I felt it necessary to write a little something about this topic and give a few pointers on how to get it done. There has been a local tournament the last couple of days and there have been at least a few people that had a good round going and gave it all away toward the end. This blog will give you some ammo to combat this tendency.
What causes a player to struggle bringing a good round in? Usually, it’s a lack of experience. This lack of experience is fostered mentally as a lack of true, inner belief. Only players that are unsure of their true ability struggle bringing it in. This lack of inner belief causes a player to not trust their ability. They no longer are confident in there ability to avoid making a mistake.
Because they were playing so well, any mistakes cause them to think they are on verge of choking. This is not the case. When a player gets low enough to feel uncomfortable, they are worried that all their hard work will be lost and they race for house. Shouting the war cry “Let me just par out.” The confident player says all right let’s get more because I’m playing well. The unconfident player starts to play defense because they don’t want to lose what they have. Like somehow 3 under is good enough to compete against someone trying to get to 6 under.
At the beginning of the day, I’m sure they would have been very happy with 18 pars. Now that they are 3 or 4 under, pars seem to become taken for granted. Somehow par has been cheapened and just finishing with a bunch is good enough. Par is a good score and it requires a strong mind to go get it. You don’t just get to par out. Par is way more difficult than that and if you treat it like something easier than what it is, you are doomed not to achieve it. You are not putting in enough effort to deserve pars so you shouldn’t expect them.
I have only recently been able to play without knowing my score. It came to me when I stopped caring about what I scored and started caring about how I engaged myself with every shot. I started to grade myself based on the effort I gave each independant shot. I even started to keep score on the card the number of shots I was fully engaged in and tried to hit the best shot I could.
Don’t take pars for granted and learn to stay involved in each shot. Try to earn what you have and don’t play 12 or 15 holes. Play them all and I can promise you, the value of 4 on 18 equals the value of 4 on number 3. If you think you shouldn’t go for more han you think deep down that you don’t deserve what you already have.
