Create a Positive Mental Golf Attitude*

Maintaining a positive attitude on the golf course is important because it directly impacts your performance. When your negative attitude is stronger than your conscious effort, you will not be able to manifest what you want.

Since early childhood, most of us have been taught values and resulting attitudes that have been framed in the negative. We are so used to expressing ourselves in the negative; it sometimes becomes impossible to think of a positive way of expression.

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? How does hitting a shot out of bounds or into a water hazard affect you? Pessimists internalize the mistake, believing the missed shots will continue and undermine their game. Optimists, on the other hand, believe that a missed shot is only a temporary setback or a challenging situation to overcome. Do you look for solutions or more problems? Do you put the missed shot behind you and continue with your positive strategy?

In aeronautics, attitude is the direction of the airplane in relationship to the horizon. Think of attitude in relationship to your goals. If you lean toward your goal, you have a positive attitude. If you lean away, you have a negative goal.

The bad news is that nobody can be positive 100 percent of the time and perhaps that is one reason why golf scores are inconsistent. The good news is that you can change your attitude, just as you can change any bad habit. Your attitude is your choice. The sooner you decide to choose how you will think positively about yourself and your golf game, the less anxiety you will have and the more you will enjoy your rounds of golf. Don’t waste your round of golf looking at half-empty glasses and making a victim of yourself. Make your round of golf the most enjoyable experience possible.

Tom Watson said it never bothered him to miss a green because one of four things could happen, and three of them were good:

1. He could hole the shot from off the green or out of the bunker.
2. He could hit it close and tap it in.
3. He could it poorly and make a good putt.
4. He could hit it poorly and miss the putt.

Watson’s attitude was that if you added up all those scores–a birdie, two pars, and a bogey–it came to even par. So if you practiced your short game, you had nothing to fear.

*Excerpts are from Chapter 12, ATTITUDES; “The Heart of Golf, Access Your Supreme Intelligence for Peak Performances.”

 Play “in the zone” with Joan   

Entrain Your Heart & Mind for Peak Performances

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Internal voices of fear deter golfers from success. Listening to the PMI “Fearless Golf” CD will consistently transform the voice of past fears and failures on the golf course into positive, empowering self-talk. Available now at www.pmi4.com/cart