Keeping a cool head

During the week, I had a visit from one of my long-term clients that I had not seen in more than a month as he had been on holiday in Europe.

He had returned with a brand new set of golf clubs, a beaming smile and a real confidence about his golf. As it turns out, he had managed to fit in a huge amount of practice in the past month and had just beaten his personal best on the Wee Monty course at the Royal Golf Club that very morning.

All was well in the world.

Naturally, it is exciting for me to hear someone I have been working with talk about their golf this positively and I was therefore very keen to see the improvements for myself. What followed was a bit of a shock.

After his warm-up, he proceeded to completely shank at least eight shots in a row. I could literally see his face turning a darker shade of purple with each swing. Had it been a cartoon, there would have been steam coming out of his ears.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing can happen in golf. Just when you feel you have it cracked, golf has a frustrating way of letting you know who’s boss pretty quickly.

My reaction, as usual, was to make light of it, remind him that he has a good golf swing and had just played the best round of his life. It is not as if he had suddenly forgotten how to swing the club. I said that clearly, there is a small problem and that we were going to find it.

As it turned out, the shank was happening because he was standing slightly too close to the ball and trying to ‘hit’ it too hard with his arms.

Not a major problem (or so I thought). As I explained this to him, I know that he could hear the words I was saying but I was very aware that he wasn’t listening.

He was so focused on how angry, disappointed and frustrated he was that subconsciously he wasn’t letting the new information into his brain. He wasn’t making either of the changes I had asked him to. As a result, each of his following swings was angrier and faster than the previous one causing even worse shots.

I stopped him, asked him to put his club down and we went for a walk to try and calm down.

After a small break where I managed to calm him down and snap him out of his angry state, we resumed the lesson, made the changes and employed the breathing drill discussed in last week’s article.

Now that his mind was unclouded, he produced some of the best swings I had ever seen him make.

The smile (and normal colour) returned to his face and we joked about how his attitude at the beginning of the lesson was never going to be conducive to good golf.

It is important to remember that golf is the hardest game in the world and you are going to have your bad days. However, getting angry and trying to hit the ball harder is never going to be a solution that produces positive results.

Do your best to stick to your plan, focus on the process and enjoy the challenge that this amazing game sets.

If you do have a run of bad shots, take a break, practice another area of the game and go back to the range with a clear mind, not an angry one. If the problem persists, come and see me. Good luck.