Personality Styles as they Relate to Golf Players

Exactly what personal character do you actually bring to the course?  If you think your way around the course, or if you bring plenty of emotion to your game brings advantages and disadvantages as to the way you play, and maybe more importantly the way you manage the golf course.  This is established mostly with your personality type, but if you are finding your personality is negatively influencing your golf game, there are strategies to make adjustments for the personal character you bring to the sport.

These personality types are actually split into high thinkers and high passion players.  High thinkers employ their golfing intelligence to negotiate the course, and clearly if your thinking trumps your opponents and you are able to accomplish it, the advantage will go to you.  But golfers can overthink their game, always tweaking things and never having the capability to commit to any golf shot.  High emotion players usually are more "feel" golfers, and once they get on a roll they can hit several amazing golf shots.  But when something goes wrong, it will likely be more difficult for these people to pull through.

Golfers are broken into combinations of both of these psychological styles.  Psychologists break these character traits into four varieties of players:

1.    High thinkers-high emotions.  These players are students of the game, but in addition bring elevated passion to their game.  Competitors like Tiger Woods or Bobby Jones are, and were technical golf players who delivered high passion to their games.  Great golfers both, but Woods throughout his career has changed his golf game perhaps too much, and Jones quit competitive golf at a young age as a result of the emotional cost.

2.    High thinkers-reduced emotions.  Players that fall into this category will be considered to be cool but calculating.  Jack Nicklaus pops into your head.  Rarely have we witnessed a player that was more about thinking a plan around the course, but hardly ever would you notice him offer much feeling.  Ben Hogan as well might be included in the category.

3.    Low thinkers-high emotions.  Players that go out and smack it hard and watch it fly are entertaining to look at, probably because they are capable of doing some wonderful things though you know they're a train wreck waiting to take place.  Consider Arnold Palmer or John Daley to be within this group.

4.    Low thinkers-low emotions.  Those easy-going golfers don't appear to worry about where they hit their shot, and certainly haven't much emotional confusion as part of their game.  They simply get out there and play, and have the power to just accept whatever happens.  Everyone seems to like guys like Fred Couples or Ernie Els, given that they have gorgeous swings and have an apparently care-free approach.

We can easily see from this that every personality-type can work to make an effective player, but probably the most essential thing to know is not to battle a type too much.  Generally speaking the high thinkers probably have enjoyed a better track record.  There can be strategies to at least formulate changes to your personality type to improve your chances of playing well.  When your emotions are getting in the way of your play, for instance, I would not advocate merely accepting your lot in life, but seek tactics to improve.  We'll speak to those in a later post.