5 Tips To Help You Have Fun While Playing Poor Golf... According To A Mind Game Coach

We might put a lot of effort into hitting longer drives, developing a better chipping technique and studying golf swing tips, but the reality is we're not always going to play well. In fact, quite often we don't.

There will be dips and then there will be days when it doesn't happen at all as all parts of our game fall apart and we can't string a couple of shots together.

But we're still playing golf which, for many of us, is our favourite hobby. This is when we need to dig deep and find it within ourselves to make the most of our time out on the course.

Duncan McCarthy is a mental performance coach who has worked on all the main tours and he helped Ashleigh Buhai to her success at the AIG Women's Open at Muirfield in 2022.

Here, he offers some pointers on how to take ourselves away from relying on results and outcomes of shots to feel good about ourselves and to look at the bigger picture.

1) WE'RE OUTDOORS DOING EXERCISE

Let's start with the most obvious but one that many of us take for granted. We should always embrace the fact that we're out in nature and we're outdoors.

For the majority of the weekend golfers especially, that's certainly a better environment than the office that we've probably just spent the entire week in, some potentially in a job that we don't enjoy.

We're still outdoors, regardless of the weather, and we're still surrounded by nature and in beautiful places because, more often than not, golf courses are lovely settings.

Plus we're getting exercise. We all have different fitness levels but we're spending four hours on our feet and walking, so that's a great benefit as well.

Lots of people talk about the need to carve out more time for exercise and fitness – golf will always offer that.

2) TIME WITH FRIENDS

At the end of our lives, we're going to look back on those moments that we had with our friends. It's really important for fun, meaning mental health.

It's hard to coordinate with friends, so take the priority away from hitting good shots or posting a good score and truly enjoy the conversation and golf's little joys.

We need to be conscious of setting the right priorities. We're not professionals, we're just amateurs who do it for a hobby.

Sure, we'd like to do well and we might be competitive, which is a great thing to have, but that competitiveness and the outcome should not be more of a priority than our enjoyment levels.

So, as we're turning into the car park, just remind ourselves, what's our priority today? And align ourselves to that and honour that.

3) LOOK FORWARD

A great skill is to always look forward and to acknowledge that the stories a lot of us are telling ourselves are just rubbish e.g. 'I can't believe I did that' or telling ourselves that we're unlucky.

They're always stuck in the past and that is something that I will always encourage my players to do – not to walk forwards but with our head facing backwards.

If we are we're going to crash into quite a few things and embarrass ourselves. So it's making sure that our attention's not behind us, our attention's in front of us with ultimately the next shot and the opportunities that lie ahead.

And it's about continuously doing that. It's easy to do it on the opening hole and go, right, okay, there's 17 more opportunities, there's an opportunity with this shot and so on But as the round goes on, it becomes harder and harder.

So, we have the ability to replicate that on the 18th tee, to stand there and tell ourselves there's just been 17 poor holes, but keep looking forwards and this could be the best hole of the day. It's just the ability to constantly looking the right way.

Whatever we place our attention on grows, or whatever we give our energy to grows. If we're constantly giving our energy to negative thoughts and negative stories, that's going to grow.

So equally, if we are feeding ourselves with helpful, positive thoughts of, okay, here's an opportunity, what would I like to do here? Let's see what we can do. That's going to grow.

Ultimately, it comes down to how we talk to ourselves. Be the golfer who picks yourself up rather than constantly putting yourself down. I refer to it as constantly shedding skin and doing it on every hole and leaving it there. That's how we can turn it around; leave the baggage behind on every hole.

4) LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS

A lot of club golfers take these subconscious expectations out onto the course and create these stories that today's the day I'm going to hit 40 stableford points. If they don't meet those expectations, they're left disappointed. A lot of the time the expectations are set way too high and they're very unrealistic.

They're disappointed that their 6-iron has finished 15 feet away as they've hit it really well when the average for a tour player is nowhere near that. Actually, sticking a 6-iron on a green is a really good achievement, but everything is results-driven.

We should start to replace them with some standards for ourselves and standards that we can control. So, for example, replace your expectations with 'I'm going to make some really good decisions today' or 'I'm going to commit to all my golf shots'.

5) THE NEXT SHOT

Finally, no matter how bad the day's going or how bad the start's gone, our next shot could be the best of the day. No matter how bad our driving has been for the first four tee shots, the fifth could well be the best of the day. We never know when it's going to come.

What we do know is that giving ourselves an opportunity to do that starts internally and it comes down to our mindset that we're approaching the game with, which is more optimistic than pessimistic.

Unfortunately, especially on Saturdays, we see a lot of individuals turn to pessimistic rather than optimistic. Personally, I'd much rather play the game from that optimistic place as opposed to, oh, here we go again.

About Duncan McCarthy

Duncan is a mental performance coach who works across all sports, including with golfers Marcus Armitage, Mel Reid and Major Championship winner Ashleigh Buhai