tip of the day - mental

A few years ago, I was leading a tournament going into the last 9 holes. I had a 2-shot cushion and lots of confidence up on the 10th tee box.

And then it happened...

I hit a wild push slice driver that went into the next fairway and stopped behind a tree. During that drive, mentally, I felt restricted. The restriction would then transfer into my body. I could feel my hands get weak and just as I entered into my impact zone, my body froze causing my shot to be blocked out to the right.

The bad mental image and swing should have been forgotten and I should have played how I did the first 9 holes. However, I found myself struggling to AVOID the bad swing. I was terrified that if such a swing happened again, I'd be in serious trouble especially if there was trouble on the right. And just the opposite, if I protected a push slice and duck hooked the ball, I'd have trouble on the left.

Now all of a sudden, the middle of the fairway was no longer in my mind. That smooth swing I had the first 9 holes was gone. All I could think about was, "don't push the ball, don't snap it left, don't mess up." Of course these are normal thoughts of any human and they are definitely things to avoid. But even though I told myself NOT to do these bad things, I never stopped thinking about them. I had completely eliminated all the positive thoughts that a player needs to hit the ball well.

I lost the tournament by 1 shot.

Flood your mind with things that you need to be doing...not what you don't want to do.

The very next week, I went back to the same course and played the round with a positive attitude and mentality. I never gave up, I never changed my swing thought routines and I never let myself dwell on my mistakes or fears.

Guess what, I won.

With anything in life, dwelling on your fears and feeding them with bad thoughts will turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. If you maintain all you know to be good and proper and become fully engrossed in what you need to be doing, you will forget that there is anything to fear at all. And forgetting you can fail will only allow you to maximize your chances of succeeding.