Confident Golf Is All About Managing Your Expectations Well

…And nervous golf is brought about when you badly manage your expectations.

The three occasions you are most likely to get nervous are:

Over a crucial shot.

Playing the last 4 or 5 holes of a good round.

Before an important round.

The symptoms of nerves are different for you than they are for me and to anyone else, they affect us all slightly differently, but they won't be too different.

Usually you'll get some tension in your body, in your grip and neck. The tension in your grip spreads up your arms and the tension in your neck spreads down and to just about every part of your body as well as up into your head where it prevents you having any clear focus.

Sound familiar?

Have you ever felt this way when you hit a pitching wedge during your warm up? Probably not.

Have you ever felt this way when you are just squeezing in 9 holes on a Wednesday evening and you have to play the back nine because the front nine is busy? Not very likely.

And have you ever felt this way before a casual round with you best golfing buddy, no scorecards involved? No, you are looking forward to having a fun round.

But you can see these occasions are the same as the ones that make you feel so nervous, and yet you will have played much better in the relaxed occasions.

So why is it? And what can we do about it?

When you get nervous you release chemicals into your body, like adrenaline which affect the nervous system, muscles get slightly tense ready to respond to the imminent (perceived) danger - it's the classic fight or flight response.

Of course when you are relaxed, you feel loose, you are in control and your body isn't interfering with what you're trying to do, it just gets on with it.

So if the situations I mentioned earlier are so similar, why do they make us feel so different?

Simply it's to do with our own expectations about the outcome. You and I can set our own expectations.

Remember this:

The less you care about the outcome, the more likely you are to get the outcome you want.

You may find that hard to agree with, and feel strongly about being committed and focused to a certain outcome, to achieve a certain score, or get a long iron close, or par the last 4 holes.

But if you are a golfing mortal like the rest of us, you'll know your best golf is played when you aren't concerned about the outcome.

So I challenge you to take a chance next time you play, decide you don't care what you score, decide you'll accept blowing a good score down the last few hole, and you'll accept it if you don't hit every fairway off the tee, every green with your approach shots and you'll accept the outcome of every putt.

I know you will be amazed at how well you play when you don't care how well you play.