Tips and Tricks to Building A Strong Golf Mindset- Your GolfSpot

As your golf game grows you must begin to understand and improve your golf mindset and the mental side of your game.  No matter your skill level or the stakes involved, if you care about your improvement as a player there will be times where your mental toughness and clarity are what pull you through a challenging situation on the best golf courses in California.

Now that may sound a bit heavy for us amateur golfers but it’s true.  Most of us want to improve as players or at least maintain a level of ability and if we aren’t able to think our way through certain shots, holes, and rounds then our skill level is likely to hit frustrating plateaus.  

Sure, there are days when the only goal on the course is to have fun with friends or family, and posting a decent score if you even keep score, is the last thing on your mind.  But, most of the rounds you play the main goals are to play and score your best.  It’s in those rounds where your golf mindset and mental approach to the game will matter.

Fortunately for us, the world of sports psychology golf and sport-specific mental focus has grown more mainstream and you don’t have to be a PGA championship picks pro with access to the world’s top doctors and professionals to learn how to unlock the sharpest golfer inside you.  This article will share some of the top golf mindset tips and golf mindset books you can use to up your game.

A golf mindset refers to the mental approach and attitude that a golfer adopts when playing the game. This includes elements such as focus, confidence, resilience, and mental toughness. A sports psychologist specializing in golf helps athletes develop and maintain a positive mindset, manage stress and anxiety, improve concentration, and overcome mental barriers to optimize their performance on the golf course.

 

Golf Mindset Tips to Improve Your Game

Dr. Brett McCabe, sports psychologist and mental coach to numerous PGA Championship and LPGA Tour professionals, says that:

“Life has its ups and downs. When you’re at a peak, savor the view, and when you’re in a valley, keep moving forward.  Never halt and think that where you are now is where you’ll always be.  Don’t just claim to be a hard worker; let your results speak for themselves.  Your accomplishments will make it evident if you genuinely put in the effort.  When you have to proclaim it, it’s often a sign that you’re trying to persuade yourself as much as anyone else.”

While Dr. McCabe is speaking more broadly about life here, his golf mindset tips and teachings deliver a very similar message.  In a recent blog post, Dr. McCabe offered 3 Steps that any golfer of any level can use to change their mindset.

 

• Identify Exactly What You Want

If you as a golfer have not adopted a golf mindset that’s identified what you want out of your game and abilities and built a plan to make that happen, then what are you trying to accomplish?

 

• Cut the Noise

There will be “drama” all around you whether that be in the middle of a round or periods when your game has fallen into a rut and it can wear you down.  But since you’ve already identified what you want out of your game, cut out the noise and go get it.

 

• Be Prepared for Struggle

The struggle is inevitable.  Where’d this slice come from all of a sudden?  Why do I suddenly feel hopeless standing over short putts?  Top performers with sharpened golf mindsets have a plan for how to manage the struggle when it comes.

Dr. McCabe is very active on social media where you can find him dishing out helpful golf mindset tips daily.  Brett also has a series of popular sports and golf mindset books including his latest, Break Free from Suckville, that have helped golfers of all levels maximize their potential and reach satisfying levels of consistency by mastering their mental game.

 

Golf Mindset Books

Dr. Bob Rotella

Speaking of golf mindset books, we amateur hacks now have access to plenty of resources to help conquer our golf mental demons and find our most consistent game.  Dr. Bob Rotella and Dr. Joseph Parent are two of the most renowned experts in sports performance psychology and have written several golf mindset books that can help us develop effective methods for mastering the mental side of golf.

In Dr. Parent’s Zen Golf, he helps players of all levels eliminate the mental distractions that routinely cause poor shots and loss of concentration, and how to more consistently feel in “the zone” that professionals have learned to master.

 

Zen Golf / Dr. Joseph Parent

Dr. Bob Rotella is perhaps the foremost expert in golf-focused sports psychology.  His list of credentials includes being recognized as one of the “Top 25 Instructors of All Time” by Links Magazine.  Golf World magazine honored him as one of the “Top 10 Golf Teachers of the 20th Century” and named him “Godfather of Sports Psychology for Golf”, Golf Magazine included him as one of the “Top 10 Teachers of the Decade”.  

 

Dr. Bob Rotella

Dr. Rotella works with players from the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour and his clients have won more than 300 tournaments and 74 Majors.  His roster of clients has included athletes from virtually all professional sports leagues including superstars Rory McIlroy and Lebron James.  Some of Dr. Bob’s most well-known golf mindset books include Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot, and Golf Is A Game of Confidence.  

Dr. Rotella’s golf mindset books are loaded with simple, effective tips that you can use on and off the course.  In Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect, Dr. Rotella tells us:

“A golfer can’t force results to happen. He can only do everything possible to give those results a chance to happen. As Tom Watson once put it, to become a famous golfer, you have to learn how to wait. But you have to learn to wait with confidence.”

If you have a desire to start exploring your golf mindset or taking it to the next level, books by Dr. Rotella and Dr. Parent are an excellent place to start.