Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

good scores but who undermine their own potential because they lack the confidence to execute. As famed writer Alexander Dumas wrote, “
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it
.”

    the source of self-efficacy

    More than any other psychological process, self-efficacy is the buffer that shields golfers against fear. I know what you’re thinking, though. “Yes, I realize that self-confidence is important. What I need to know is how to develop it . . . and hold on to it!” The critical question for all golfers deals with how to develop and nurture the self-efficacy required to play fearless golf. Well, let’s see if I can move you from what psychologists call
declarative knowledge
(knowing that it is important to believe in your abilities) to
procedural knowledge
(knowing how to cultivate and nurture that self-belief and, more important, exercise it when you need to). Let’s go there now.
    A strong sense of efficacy enhances human accomplishment and well-being in countless ways. Confident individuals approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided. They have greater interest and deep engrossment in activities, set themselves challenging goals and maintain strong commitment to them, and heighten and sustain their efforts in the face of failure. They more quickly recover their confidence after failures or setbacks, and they attribute such failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills, skills and knowledge that they immediately acknowledge are acquirable. High self-efficacy helps create feelings of serenity in approaching difficult tasks and activities. Conversely, people who doubt their capabilities may believe that things are tougher than they really are, a belief that fosters stress, depression, and a narrow vision of how best to solve a problem. Not surprisingly, confidence in one’s golfing capabilities is a critical component of the success they ultimately attain.

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    bryce molder and the power of expectation

    “Domination” is an overused term, but it is appropriate in describing the college career of Bryce Molder. During Bryce’s freshman year, his coach asked everyone on the team to write down some goals they wanted to achieve. Bryce wrote down that he wanted to be a four-time All-American. Of course, Bryce took flak from his teammates for having such lofty expectations because, until that time, only three players in NCAA history (Phil Mickelson, David Duval, and Gary Hallberg) had achieved such a feat.

    But Bryce was unwavering in his commitment. He knew what he wanted to achieve and he was confident in his abilities to get there, some way, somehow. Over the course of four years at Georgia Tech, Bryce not only realized the goal of being a four-time NCAA all-American, he also capped a stellar career by finishing his senior year with a 69.43 stroke average (the best in NCAA history). Along with that, he tied the NCAA record with his third-round score of 12-under-par 60 at the Golf World Invitational. He set a new school record and NCAA record with twenty rounds in the 60s, and for his career, Bryce finished with the best stroke average in NCAA history at 70.69, bettering Tiger Woods’s mark of 71.10.

    I asked Bryce to explain the mindset that allows a person to realize those feats:

    Well, I literally expected to win every single time I teed it up. My confidence was so high at certain times that I would enter a tournament and my goal would be to win that tournament by ten shots. Really. That was my goal: not to compete, not to just win, but to win by ten shots. I would ask myself, “How many do I want to win by today?” not “Will I win?” but “By how many will I win?” And you know what, when I didn’t win by ten, I often won by a couple because that’s what I expected from myself.
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    Before I illustrate that, however, let me take a slight detour to clarify something essential. A strong sense of self-efficacy does not in and of itself ensure successful performance. One can be highly self-efficacious and still perform poorly. All the confidence in the world will not help us when required skills are lacking. An underprepared but highly self-efficacious golfer is a confident fool. As poet Shel Silverstein wrote, “If the track is tough and the hill is rough,