The Score Conundrum
Whether you are competing against yourself or competing against other golfers, the desire to shoot lower scores is one of the biggest challenges in golf.
HOWEVER
If your “Focus” on the course is “Driven” by score, you are making it MUCH more difficult to shoot lower scores.
Why?
Because lower scores in golf ONLY happen when you hit Better Shots.
Better Shots ONLY happen when you are fully PRESENT in the moment and FOCUSED on the SHOT that you are hitting.
When you Focus on your score, your mind is travelling to the future:
End of the hole
End of the round
End of the tournament
When your Focus is travelling to the future it is distracted by feelings of:
Expectations
Pressure
Lack of Control
When your Focus is travelling to the future it also limits the amount of Focus you can commit to hitting a good Shot:
The Look of the Shot (visual preparation)
The Feel of the Swing (kinesthetic preparation)
The Course Conditions (sensory awareness)
Which means:
The more you fixate your “Focus” on score (the future) the poorer your Shots will be AND the tougher it will be to shoot lower scores and play better golf.
Timing is Everything When it Comes to Focus in Golf
The “Score Conundrum” is an inverse relationship between your Focus on score and the quality of your Shots.
As the amount and the intensity of your Focus on score goes up… your Shot Quality goes down.
It is important to note that I am not saying you should NEVER Focus on score.
Score Focus can help clarify your decision-making process when choosing specific Shots for specific situations.
Score Focus can help you adapt your “score goals” as needed during a round or during a tournament.
The KEY to optimizing your Focus for improving Shot Quality and playing better golf is knowing WHEN to Focus on score and when to Focus on Shots.
Here is an analogy to help clarify how optimized "Focus Timing" works:
Playing golf is like taking a test in school with 72 “short answer” questions.
In the test at school:
You answer questions.
The better you answer each question... the better your grade on the test.
On the golf course:
You hit shots.
The better the quality of each shot... the better your score.
In the test at school:
If you Focus on the grade you want to get while you are answering the test questions...
You are tuning your Focus away from answering the questions correctly and making your grade worse.
On the golf course:
If you Focus on the score you want to shoot while you are hitting shots...
You are tuning your Focus away from being fully engaged in/committed to each shot and making your score worse.
IDEALLY
In the test at school:
Optimized “Focus Timing" is…
Focusing on the grade you want BEFORE the TEST to give you the motivation you need to study the knowledge necessary to achieve the grade you desire.
When it is time to take the TEST, you forget about the grade (RESULT) and Focus on the PROCESS… answering each question to the best of your ability.
On the golf course:
Optimized “Focus Timing" is…
Focusing on the score you want to shoot BEFORE playing to give you the motivation you need to practice the skills necessary to achieve the score you desire.
When it is time to PLAY, you forget about the score (RESULT) and Focus on the PROCESS… hitting each shot to the best of your ability.
The reality is that it is difficult to completely forget about your score for an entire round of golf.
There will be times when your mind wanders to your score.
Which is why it is helpful to have Routines designed to make sure your Focus is helping you play better golf… and not holding you back on the course.
Routines for Optimizing Your Focus
One of the most effective methods for 0ptimizing your personal Shot vs Score “Focus Timing" is building routines for specific situations during the round.
Pre-Shot Routine
Before each shot is the most CRITICAL time during your round to make sure your Focus is fully tuned and committed to the Shot you are going to hit.
If your Focus is tuned to the importance of the score you desire and the RESULT for your Shot, you are adding pressure and making it tougher to trust your skills to hit the Shot you choose.
This is one of the reasons why Shots at the driving range are MUCH easier to execute at a high level than Shots on the course.
Higher perceived importance of the Result increases feelings of Pressure which decreases Trust.
The GOAL is to tune your Focus on hitting the Shot (the PROCESS) and let go of any Focus tuned to the score (the RESULT).
The KEY is to build a Pre-Shot Routine that helps you systematically turn up the “volume dial” for your senses (Shot Focus) and turn down the “volume dial” for your thoughts and feelings (score desire).
To get more detailed help with your Pre-Shot Routine make sure to check out my Pre-Shot Routine blog post:
Post-Shot Routine
Immediately following each shot is the second most important time during a round to make sure your Focus does not get fixated on score.
Why?
Because after a Shot is one of the most emotionally “charged” times on the course.
Strong (charged) emotions that are connected to your score are often the most difficult emotions to let go of.
When you hit a “bad” Shot your mind is triggered to Focus on how difficult it will now be to achieve the score you desire.
This creates a negative emotional cycle that can become a BIG distraction which interferes with your ability to positively Focus on hitting your next Shot.
This can also happen when you hit a top-quality Shot.
You become excited about the “potential” for improving your score and once again your Focus is tuned to score “in the future” and you are distracted from being fully Focused on the next Shot.
The GOAL is to have a Post-Shot Routine that helps you turn down the “volume dial” of emotion after each Shot so you can prepare to fully Focus on your next Shot.
The KEY is to identify and strengthen “tools” you can use to turn down the emotional “volume dial” after each shot.
To get more detailed help with “tools” for controlling your emotional “volume dial” make sure to check out my Managing Emotions blog post:
In Between Shots
Golfers often overlook the importance of what their minds are doing "in between" Shots.
While in between shot Focus is not as critical as Pre-Shot and Post-Shot… it is still an important piece of the playing better golf puzzle.
Why?
Because you spend most of your round "in between" shots.
Let me give you an example:
Let’s say your round is made up of 72 shots.
If your Pre and Post shot routines are 30 seconds each, that means you are spending 72 minutes of your round Focused on hitting shots and “letting go” of Emotions associated with those shots.
That leaves 3 hours in between Shots (hopefully).
The best use of those 3 hours is to make sure you are keeping your mental and physical batteries charged AND to make it as easy as possible to access optimum Shot Focus for as many Shots as possible.
If you spend too much time "in between" Shots Focused on score, it becomes more difficult to “let go” of score Focus when it comes time to hit your Shots.
The GOAL is to find your personal optimum shot vs. score Focus balance "in between" Shots and track how well you maintain it.
The KEY to making sure your In Between Shot Routine helps you play better golf is to Focus on score as little as possible timewise and with as little emotional charge as you can.
Helpful Hints
Prioritize
If you have spent years allowing your Focus to fixate on score, it will be a challenge to reset to a Shot driven Focus.
As with any new challenge you want to set up a series of small, achievable goals to help you progress to your Focus goal.
The best way to do this is to identify ONE of the three routines and implement that routine first until you begin experiencing success.
I would suggest starting with the routine you feel will give you the strongest positive effect on the quality of your Shots.
Once you feel you have more control of your Focus "volume dia" related to that routine… then move on to the next routine.
The Big Picture GOAL is to strengthen your ability to Focus on Shots whenever you want to and Focus on score only when you need to.
Keep a Mental Game Scorecard
Trackable is Trainable
Strengthening ANY key mental performance metric is much easier when you can simply and accurately track the changes.
I have found Mental Game Scorecards to be a highly effective tool for tracking ANY mental performance metric.
Here is an Example:
You have decided to strengthen your Shot Focus for your Pre-Shot Routine.
I suggest you start by tracking the BALANCE of your Focus in your Routine.
You do this by putting a plus or minus sign on your scorecard for each shot.
A plus sign means your “Focus” was more on the Shot
A minus sign means your “Focus” was more on the score
This will help you see how many Shots your Focus was helping you and how many it was hurting you.
It will also help you notice patterns of which Shots are easiest to optimize Focus and which Shots are toughest.
As you progress you can reduce the number of Shots you track to the key Shots for your round.
You can also start using letter grades to indicate the specific Focus strength for that Shot (as opposed to the general balance).
For example:
A - strong shot focus
B - good shot focus
C - OK
D - score focus
F - strong score focus
The GOAL for Mental Game Scorecards is to give yourself data that reinforces your progress and helps you fine tune your goals going forward.
The KEY is making sure the process is simple, enjoyable AND that you can directly connect optimized Shot Focus to playing better golf.
Conclusion
Playing better golf is about hitting better quality Shots.
Hitting better quality Shots depends on your ability to quiet distractions:
Pressure
Emotions
Expectations
AND
Fixating your Focus on your score
There is nothing inherently wrong with Focusing on Score.
It can be great motivation for improving your skills in between rounds.
BUT
Score Focus on the course needs to be reduced to the essential times ONLY if you want to be fully PRESENT in the PROCESS for each SHOT you hit.
PRESENCE gives you the best chance for playing better golf and minimizing the effects of distractions.
If you want to speak in person about how Mental Performance Training can help you, your students or your team play better golf... please click the link below:
Geoff
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