Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

was ever leading a tournament, he would find a way to sabotage himself. He missed qualifying for the U.S. Open by a mere stroke because he double-bogeyed the seventeenth hole (after a bogey-free day of golf to that point). Making matters all the more interesting was that there was a time when Frank was an excellent tournament golfer: As a high schooler, Frank had once shot 28 for nine holes, then the national record.
    Imagine my predicament as a psychologist facing a golfer who could play great golf when it was for money but who could not play well in tournaments. The fact that it happened consistently led me to realize that there was a definite pattern in place.
    I asked Frank to take me through his routine and thought patterns as he approached a money match. He told me this:
“I warm up on the range, check how my swing feels, and just try to get loose. In the back of my mind as I’m doing this, I feel like I am going to bury whoever I am playing. I love competing against other people.”
    I asked him to tell me the things he says to himself as he plays. He took me through a recent money match:

    On the first tee I was thinking “Where do I want to hit the ball?” I told myself that I wanted to hit it down the right side of the fairway. Though I was thinking of hitting it down the middle, the ball ended up in the bunker. I didn’t really care though because I know that I am a good bunker player. I’m thinking, “What do I need to do to beat this guy?” So I hit a nice shot out of there, saved par, and halved the hole. The next hole was a par 5. I was certain that I could reach if I kept it in play, so I hit a nice drive into a wide part of the fairway, wondering, “How far do I have to the center of the green?” I hit the shot to the front edge and two-putted for birdie. I won the hole.

    I then asked Frank to take me through what he thinks as he approaches tournaments. His approach was very different.

    On the drive to this last tournament I found myself thinking “What if I shoot 80 today?” [he was thinking this despite the fact that he’d shot 67, 72, 70 in his previous three rounds]. On the first tee I’m thinking, “God, let me play good enough to not embarrass myself. What if I make a fool of myself again?” In the back of my mind I’m wondering what everyone is thinking of me. I was just hoping not to put the ball into the creek. My whole body was tight, and my swing was short.

    So what happened?

    I managed to put that ball in the fairway, and then I was playing all right. I made a few pars but I was still tight. I wasn’t feeling good. In the back of my mind I was still wondering, “What if I blow it?” Then on number 7 I just blocked this ball out to the right. I don’t even know where it went, man. I had to drop next to the ladies’ tee, that’s how far right it was! I made triple on that hole, followed by a bogey on 8. After blocking the ball on number 7, I asked myself, “What are you doing? How can you be so stupid?”

    Obviously, these sorts of questions led Frank to a rather bad place mentally, a place from where he could not recover. He followed that hole up with bogeys until he was far enough out of the lead that it didn’t matter what he shot. Conversely, for money matches, Frank saw nothing but fairways. He asked good, directed questions: Where do I want to hit the ball? How far do I have to the center of the green? His mind was on hitting shots at targets on a golf course the way that mastery golfers typically do. He said,

    I am not really too focused on winning holes. I don’t mind it if I go one up or one down. I am more focused on getting into my own rhythm, getting a feel for the course. It doesn’t really matter what happens early on because I know that I’ll have my shots down the line. I just focus on trying to hit good shots.

    Tournament golf patterns were the exact opposite. Frank thought about nothing but his score. He saw nothing but the hazards, and he approached shots trying to avoid those hazards (water to the right, out-of-bounds to the left). He asked anxiety-producing questions (“What if I shoot 80 today? What if I make a fool of myself again? What are you doing? How can you be so stupid?”). He totally ignored finding his rhythm. And his perspective changed from mastery golf (playing the course) to ego golf (trying to impress others or not embarrass himself) and by asking such poor, ego-oriented questions, he created the very escalating