The Mental Side Of Golf: Part 2 Reducing Stress And Controlling Nerves (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Mental Side Of Golf: Part 2 Reducing Stress And Controlling Nerves (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, I suggest that you’ve arrived at the first tee now. You’ve had your little warm up session, you’ve done a little bit of chipping, a little bit of putting. You've practiced this first tee shot in your mind a few times on the practice ground and now you actually arrive at the first tee ready to hit it, but suddenly, there’s two groups of people waiting for you, plus your group. So, there's maybe 10 or a dozen people now watching you hit the shot, over the water, onto the par 3.

Well, it didn't look like this when you were on the practice ground, did it? On the practice ground, you were all relaxed and knocking it onto the green every time. Now, suddenly with 10 or a dozen people watching you, the green gets a little bit smaller, the wall gets a little bit wider and the target just seems to shrink in front of you.

This is where you’ve really were got work on, the processes that we're paying off for you on the practice ground. On the practice ground, when you had a nice target out there, you were focused on the good quality processes in your swing that will produce into nice results.

So, here let's really work on the process that's going to deliver the right shot, rather than the fear of the result or the bad shot and the fear of what these people might think if it doesn't work out for you.

So, the practice ground process would be all about good quality setup, making sure you've got the right things in place, nice little movement away from the ball, not too long at the top, driving into the left side, committing for the club selection that you've made. And if you can work on a good quality process and not freeze over the golf ball, there's no reason why you can't deliver the same quality shot that you were hitting on the practice ground. Now, you’re actually still on the first tee.

So, just make sure that the fear doesn't overcome the situation and you can still think: Get the processes right, get the shot right, the result kind of looks after itself. If you get too focused on your target or the danger and where you're going to miss the green, that's not going to help you play a good sort of solid, stress-free relaxed golf.

Remember that if any situation becomes stressful, there's probably a good chance that if you could overcome that stress, the reward is actually better than a normal stress-free shot. So, the fact that if I can hit this green with those 10 people watching, that's a really good opportunity for me to look good in front of people, boost my confidence even more. Because if I would hit in the green loads and loads in practice, there's no real boost of confidence from that because I've not got extra eyes on me, so, when you look at someone like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, they embraced the opportunity to play well under pressure using as a positive boost for that confidence. Try and do the same next time you're playing: Embrace the opportunity to succeed even when you're under pressure as well.

 2012-06-11

So, I suggest that you’ve arrived at the first tee now. You’ve had your little warm up session, you’ve done a little bit of chipping, a little bit of putting. You've practiced this first tee shot in your mind a few times on the practice ground and now you actually arrive at the first tee ready to hit it, but suddenly, there’s two groups of people waiting for you, plus your group. So, there's maybe 10 or a dozen people now watching you hit the shot, over the water, onto the par 3.

Well, it didn't look like this when you were on the practice ground, did it? On the practice ground, you were all relaxed and knocking it onto the green every time. Now, suddenly with 10 or a dozen people watching you, the green gets a little bit smaller, the wall gets a little bit wider and the target just seems to shrink in front of you.

This is where you’ve really were got work on, the processes that we're paying off for you on the practice ground. On the practice ground, when you had a nice target out there, you were focused on the good quality processes in your swing that will produce into nice results.

So, here let's really work on the process that's going to deliver the right shot, rather than the fear of the result or the bad shot and the fear of what these people might think if it doesn't work out for you.

So, the practice ground process would be all about good quality setup, making sure you've got the right things in place, nice little movement away from the ball, not too long at the top, driving into the left side, committing for the club selection that you've made. And if you can work on a good quality process and not freeze over the golf ball, there's no reason why you can't deliver the same quality shot that you were hitting on the practice ground. Now, you’re actually still on the first tee.

So, just make sure that the fear doesn't overcome the situation and you can still think: Get the processes right, get the shot right, the result kind of looks after itself. If you get too focused on your target or the danger and where you're going to miss the green, that's not going to help you play a good sort of solid, stress-free relaxed golf.

Remember that if any situation becomes stressful, there's probably a good chance that if you could overcome that stress, the reward is actually better than a normal stress-free shot. So, the fact that if I can hit this green with those 10 people watching, that's a really good opportunity for me to look good in front of people, boost my confidence even more. Because if I would hit in the green loads and loads in practice, there's no real boost of confidence from that because I've not got extra eyes on me, so, when you look at someone like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, they embraced the opportunity to play well under pressure using as a positive boost for that confidence. Try and do the same next time you're playing: Embrace the opportunity to succeed even when you're under pressure as well.