The temptation is to fight the nerves and fear. You shouldn’t.
You might be thinking that your ideal golf game is going to turn up when you finally rid yourself of nerves. It’s not going to happen.
You’re probably hoping that your next game of golf is going to be free of nervousness. Nope, ain’t gunna happen.
Here’s a different perspective.
Instead of fighting the nerves and being scared, embrace it. We all get nervous – even the great champions. So instead of hiding, learn to accept it as being human. It’s takes less effort and is one thing less to have to worry about.
“Oh Jesus! I’m not feeling too good right now. I hope those people aren’t watching and I make decent contact with the ball”. This can be replaced with,
“Where do I want the ball to go and what is the club for the job?”.
Nerves are a sign that your body is getting ready to play. There’s nothing to be scared of and the sooner you can realise this the better you’ll do.
A little case study on point about me: (as told in an email)
Playing in the golf final earlier this year I got really nervous. Not sure why but I was feeling sick in the gut and telling all sorts of stories to myself,
“don’t duff it”
“you’re no good”
“you can’t play”
etcBut I remember laughing it all off and made a point to myself that this kind of thing is normal. If we only played when we were truly confident we’d never leave the house. When it was my turn to hit and in front of about 50 people I said to myself,
“just hit the bloody ball”.
I walked up to the ball, got set and smashed it. To my surprise the ball took off like a bullet and hit the middle of the fairway. The crowd clapped and I had a laugh with my caddy when I told him all the stuff that was going through my head.
The bottom line is we can play great with all this stuff going on. It’s normal and part of being human. So embrace it and don’t let it scare you. Keep playing!!
When you accept and embrace what you’re scared of you gain control. It really is a stupid game isn’t it?