What Are The Warning Signs Of A Golf Slump (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Are The Warning Signs Of A Golf Slump (Video) - by Pete Styles

So as a golfer we’re going to work really hard to avoid these slumps and if we do see a slump we’re going to try and get out of it as fast as possible. One of the warning signs that a slump might be on its way, now the thing with the slump is it might not be every club in the bag all at once. What might happen with the slump is it starts in one area of your game and then feeds into the other parts of your game and that sort of almost becomes a disease, becomes a problem for other parts of your game. So we look at these warning signs and we try and rectify these issues before they affect and disease the other parts of your game.

So one of the first issue is you might be missing short putts. If you go out in the golf course and you’re playing quite nicely, your game is in good order and then suddenly you start missing some short ones, the frustration and the bad attitude and bad temper that can come from missing those short putts can start to affect other parts of your game. Other areas might be things like blowup holes. You’ve had 16 good holes, so your handicap was slightly below your handicap and then two absolute stinkers, two 8’s, 9’s or 10’s. And again same problem with those big scores really start to affect your attitude and your temper or your motivation because you’ve scored badly. It starts to affect the other parts of your game. Indecision might be a bit of a problem. You’re playing quite nicely, you’re going around the golf course but you just stood over every ball thinking, “I just don’t know what I’m meant to be doing here. I can’t pitch the shot. I’m not sure how I meant to play.” Again it breeds frustration in your game that you’re not capitalizing and taking some opportunities. And that’s another issue is if you’re playing well and you’re getting yourself into a good position, 16 holes done, two on your handicap, everything is going great and then you finish 5 over your handicap. You think, you know the indecision or not taking opportunities in those last two holes has really cost you. You sit at home that night thinking, “What more can I do? I’ve played some great golf but I still didn’t complete a decent score and didn’t get my handicap down.” That can really start to cause you some big motivational issues and also some temper issues. You might feel you’re now playing golf pretty much in a bad temper the whole way around because you know something is going to happen. You know you’re going to miss some short putts, you’re going to blowup, you’re going to have some indecision, you’re not going to take your opportunities and this is all good warning signs that you’re at the start of a slump. So if you feel you’re playing golf and you’re not enjoying it, you’re not scoring brilliantly, just consider the fact that you got to change your approach. You got to change your mentality pretty quickly otherwise this slump is going to get deeper and deeper and deeper. We’re going to see more of those warning signs and we’re going to be on a downward scale to playing some pretty poor golf. So when we see these warning signs we got to react to it. We got to change our mindset quickly. We got to try and shallow the slump or not make it happen at all and get back to beating your handicap in playing some better golf. 2016-09-30

So as a golfer we’re going to work really hard to avoid these slumps and if we do see a slump we’re going to try and get out of it as fast as possible. One of the warning signs that a slump might be on its way, now the thing with the slump is it might not be every club in the bag all at once. What might happen with the slump is it starts in one area of your game and then feeds into the other parts of your game and that sort of almost becomes a disease, becomes a problem for other parts of your game. So we look at these warning signs and we try and rectify these issues before they affect and disease the other parts of your game.

So one of the first issue is you might be missing short putts. If you go out in the golf course and you’re playing quite nicely, your game is in good order and then suddenly you start missing some short ones, the frustration and the bad attitude and bad temper that can come from missing those short putts can start to affect other parts of your game. Other areas might be things like blowup holes. You’ve had 16 good holes, so your handicap was slightly below your handicap and then two absolute stinkers, two 8’s, 9’s or 10’s. And again same problem with those big scores really start to affect your attitude and your temper or your motivation because you’ve scored badly. It starts to affect the other parts of your game.

Indecision might be a bit of a problem. You’re playing quite nicely, you’re going around the golf course but you just stood over every ball thinking, “I just don’t know what I’m meant to be doing here. I can’t pitch the shot. I’m not sure how I meant to play.” Again it breeds frustration in your game that you’re not capitalizing and taking some opportunities. And that’s another issue is if you’re playing well and you’re getting yourself into a good position, 16 holes done, two on your handicap, everything is going great and then you finish 5 over your handicap. You think, you know the indecision or not taking opportunities in those last two holes has really cost you.

You sit at home that night thinking, “What more can I do? I’ve played some great golf but I still didn’t complete a decent score and didn’t get my handicap down.” That can really start to cause you some big motivational issues and also some temper issues. You might feel you’re now playing golf pretty much in a bad temper the whole way around because you know something is going to happen. You know you’re going to miss some short putts, you’re going to blowup, you’re going to have some indecision, you’re not going to take your opportunities and this is all good warning signs that you’re at the start of a slump.

So if you feel you’re playing golf and you’re not enjoying it, you’re not scoring brilliantly, just consider the fact that you got to change your approach. You got to change your mentality pretty quickly otherwise this slump is going to get deeper and deeper and deeper. We’re going to see more of those warning signs and we’re going to be on a downward scale to playing some pretty poor golf. So when we see these warning signs we got to react to it. We got to change our mindset quickly. We got to try and shallow the slump or not make it happen at all and get back to beating your handicap in playing some better golf.