You May be Ruining Your Own Golf Game
Golf has been described as a game of misses. This essay is about how some golfers react to their misses with destructive responses. These responses include groans, grimaces, expletives, and outright self abuse with statements like “I stink,” or “I suck,” or “I'm quitting this game,” or “another terrible shot.”
This type of self-criticism creates or reinforces incompetence. These negative emotional reactions also disrupt the brain’s harmonic rhythms, making good golf swings even more unlikely. Self-berating statements or thoughts after missing a short putt have been shown to disrupt brain activity for as long as 3 holes. If I were writing an instruction manual about how to ruin somebody's golf game, I would advise mandatory ongoing self-criticism.
If you’re one of those golfers complaining about shot outcomes, with complaints after misses, please stop! Why do you persist? Perhaps its so habitual that you are not even aware of it anymore. Maybe you see it as a normal part of playing golf. You probably never realized that you are ruining your game. It’s time to break this habit.
The first step is to listen to yourself honestly. Learn to catch yourself in real time about to complain. Instead of the usual automatic response, compose yourself. Learn to use some self-regulation method like a breathing exercise. Changing this habit may require some commitment to mindfulness meditation. It may also help to substitute some positive statement such as “Looks like I've got a long way to go,” or “What can I learn from that miss?”
Who wouldn’t want to transform their game from a series of negative, self-critical moments to a game that’s more joyful, fun, and instructive? Yes, we all fall short of the standards we aspire to. While there is always room to improve our swing, we can optimize our potential by reducing our negative self-undermining comments.
This positive and critically important self-development is within our control. Golfers who are chronic self-critics are also likely to be undermining themselves off the course as well. We can create negative clouds in our everyday life by repeating thoughts or statements like “I hate being here,” or “ I'm exhausted” or “ I don't want to be with this person/this job anymore,” or “why do these things always happen to me?” Instead of giving in to our automatic complaining monologue, we can try the same interventions we’re learning on the golf course. If life always seems to be raining on you, consider that you may be seeding the clouds.