Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

and very often their confidence dissipates like steam. Thus I urge you yet again to be aware of the attention you pay to others, and to be aware of the influence that these vicarious factors can have on your own self-efficacy. Remember that, while it may boost your confidence to score better than others, it may also lower your confidence to score worse. Because we lose so much more than we win, viewing golf as a competition between golfers does not do much for one’s confidence. Rather it is important that golfers always gauge their improvement and root their confidence
in their own progress
based on self-set performance goals relative to how they play the course.
    VICARIOUS LEARNING AND MODELING. Let me now say a word about a positive aspect that comes with the human ability to learn vicariously. An offshoot of vicarious learning has to do with the role that “modeling” plays in the development of confidence. Modeling happens when we watch others perform tasks or engage in activities. Naturally, we tend to incorporate certain behaviors that models display into our own repertoire of behaviors. Modeling is so powerfully wired into human functioning that we often find ourselves copying behavior without even thinking about it. One need look no further than the tendency for teens to copy their favorite music stars like the Beatles in the sixties, Madonna in the eighties, and Eminem today. It is no surprise that legions of youngsters want to “be like Mike”! Parents are quite reasonably concerned that their children will emulate bad role models. Modeling can be a powerful vehicle for promoting behavioral and psychological change in all arenas, including golf.
    Modeling in golf tends to take two forms: mechanical and psychological. In the mechanical sense, golfers often report that playing with certain individuals tends to influence the manner in which they play. For example, in his speech at the 2003 Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus admitted that while he was still developing his game he would often try to imitate Sam Snead or Julius Boros. He observed that modeling their swings often smoothed out glitches in his own swing (or at least made it feel as though that were the case). Golfers on the PGA Tour often gaze at Ben Crenshaw, Fred Couples, and Brad Faxon, admitting that merely watching the smoothness of their swings or strokes somehow improves their own tempo and timing.
    When asked the best way to improve putting, Ben Hogan suggested that one should “dine with good putters.” In my mind, this is a particularly instructive remark that directly addresses the power of modeling. Of course, his point was that good putters talk about putting a certain way. They treat putting a certain way. They think about putting a certain way. They get excited when they talk about putting. They learn to love putting and, of course, their attitudes become contagious to those around them. This goes along with the dictum that “confidence is contagious.” Insofar as possible, the competitive golfer should find individuals whom they think have great approaches to the game, and they should model them to the degree that the modeling improves their confidence. Since the tendency to model may well be wired into us genetically (monkey see, monkey do), I urge you to select a couple of golfers whom you admire and model the aspects you would like to possess. Keep in mind that, when looking around for models, it can be just as easy to emulate a poor one as it is to emulate a good one. Bad and difficult-to-shake habits can develop from ineffective modeling. If it is inevitable that we will pay attention to other golfers, and that this attention will influence our own confidence, then surrounding ourselves with successful models is a good way to maintain a high sense of self-efficacy.

    Confidence Drill: The Power of Modeling

    We’ve talked about how one of the ways confidence is established is through patterning our approach to the game after a successful model. Nicklaus modeled himself after Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, and Sam Snead. Ernie Els modeled himself after Gary Player. Tiger Woods modeled himself after Jack Nicklaus. Adam Scott has modeled himself after Tiger and Greg Norman. Modeling does not merely mean copying another golfer’s swing. Rather, it entails finding a golfer with a winning attitude and infusing your own mental arsenal with those winning ideals. When I’ve asked players to adopt the approach of one of their heroes