. The only way to reduce the nerves or stress caused by the pressure of playing in competitive golf tournaments is to play in enough of them. It’s a comfort level that can only be achieved by changing your attitude and discipline of staying focused on each golf shot. Your golfing mindset has everything to do with how well you’ll play.

Practice is one of the best ways to combat pressure.  Make pressure a part of each of your practice. Practicing with pressure strengthens your mental game.  Make sure that you have mastered the physical aspects of your golf swing mechanics, and that you are able to perform physically with greater consistency. Then add pressure to the practice so that your more prepared to handle the pressure in competition.  Make the feedback frequent and positive.

You cannot play without pressure,  because pressure is one of the normal aspects of competitive golf. So how do you successfully bring pressure into practice without causing it to slow down or damage the practice itself? The answer is to drill hard on the basics, and then bring pressure into the practice session in a controlled and positive manner. Try learning each part of your own golf swing mechanics, by breaking each part of your golf swing down into refined fundamental pieces. Then begin drilling repetitively only those pieces that are flawed, until you have mastered the correctness  into your unconscious muscle memory for later use on the golf course when needed.

After the basics have been practiced,  the pressure is increased by systematically adding pressure elements. These elements can be made a part of the golf shot,  like increasing the difficulty, or by adding outside distractions. Such as talking loudly or asking the golfer to ignore distractions like someone walking across the golfers putting line. While practicing can be made fun, preparing for competition has a serious side. In order to bring a sense of pressure into practice, the golfer must learn how to react to an entire gamut of pressure simulations. Giving the golfer only one chance to make a specific shot or putt is one example of practicing under pressure. Tiger Woods talked about his father in a book he wrote on teaching Tiger golf.  He describes his father using irritating and distracting situations to teach Tiger to block out everything except what is important for making that one golf shot.

After each practice session or round of golf.  It’s imperative to reflect back on the golf shots you’ve made and missed. It’s important to talk to someone that can give you feedback, and help you through the process of handling the golf shot and what was needed at that precise moment.  Having a golf instructor can give you that positive and corrective feedback,  focusing on the positive aspects of the practice and on positive expectation of changes and increased success.  Doing poorly and getting upset is not the kind of pressure we are talking about here.  Frustration and anger are not competitive pressures.  They are self-generated and usually destructive pressures. These pressures are caused by a loss of appropriate focus and shouldn’t be allowed during practice or competition.

Most golfers don’t have a strategy on how to deal with reducing the pressure in golf.  Do you?  The trial by fire approach to improving your mental toughness, and performing under pressure is just a haphazard method at best. Yet this is all most amateurs know.  Most golfers will frown upon practicing versus having the time to play. When they do practice, they go with the attitude I’m going to blast balls after another, and see how far I can hit them. If you’ve golfed for any length of time you know this simply isn’t true practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Practice makes permanent. So practice what is really necessary in order to play at your best, or your better off not practicing at all.

So how do most golfers cope with the pressures in golf? Most golfers don’t perform to their own potential in the key moments when everything is on the line. Then they chalk it up to experience and hope to get in the same position to do it again. This is how most golfers deal with the pressure in golf.  When the pressure is on we unconsciously act out the behaviors we have habituated the most.  We naturally revert to what we know at the deepest levels of our unconscious mind.  To act out what is most real to us in that given moment. We associate with negative consequences that are stacked up in our unconscious mind around not performing well under pressure. This will drive our behavior with your thought processes being under pressure, and the negative resulting performance of your golf swing.  Hence you will unconsciously reproduce the experience of losing that you have become most accustomed to.

We all have experienced the pressure in golf at some point.  No matter if we need the putt to win the Masters, or playing for a $5 Nassau amongst your friends. When your down in your match and you need to hit the shot of your life, the self imposed pressure increases 10 fold for most golfers.  If you want to play well under pressure it has everything to do with how well you can handle your mental game, and reducing the stress placed upon your golf swing.  Learn how to not only deal with pressure in golf, but how to completely transform your relationship to pressure, and hit your best shots when under fire.

Playing your best can become a habit. Yet mastering pressure in golf is a critical step. Take hold of your potential by developing a rock solid mental game. Your overall golfing mindset on the golf course, your mental approach to toughness, your sense of clarity, having inner confidence, and a list of other benefits will enter into your golf game. Not just occasionally but for a lifetime.

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15 Responses to “What Are Some Of The Ways To Reducing The Pressure In Your Golf Swing?”

  1. Clover Green on April 26th, 2011 3:47 am
  2. tom from gps for golfers on April 27th, 2011 9:36 pm

    I totally agree with you here, It was sad to see Rory on the back nine. However what a raw talent he is and he will bounce back for sure. I think he might become one of the greatest of all time, if he gets his head straight :). I do know from own experience also that golf is so much of a mind game. Like most things in life success feeds more success. But if you are willing to be aware of your “failures” I think you will have so much more chance to turn your failures into success, anyway great read :)
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  7. Chris Danial on January 20th, 2012 11:12 am

    It was sad to see Rory on the back nine. However what a raw talent he is and he will bounce back for sure. I think he might become one of the greatest of all time, if he gets his head straight, thanks for the post, keep up the good work.
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