A Wandering Mind Is Bad For Your Golf Game

/ The Grateful Golfer

Playing plenty of golf has the tendency to lead to a wandering mind. You know the affliction when you are thinking of a million things and none are on your golf game. The stray thoughts on the golf course surely leads to higher scores and greater frustration. I experienced this challenge many times in my career and it usually happens when I play four or five days in a row. It is not something I can control, but try to work through when it happens. I am not sure there is a fix for a wandering mind, but I sure would like to think so for the sake of my game.

One of the main reasons my mind wonders is that I am tired (more mental than physical) and I do not feel the same positive energy for my golf swing. It is as if my mind is saying it is time to go home, but my emotions are trying to keep me at the course. The results of this seesaw battle is never conclusive, however there is a way that I can improve my mental state during those wandering days. Before I delve into my fix, here is a great video that will lead into what I think is a good fix:

To stay in the moment during my wandering (and other) days, I use visual and verbal cues to focus my thoughts on any golf shot. I will talk about my target before stepping up to the ball and then chose a small target to hit. The smaller the target, the sharper the focus. On good days, feel will be a third sensory input that helps, but primarily for me it is visual and verbal.

On a side note, the other day I was working with a junior golfer and introduced visual and verbal cues to improve their focus on a shot. At the beginning it was a foreign concept, but by the end our nine holes it was a helpful process and it something he said he would continue to work on to improve his shotmaking.

Focusing on my golf shot is not a difficult process. I have developed the steps needed in my pre-shot routine that help me zero in on the shot at hand. My visual and verbal cues are the key and have proven to be very successful to keeping me in the moment. Of course I still hit poor shots from time to time, however the misses seem much less disastrous. If you are developing your mental golf game, I recommend you find what helps your mind focus as mentioned above in the video; it will be a great help producing better scores.

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

6 thoughts on “A Wandering Mind Is Bad For Your Golf Game”

  1. Jim, losing focus is hard especially on bad ball striking days. I try to think target as well. Sometimes, I’m so zeroed in but other times it feels like I’m going through the motions. Can’t understand why it varies from day to day using the same pre-shot routine.

    The consecutive day challenge is a bit different. I think if you vary the games/format, you have a better chance so you don’t get complacent. For me, it’s mostly physical exhaustion. I used to take a summer trip to Myrtle where we’d play 36 a day for six straight days. Inevitably, my stroke average for the replay rounds was four or five worse than the morning rounds. At the end of the week, my body felt like it had been through an NFL game. I wouldn’t touch a club for two weeks afterward.

    Good luck and play well!

    Brian

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    • Brian

      Physical exhaustion is definitely a thing the more I play. I find that as I get older my desire to play many days in a row is not as intense as when I was younger. Regardless, it still like to hit the links 4 or 5 times a week. Fortunately, my new course is 9 holes and playing 2 balls at a time (when I am a single) helps reduce the fatigue as the rounds roll on.

      Cheers Jim

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  2. This is good advice. I try and follow it for all my shot making especially. For instance if I want to hit a draw, the last thing I want to think about just before I pull the trigger is how bad I want it to draw because that’s going to lead me to do dumb things and blow the shot. I’ll be trying too hard and not just taking the swing I set up to make.

    Had my first experience at a Top Golf facility tonight. Now there’s a place a person who likes to show off their golf needs to go. lol Hundreds of people with three tiers of bays to hit out of. It’s not a place to go if you suffer from first tee jitters because you know everyone’s watching unless maybe you want to work on that. lol

    And you get trackman like data too. I dialed in right away with my 5 hybrid hitting to the back target and the guys would call out numbers like 27 feet of turn or 160 carry. Ball speeds. It’s a lot to take in if you’re not used to it. Like I said I dialed in early with it. I missed four of the first ten and none of the last ten. I flew a few in. Just. And I bounced a lot in. Because bouncing them in was getting it closer to the center ring and bringing more points and it was the easier swing too.

    The game wasn’t a wipe out though. While the other two guys struggled a little the woman in the group was dribbling every shot into the close target and just ahead of them in points. But she failed to update the computer and played my last 8 balls. So I played hers and gave her just enough points to squeak by my score and take the win. We called it great strategy on her part. lol

    Anyway, I enjoyed that evening out eating good food while playing something akin to golf. lol

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