Those of you who have read Michael Murphy’s novel Golf in the Kingdom will recall the importance he puts on spirituality and achieving a “zen”-like experience on the course for a good round. In fact, this is really just a variation of getting into the desired mental state or into “the zone” for optimal golf performance. Coach J has done considerable work helping golfers get into and stay in the zone during a round, and this can be an important skill to stay resilient in the face of the inevitable bad shots or blown holes that will occur during a round.
The love of the game (if someone has it) can actually be another important component of resilience. As I said above, resilient people are often found to have a strong “connectedness”. For some, that means a strong people network; for others, that may be strong religious beliefs; and for still others, that may be spirituality. What all of these have in common for purposes of reliance is a strong connection to something larger than yourself. For someone who has a real passion for the game, that can be that kind of connection that is critical for being resilient. Playing for the competition of it can also work the same way for a person who just loves the competition of the game and not so much the game itself. Some people may connect to the camaraderie of the social side of golf, and that serves to keep them coming back and contributes to their resilience. Gino Valiante–noted sports psychologist who has worked with many professional golfers–writes about the importance of finding out why someone plays golf and then builds on that with the person (loving the game). The “why they play” can expose the connection with something larger that increases their resilience.
Any teaching pro will tell you, there is really no substitute for staying optimistic and confident during a round. Building the right “self-talk” into your practice routine to enable you to figuratively and literally keep your head up, even when your round gets difficult and frustrating, will be invaluable. In effect, the opposite of being resilient is succumbing to “learned helplessness”–the thought process and related feelings that there is no way to turn things around or change the inevitable course of events. Being able to draw on ingrained self-statements of optimism and confidence developed during practice will be key to heading off any thoughts or feelings of learned helplessness that will otherwise play havoc with your game.
Closely related to staying confident and optimistic is the ability to keep mistakes in perspective and learn from them rather than simply react to them. No doubt that for every bad shot you have hit on the course, you’ve hit a few more of them on the practice range. Spend time with those bad shots on the range trying to understand what went wrong. Was it poor alignment, faulty swing mechanics, loss of focus or something else? Don’t just step up and hit another ball before you’ve taken the time to determine what went wrong with the last one. Can you fix the problem immediately or do you need to think about working through a progression of steps in order to correct it? If the correction will require multiple steps, make a plan for accomplishing that–and stick to it. You undoubtedly have seen the pros rehearsing and taking practice swings after a mishit, trying to determine what went wrong and how to quickly correct it. Importantly, once this mini-analysis is completed, they put that mishit out of their mind and confidently move on to the next shot. Developing a routine for understanding bad shots or mistakes can give you some confidence to fix difficulties when they occur on the course and will help build your golf resilience for use during a round.
To sum up, golf isn’t a game of perfect, it’s game of recovery. The more resilient you are, the more able you will be to recover from those inevitable bad shots and mistakes to keep your game on track. And remember, this strategy applies equally as well off the course as on!
Are you resilient on the course? Off the course?
What can you do to build your resilience?
What is something you’ve done or experienced in the past that helps you cope with stress or adversity?
