Improve your game from your inbox – Confidence
Golf Psychology by Coen Welsh – Kevin Kisner shook off the nearly man tag at the Dean & Deluca invitational. He last won in 2015 and told PGATour.com: “You start questioning if you’re going to win again after a while.”
Kisner said. “Everybody was questioning if I was ever going to win. Then I won, and then everybody questions if I was ever going to win again.” (Source: PGATour.com)
Staying motivated and having confidence play an influential role in ensuring success in conditions like this. Jordan Spieth has been facing similar criticism after missing consecutive cuts and by finishing second he may have put those demons to bed for a while. “I could look back at the end of the year and this could have been the most important round of the year,” Spieth said. “I hope that’s the case.”
Our tip this week deals with how to build confidence.
Tip of the week – Build confidence in your own ability
1.) Don’t be Self Critical. If you start to beat yourself up over your mistakes, you will reduce your positivity and it will be hard to regain it before your next and “most important” shot. Believe your next shot will always be better than the previous.
2.) Enter a Tournament – Most golfers who are lacking confidence will stay as far away from tournaments as possible—this is exactly the wrong approach to take. If you would like to build the necessary confidence in your game, enter a tournament at your local club and put yourself to the test. Even if you may have some poor scores in the end, you can think back to those great shots you hit when the pressure was on. As your confidence improves, you will also think back to those horrible scores you had in the beginning.
3.) Write down three things that you did really well today – and make at least one of them psychological, for example: I was totally concentrated for 10 minutes, or I didn’t get angry because of a missed a putt, etc.
Quote of the week
Professional golf is the only sport where, if you win 20% of the time, you’re the best. – Jack Nicklaus
For more tips visit www.capacitytrust.com
Coen Welsh, a qualified industrial psychologist, is an expert on the Antecedents and underlying Psychological Conditions predicting Employee Engagement.He has worked in diverse teams in the UK, Egypt and Namibia. Coen regularly gets invited to speak at HR and other conferences. He is a regular contributor to NBC National Radio as well as Tupopyeni and Off-the-Hook on NBC Television. He is a founding member of the Professional Speakers Association of Namibia. You can visit him at www.coenwelsh.com.
