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snowman · #15 (**permalink**) 06-10-2007, 03:12 PM

After chewing over that last round for a wee while I have come to the conclusion that not only do I need to work on putting and chipping but I also need a mental adjustment to adversity. When I was doing well I just got up to the ball, assessed the situation, distance, landing area, lie etc, pulled the club, got into my zone and pulled the trigger. However, (almost) every time I faced a bit of adversity I would be so busy worrying about it that I would get away from my routine and make shoddy quick decisions as if I was sulking about the shot.

Hole #7, hit a bad approach, instead of stepping back and assessing the situation, cooling off a bit I couldn't get to my ball quick enough and ended up hitting a poorly thought out chip shot, then instead of stepping back I 3 putt while I was all distracted by the bad chip.

Hole #8 was a disater as I was still mad about hole #7. Even with a bad tee shot I could have composed myself and come out of it with a bogie, but I let my shoulders drop and sulked to a triple.

Other examples are holes #10, 13, 15, 16 and 17.

I need to turn those triples into doubles or singles and the doubles into singles or par saves. I have done it in the past, but just lately I seem to get affected by bad shots. I think this is because I have been playing well. I will take a look at a couple of Bob Rotella books to see if there is anything in there. I will also re-read Zen golf by Joseph Parent.

I have to get out of the "oh well, I'm having a bad hole, I just want to get to the next one" attitude and replace it with, "okay, I'm playing well, that shot didn't turn out as expected but I am still in the hole and with the correct preparation I will hit a better shot".

Thoughts?