Morning!

I had exactly your issue about 3 years ago.

My handicap was stuck on 16 on a par 70 course.

It seemed that no matter what I did I kept shooting 86. In fact, I shot exactly 86 for 11 rounds in a row! Frustrating much???!!!

What happened with me was on one glorious day I shot something like a 78. I proved to myself that I could do it. After that I went back up to the mid eighties but gradually over the course of a couple of months my averages began to drop. Come mid-summer I was shooting in the high seventies regularly and my handicap dropped like a stone to 7, straight from 16.

Breaking the 80 barrier is a big psychological step, the same as breaking 100, 90 or 70. It's like the belief you carry around each individual hole to be able to save yourself from a bad shot depends a lot on previous experience. Unfortunately, to change ones experiences, one must change first, then the rest follows! Stupid game.

It's been said time and time again, but playing one shot at a time was key for me. Try to teach yourself to enjoy your good shots for a few seconds, but forget your bad ones straight away. The only shot that matters is the one you're about to hit. You won't get to re-hit your bad ones, and you're not concerned yet with the good ones you'll hit later, so don't spend mental time on them.

Initially it's tricky to do for 4 hours, and success won't come immediately. You may find you start to string 3 or 4 pars together before the mind-set goes (because by then you've been thinking well for almost an hour) and you then go bogey, double, triple. Once you get used to it your recovery from a string of bad holes will gradually whittle down to recovering from one bad shot.

Good luck! You'll cry before you smile!

__________________
Luke: I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.