Play Smart Golf: Golf Without Fear (Video) - by Pete Styles
Play Smart Golf: Golf Without Fear (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now, if we’re looking at most golfers we’re asking them, do you feel nervous, do you feel tension, do you have a fear factor? For most people the answer would be yes at some point in their life, maybe you don’t feel this fear or this tension as you’re hitting golf balls on the practice grounds and you’re hitting shots here, but you feel the fear out in the golf course. Now it’s not a fear of hurting yourself or being injured or losing anything, it’s just a fear of making a fool of yourself in front of people, whether it’s the 3 playing partners that you’re not used to playing with or maybe it’s the extra group of people that have stood behind you on the first tee waiting for you, or maybe it’s the water in front of the green that’s putting some fear into your mind. But that fear will very rarely have a positive outcome on your game. It’s always going to be a negative outcome that you get tight, you get quick with your swing, you maybe look up too early to see whether you’ve hit a good shot and often that’s going to result in some bad shots.

So you’ve got to try and play golf without fear. Now it’s not as simple as just saying don’t be scared. You know obviously the mental side of golf is a massive topic and just saying to someone don’t be scared isn’t really going to cut it. What we’ve got to do is try and manage your fear a little bit and make sure that you’re playing the right shots at the right time to reduce the bad shots even if you aren’t hitting it as well as you could do let’s say on the driving range or when you relax. So one of the things I’d like to look at is shaping the ball. If you can draw the ball or fade the ball around the golf course that’s going to work quite nicely to reduce the amount of times that you’ll hit towards the outer bounds or towards the water. Now if you can’t shape the ball left to right, right to left and you just have one shot, let’s say you slice the golf ball. If you know you slice the golf ball and you’ve tried to correct it but you’re struggling, next time you’re on the golf course allow for your slice. Aim a little bit more down the left hand side, hit it into the left hand side of the fairway, let it fade or slice back, at least that way you’re playing into a bigger fairway, particularly if there’s danger to the right. So use your course management skills and stand on the tee, assess where the danger is coming from and play the appropriate shot around the danger or away from the danger.

The next thing would be if you’re playing on a very narrow or tight golf hole, just use the right club, you don’t necessarily have to hit the driver or the 3-wood all the time. Work on the principle that if you use more loft you’ll create a little bit more backspin. Therefore the ball will curve a little bit less in the air and it will go less far. So if it’s outer bounds one side, trees on another side, just use a hybrid club off the tee or maybe even a long iron off the tee that would reduce the amount the ball curve and actually hit the ball straighter and easier to get on the fairway. And not standing on the tee now with a 5 iron or a hybrid club, the fairway can look wider therefore reducing my fear. If I’m standing here with a driver suddenly the fairway can narrow down a little bit and all I’m looking at beneath the danger. And that’s another important point really is don’t stand over the golf ball freezing and just looking at hazard and hazard. Stand there and just imagine how big the fairway is. They’ll always be at least the 20 yard wide landing area on most golf holes. Focus on that 20 yard wide landing area, really zero in on that part of your target then make a good committed swing into that shot.

One last thing is don’t actually physically freeze over the golf ball. So when you sat up to the golf ball, we have that 1 or 2 seconds of being still before we pull the club back. We’ve got to make sure that 1 or 2 seconds doesn’t become 5 or 6 seconds, just the mental process creates too much tension in your hands and your arms and you end up freezing over the golf ball and swinging with a tensile fast golf swing. As you sat up to the golf ball it’s quite nice just to have a nice sort of warm piece waggle, little shift with little feet, little shift with little fingers, another warm piece waggle just to stay smooth and relax, look for your target and then go ahead and get straight into it. So it’s not rushing the swing, but at the same time it’s not stood freezing over the golf ball creating too much tension. So if you’ve got a pre-shot routine, stick to that pre-shot routine whether you’re practicing on the driving range, whether you’re relax and comfortable or whether you’re out on the first tee, 10 different people stood behind you, pond in front of you, nervous time stood on the tee, just stick to the same routine, the same timing, the same rhythm and then hopefully it will reduce the amount of fear that you play golf with.

 2012-06-07

Now, if we’re looking at most golfers we’re asking them, do you feel nervous, do you feel tension, do you have a fear factor? For most people the answer would be yes at some point in their life, maybe you don’t feel this fear or this tension as you’re hitting golf balls on the practice grounds and you’re hitting shots here, but you feel the fear out in the golf course. Now it’s not a fear of hurting yourself or being injured or losing anything, it’s just a fear of making a fool of yourself in front of people, whether it’s the 3 playing partners that you’re not used to playing with or maybe it’s the extra group of people that have stood behind you on the first tee waiting for you, or maybe it’s the water in front of the green that’s putting some fear into your mind. But that fear will very rarely have a positive outcome on your game. It’s always going to be a negative outcome that you get tight, you get quick with your swing, you maybe look up too early to see whether you’ve hit a good shot and often that’s going to result in some bad shots.

So you’ve got to try and play golf without fear. Now it’s not as simple as just saying don’t be scared. You know obviously the mental side of golf is a massive topic and just saying to someone don’t be scared isn’t really going to cut it. What we’ve got to do is try and manage your fear a little bit and make sure that you’re playing the right shots at the right time to reduce the bad shots even if you aren’t hitting it as well as you could do let’s say on the driving range or when you relax. So one of the things I’d like to look at is shaping the ball. If you can draw the ball or fade the ball around the golf course that’s going to work quite nicely to reduce the amount of times that you’ll hit towards the outer bounds or towards the water. Now if you can’t shape the ball left to right, right to left and you just have one shot, let’s say you slice the golf ball. If you know you slice the golf ball and you’ve tried to correct it but you’re struggling, next time you’re on the golf course allow for your slice. Aim a little bit more down the left hand side, hit it into the left hand side of the fairway, let it fade or slice back, at least that way you’re playing into a bigger fairway, particularly if there’s danger to the right. So use your course management skills and stand on the tee, assess where the danger is coming from and play the appropriate shot around the danger or away from the danger.

The next thing would be if you’re playing on a very narrow or tight golf hole, just use the right club, you don’t necessarily have to hit the driver or the 3-wood all the time. Work on the principle that if you use more loft you’ll create a little bit more backspin. Therefore the ball will curve a little bit less in the air and it will go less far. So if it’s outer bounds one side, trees on another side, just use a hybrid club off the tee or maybe even a long iron off the tee that would reduce the amount the ball curve and actually hit the ball straighter and easier to get on the fairway. And not standing on the tee now with a 5 iron or a hybrid club, the fairway can look wider therefore reducing my fear. If I’m standing here with a driver suddenly the fairway can narrow down a little bit and all I’m looking at beneath the danger. And that’s another important point really is don’t stand over the golf ball freezing and just looking at hazard and hazard. Stand there and just imagine how big the fairway is. They’ll always be at least the 20 yard wide landing area on most golf holes. Focus on that 20 yard wide landing area, really zero in on that part of your target then make a good committed swing into that shot.

One last thing is don’t actually physically freeze over the golf ball. So when you sat up to the golf ball, we have that 1 or 2 seconds of being still before we pull the club back. We’ve got to make sure that 1 or 2 seconds doesn’t become 5 or 6 seconds, just the mental process creates too much tension in your hands and your arms and you end up freezing over the golf ball and swinging with a tensile fast golf swing. As you sat up to the golf ball it’s quite nice just to have a nice sort of warm piece waggle, little shift with little feet, little shift with little fingers, another warm piece waggle just to stay smooth and relax, look for your target and then go ahead and get straight into it. So it’s not rushing the swing, but at the same time it’s not stood freezing over the golf ball creating too much tension. So if you’ve got a pre-shot routine, stick to that pre-shot routine whether you’re practicing on the driving range, whether you’re relax and comfortable or whether you’re out on the first tee, 10 different people stood behind you, pond in front of you, nervous time stood on the tee, just stick to the same routine, the same timing, the same rhythm and then hopefully it will reduce the amount of fear that you play golf with.