Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

handicap. What is required to play to your number? It’s not any set of skills that you haven’t already displayed. What gets you to your number is largely a function of how you mentally approach your round and how you mentally perform during your round. That is something you alone control. That is where the average player needs to understand and work on his golf self-efficacy beliefs.

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    handicap index and self-efficacy

    Golfers on the PGA Tour routinely wonder about their potential. They think they know it, but they are not sure. That uncertainty gets in the way of their executing efficiently under pressure. But average golfers should not have this problem. While uncertainty about potential is a problem at the highest levels of the game, average golfers should know their potential right to the stroke every time they step to the first tee. How? It’s called a handicap index, and if you don’t have one, you’re denying yourself a key component to realizing your potential.

    Dean Knuth, the former director of handicapping for the U.S. Golf Association, is credited with developing the handicap index and the concept of slope. Together, the two ideas made the portability of handicaps possible. In short, what slope does is let you take your handicap index from your home course and use it at any course in the country. Let’s say you develop your 7-handicap on a very difficult golf course, like the TPC at Sawgrass’s Stadium Course, where water comes in play on nearly every hole. That 7-handicap is in actuality a 5.3 index. Well, if you go to a much easier course, your 5.3 index may translate to a 6-handicap. The point is, whether you play a tough course or an easy layout, you know once you step to the first tee what your potential is that day. For instance, you know a score of 78 is well within your range.

    Does that mean you should make decisions based on that number floating in your head? No, certainly not. You make decisions on each shot based on one question alone: What is my target? But certainly knowing your particular potential on one day lets you develop a game plan for the day. Just like when Frank Gassaway was playing for money and would not get discouraged by how the first hole went, so too should the average golfer not be discouraged by a bogey or double bogey on a difficult hole. Your handicap reminds you of your potential, and gives you confidence in your ability to score.
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    Developing sound mechanical skills is essential to any sport, but the difference between golfers at the highest levels has little to do with mechanics and ball striking. By the time they get to the PGA Tour, all golfers have the skills required to hit superb golf shots. Far more critical is their ability to execute those skills when it counts, which is nearly impossible to do when battling self-doubt. What individuals do with the skills they possess is in very large part a matter of the confidence they have in their ability to execute those skills. Performance in the clutch (in fact, performance in general) always depends on the confidence one has in one’s capability, which is to say, performance boils down to one’s self-efficacy beliefs.
    How big a role does self-efficacy play in success? Well, consider that many of the closest observers believe it was the central theme to the success of the best player in the history of the game. I once interviewed Gary Player, and he spoke specifically about Nicklaus’s place as the best of all time. He attested that during Nicklaus’s reign of dominance, it was not Jack’s physical skills alone that allowed him to consistently win golf’s major championships. According to Player,

    I saw many players hit the ball better than Jack. But none of them had his mind. Nobody, and I mean nobody had his confidence under pressure. The bigger the stakes, the more confident he became. That’s what won him the Majors and all those tournaments. And, oh boy, you could just see it! He was as confident as a lion out there!

    Given two competitors of equal ability and equal amounts of good fortune on a particular day, the one with the most assured sense of self-efficacy will outperform the less confident one every time. That’s true on golf’s grandest stage, but it is equally true for you in your regular foursome next Saturday. Those who succeed are able to think in ways that help them make the most out of the skills they possess. I often play with golfers who have the potential to shoot