MENTAL SPOTLIGHT

The Four Egos

There are four troublesome golfing personalities. Keeping them under control is the key to the proper attitude.

            It’s easy to detect quirks in a golf swing. Even a beginner can notice a flying right elbow. , But it’s more difficult to spot personality traits that may impede your progress as a golfer just as much as weaknesses in your swing.

            Golfing personalities are numerous. But if I were to select the four troublesome, I would have to highlight the following.

Cocky Charlie

Symptoms

            The cocky golfer perceives winning as beyond his reach, and so he settles for a substitute reward, that of appearing to be a winner. Often, he must engage in intrigue to protect this image.

            For example, he often talks about his golfing feats, but he must avoid playing with his audience to maintain his appearance as winner. If he does get trapped into playing with his audience, he faces in surmountable pressure because of his previous boasting. On The golf course, he takes reckless chances or refuses to accept losing, and his winning image remains intact. He has physical ailments “on call” as excuses for poor play. He neglects to keep score, avoiding an accurate measure of his ability. Instead, he talks about the highlights of his round.

            He uses inappropriate equipment, such as stiff shafts when he needs regular ones, to avoid appearing weak. For the same reason, he often underclubs himself. And, perhaps he often tampers with his handicap. An abnormally high one assures him of victory in handicap tournaments; abnormally low one makes him appear better than he is.

Remedies

1. Don’t settle for appearing to be a winner, when winning is what counts.
2. Remember that boasting only puts pressure on yourself, and sets you up to fall short of expectations.
3. Be  a cool, calculating competitor. Plat strategic, percentage golf within your capabilities.
4. Establish an accurate handicap and use it appropriately. Only with an accurate handicap can victory be meaningful.

Superstitious Sydney

Symptoms

            In superstitious golfers, some of their personality characteristics may have developed because they have been rewarded somewhere along the line. For example, psychologist Peter Cranford discovered a man who made a point of having a full bladder during his matches. It so happened that the golfer once had once an important match while fighting the pain of a full bladder. Afterward, he believed this comfortable physiological state was a prerequisite for victory.

            Although this example is humorous, it describes perfectly some superstitious develop. In other cases, wearing a cowboy hat, carrying a rabbit’s foot or eating fried liver and bananas for breakfast may be followed, and thus be come a superstition.

            The irony is that superstitions usually have little to do with obtaining reward. On the contrary, they may interfere with obtaining rewards. A relatively benign superstition can develop into an incapacitating one, or it can cause the development of repertoire of distracting superstitious behavior.

            Of course, there is a fine line between a distracting superstitions and ritual or action that contributes to victory. A good example is a preshot routine, which may golfers consider essential for consistent play and the maintenance of concentration.

            Other golfers insist on using a certain type of golf ball. This, too, has elements of superstition, but also aspects of materials worth. It may be that the type of ball a golfer “superstitiously” insists on using also is the best for his game.

            The main point it to guard against letting superstitions become so numerous and time-consuming that they distract you from the important factors in golf, like practice, and make you uncomfortable because of your dependence on irrelevant behavior.

Remedies

1. After playing well, analyze the events that occurred before and during the round, and determine which ones contributed materially to your success.
2. Continue doing whatever you believe contributed to success, such as practicing, thinking strategically, getting enough rest, etc.
3. While you are ”on your game” vary, or even eliminate, those factors which you suspect are superstitious to see if they have any effect on your performance.
4. If the elimination of some suspected superstition seems to hurt your game, analyze it for aspects which may be useful for good play, i.e. using certain type of golf ball.
5. If you find that you can’t play well without some superstition, than perhaps you should learn to live without it, and with the risk that it may get out of control and become harmful. After all, a little superstition, if it remains benign(kind), is a small price to pay for being able to play good golf.

Masochisitic Melvin

Symptoms

            This golfer seems to enjoy losing. Some critics say he lacks “the killer instinct,” but his problem is worse than that. The masochistic golfer believes he’s fated to finish second. Losing brings relief.

            The masochistic golfer loses to get something he wants, perhaps sympathy from family and friends. Maybe he has a self-image of a “loser,” and wants to verity that image. If he were to win, he would forced to change his self-image and increase his future expectations to a level he might not think he can maintain. Therefore, he loses simply to avoid the demands of higher expectations.

            Last of all, he might lose because he wants to avoid making his opponents unhappy. This is particularly true his opponents is a club-throwing, complaining hot-head, whose unhappiness causes discomfort for those who must endure it.

            The masochistic golfer usually is unaware of his desire to lose. But if someone loses consistently—and seems to enjoy it—he should become aware of the situation. He should then learn to recognize the greater rewards for winning and deny himself the usual rewards for losing.

            This assumes, of course, that winning is important. To answer this, I must quote the late Adolph Rupp, the University of Kentucky’s great basketball coach, who said, “If is doesn’t matter whether you win of lose, then why do they keep score.”

Remedies

1. After losing, do not indulge in “consolation prizes” such as sympathy, drowning your sorrow etc.
2. Don’t make or accept excuses for a loss. Excuses will only delay necessary for victory.
3. Be a bit of poor loser. Don’t be obnoxious or unfriendly, but don’t enjoy losing, either. Treat yourself as winner who expects to win, but loses occasionally.
4. View golfer who are hot-heads and complainers as golfers who are trying to talk you out of beating them. Beat these manipulative golfers as soundly as you can.
5. “Punish” yourself for losing with immediate extra practice.

Angry Andy

Symptoms

            This golfer loses his temper, criticizes the course, blames his clubs for his bogeys, throws clubs, complains about physical condition, and so on. The development of this type of behavior is rooted in the cognitive dissonance theory.

            Social psychologist Leon Festinger, the author of the theory, suggest that when humans are confronted with incompatible thoughts, they behave in such a way as to make their thoughts more consistent.

            You might think: “I am good golfer, yet I hit bad shots.” These are incompatible thoughts, and so you must change one of the thoughts to make it consistent with the other.

            You have two true alternatives. You can practice enough to start hitting good shots; or you can continue hitting bad shots and admit you are not a good golfer. Neither alternative is acceptable to most golfers, because one requires work and the other requires humility(modesty).

            So golfers often select a third “alternative.” They say to themselves: “I am good golfer, and other things are to blame for my poor shots.” He can blame his deficiencies on something other than himself.

Remedies

1. Recognize complains only delay the practice you need to improve.
2. Use extra practice as “punishment’ for losing your temper.
3. If you do seem doomed to hitting poor shots, you might be wise to accept your limitations instead of creating tension in yourself because of unrealistically high expectations.

Keeping these four golf personalities under control is a key to good golf. In the words of one immortal golfer (whose math wasn’t quite as sound as his game), “Golf is 90 per cent mental. Once you get your head straight, you have half the problem ticked.”

This article is from the book “The Complete Golfer: Physical Skill and Mental Toughness” by Dr. Tom Dorsel, the sport psychologist.