Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

feeds on itself and triggers the sympathetic nervous system to do two key things detrimental to golf. First, norepinephrine is produced and muscles tense up. Second, capillaries in the hands constrict, making golfers lose feeling in their hands such that they grip the club really tightly. Tense muscles and tight hands restrict the golf swing, often producing bad shots (jabbed putts or blocked full shots). Bad shots decrease self-efficacy and increase fear, and the cycle simply repeats and insidiously feeds on itself over and over. And there you have it, a psychological breakdown that produces the dreaded downward spiral.

    fear and physiology

    In my research there are four important and destructive ways that fear impacts the physiology of the golf swing.
    Tightening muscles is fine for sports such as football, where all you need to do is hit someone really, really hard. But tight muscles do not work for golfers, whose movements, while forceful, must also be delicate and precise, often all at the same time. The physiological aftereffects of fear influence the golf swing in four distinct ways. Only by knowing these ways can golfers understand how to combat this resulting tightness and make fearless swings at good targets.
    Later, we’ll talk about how to attack these four problems both from a physical and a mental standpoint.

    Problem 1: Golfers’ Hands

    The first and by far most important way that fear-induced bodily changes influence the golf swing is by altering a golfer’s hands. Have you noticed that when people get nervous they fidget with their hands? Anxiety usually makes its first appearance in our hands. When blood flows away from our extremities, the result is that we often lose feeling in our hands. To regain the ability to feel the club in their hands, golfers do what comes naturally—they grip the club tighter. Studies show that golfers who are nervous change their grip pressure equivalent to the amount of tension they feel. The more nervous they become, the tighter they grip the club. Of course, the tighter they grip the club, the more difficult it becomes for the hands to properly follow their path on the downswing. Consequently, even when they are mechanically in all the right positions in the golf swing, the tension in their hands and forearms often kills their timing. This prevents them from releasing the club properly, influencing both distance and direction of their golf shots.

    Confidence Drill: Feel the Pressure

    As we’ve seen, the physiologic effects of fear have specific influences on the golf swing. One of the most prominent is that fear alters grip pressure. Because the body’s natural fear response causes the blood vessels to constrict, blood is pushed out of the hands. That in turn causes a golfer to grip the club tighter in order to feel the same thing.
    But a tighter grip makes it difficult to make a smooth swing with a complete backswing and a full release and follow-through. What you have to learn is to sense when your grip is getting too tight and learn to dial it down.
    Try to set up a scale where 1 is the softest hands possible, almost as if you were holding a fragile piece of jewelry or a soap bubble on a stick. Make 10 the tightest you could imagine, equal to the grip pressure you’d feel if you were hanging on to the still rings like a gymnast. Experiment with what a swing with a grip pressure of 1 feels like. Be prepared to let the club fly out of your hands, but trust me, it won’t. Your grip pressure naturally tightens as you approach impact. You should be pleasantly surprised by how much more rhythmic and flowing your swing is at 1 or 2. Most golfers do not know what swings feel like when their grip pressure is too loose. You’ll probably find out that what you thought would be way too loose isn’t that loose at all.
    Do the same with a 10 and see if you sense a difference in your swing. See how easy it is or isn’t to hit a big sweeping hook with your hands strangling the grip. Odds are it won’t be easy.
    Now, starting at 1 on your scale, slowly begin increasing the grip pressure. Ideally, your grip pressure should be between 3 and 5, but under pressure you can easily find it sliding closer to 7, 8, or 9. Knowing what a 1 or a 2 feels like will help you find that ideal low-medium pressure that you need to make the most effective swings. Eventually, you should learn what Tiger Woods learned when he said, “No doubt about it: Light is right.”

    Problem 2: