When your golf game is losing steam, how do you adjust your attitude to compensate for the downward spiral?
Golf for Beginners has a few golf tips to keep you in the groove.
The average golfer has both good and bad rounds...and so do professionals on Tour. Where it may be easier for a Tour player to bring their minds back from double bogeys, it isn't as easy for the rest of us.
I have my bad days as well, and I play golf with a youth who shares the same dilemma so I recently asked Dale Ketola, the professional golf instructor from Grande Dunes Golf Performance Center, how to handle the pressure when having a bad round of golf.
His answer? Keep a "poker face" throughout your round.
Need help with this? Watch the tour professionals. No matter how their round goes, their expression rarely changes. Try to maintain a poker face, no matter what the situation - no highs, no lows. I am curious to see how many of our readers can successfully sustain this type of composure!
Another golf tip (not suggested by Dale):
When your golf game is carding doubles, step up to your ball and try to remember the last time you hit a similar good shot - visualization is one of the main keys to hitting solid shots.
Dr. Bob Rotella, in a Golf Digest article, suggested this third golf tip which, if you can do it, will help you whether you play a good or not so good round.
Don't think about the result...instead, think of the process during your round.
Process goals, according to Rotella include:
Executing your pre-shot routine on every shot.
Trusting your swing on every shot.
Staying in the present, which boils down to...not thinking about what your score might be and taking each shot as it comes.
Golf for Beginners is not stating that, if you follow these three golf tips that your rounds will miraculously improve but we believe that you will be able to move forward in your study and appreciation of the game and not focus too much on negativity when your attitude takes over.
Golf tips are welcome in the comments section of this blog. Tag Golf4Beginners on Twitter with your comments.
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