Golf And The Mental Game

In their quest to take their game to the next level, many golfers feel the need to explore The Mental Game of golf. Because golfers see that some PGA tour stars employ a sport psychologist, they think this kind of work will do wonders for their game as well.

Here's the rub. Can anyone name a tour player that suddenly became a great player because they hired a psychologist to help them with their game. Sure, some have certainly changed their attitudes as a result of their work, but it is difficult to name any that were turned into a star golfer.

The fact of the matter is that if you can't break 100, you probably have a lousy golf swing. No amount of work on what is going on inside your brain is going to help you lower your scores if you can't get the ball airborne, or have trouble keeping it on the golf course.

Golf is a process. You have to learn good fundamentals before you can start hitting the ball well. You have to learn how to hit the ball well on the range, before you play well on the golf course with your friends. You have to play well with your friends before you can play well in a tournament. You have to play well in a tournament before you can learn how to win a tournament.

Tiger Woods is a perfect case study in all this. He is re-learning how to play golf again. He is getting more comfortable with his new swing, and while it may not be a better version than what he has had before, as long as he thinks so, that is all that matters. As he is getting more comfortable with it, you can see he is getting more comfortable on the golf course, and particularly around the greens. Pretty soon, he will be able to knock down the door and win a tournament again, and then he will build on that process and win a major again. Will he get back to his highest level? That remains to be seen.

In all of this, what you have not heard is that he has hired a mental game guru to help him with his mental game. Tiger is mentally strong already, and therein lies the difference between the great players, and those that are not so great. Their mental toughness is more innate, not trained. Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson, and Tiger Woods never needed to hire a sport psychologist to help them win golf tournaments.

Yes, there are things you can do to help with your mental game. However, there is no magic mental process that is going to turn you into Tiger Woods. There is, however, a learning process to becoming a better golfer overall, as described above. So get to work on that process and you will become a better golfer.