Crisis of Confidence

9 Aug

This week has been one of reflection in some ways, as I struggle to overcome the swing changes that leaked into my game FOR NO APPARENT REASON!

Welcome to 54 to Scratch, the weekly blog following my journey from beginner golfer to something that hopefully one day resembles someone that can play, even if just the odd shot here or there…

For me, this week has been relatively quiet golf wise since the last time I posted a blog.

What is consistent though is that I’m still struggling to overcome the changes to my swing that came about seemingly randomly.

For those that read this blog regularly, you will know that these changes resulted in some painful experiences thanks to hitting the ground before the ball on EVERY shot (except putting).

Thankfully, following some passing advice from my coach (Mark from Kingsnorth GC), I was able to rectify to a degree, but I’m still not where I want to be.

Unfortunately, as a result of all of this I’ve lost some confidence and that is really hurting me on the course, particularly when playing with others.

As a result, my handicap has been a little up and down, which I guess is normal, but I am reaching a pivotal moment. In 3 rounds time, I will be coming up to the last major purple patch I had, my trip to Wales (you can read the blog on that here).

So I really need to get my shit together mentally.

Thankfully, I have another lesson this week to keep on tweaking things and I’ve been listening to some really useful tips from Imagine golf from last week’s book “Golf Tough” that should help me to make better decisions on the course and hopefully enable me to visualise better what being my best feels like.

At the moment though, when I stand over the ball I just don’t feel confident. That makes me overanalyse my swing as I’m swinging and I end up with a multitude of different results.

Having played twice this week, I can say that this is getting better, but still leaking in at certain times.

One thing that I have managed to get rid of is something odd that was happening to me specifically on Par 3’s - and that’s thinking about hole in ones…

A friend recently got one. I wasn’t there but saw videos of his reaction and obviously there has been a fair bit of discussion in the weeks proceeding.

For some reason, this had me thinking about how awesome it would be to get one to show on instagram and talk about etc. I completely understand how stupid this is. I know the odds (1/15000).

And yet, every time I stepped up onto the tee on a par 3, I would have it in my head, imagining the reactions of anyone around me, be they playing partners or the group ahead on the next tee.

It’s completely ridiculous but it was an additional thought running through my head before I hit a shot straight into a bunker or duffed it.

As I say though, I’m now cured of my HIO Fever. But it was a strange moment for sure!

And as result, the last two rounds I’ve played, I’ve suddenly been playing better on most of the par 3’s.

A friend recently told me that I should be a lower handicap/better at golf for the amount of golf I play. He is right of course. I mean, there will obviously be a ceiling that I hit at some point in terms of ability, but I don’t feel I’ve hit that just yet.

I know that with some technique tweaks, I’ll be able to get more accurate and hit the ball further too.

But the thing holding me back at the moment, is the thing that held me back at times when I played football - my confidence.

As a person, I’m pretty confident in most things. I’m completely happy talking to people I don’t know about a topic I know a lot about, whether that be one on one or a crowd.

But for some reason, when a sport is involved, I suffer from crises of confidence. I was like it with football, it took me probably 5 seasons to get over it and at that point I cracked on and became a better player for it.

And I’m finding the same with golf. I’m uncertain meeting other golfers because I know I’m not good enough to compete with them. I lack confidence in my own ability and that self doubt often leads to poor decisions on the course or not committing to decisions I’ve made.

However, I also know that I will get through this, just like I did with football. Watch this space, when my confidence does “click”, my handicap will drop like a stone. Until that moment though, I’ll keep on grinding, keep on making mistakes and learning from them and TRY to throw myself into more situations where I can learn from better golfers.

In the meantime, I’m just about to take delivery of the new ShotScope X5 Watch. I’m hoping that this will help me to improve my handicap by giving me more information about how I’m doing with each club! Watch this space for a review (on the recommendations part of this blog).

On the note of ShotScope, I have recently become an ambassador for them, so for those reading this please be aware that you can get 15% off by using coupon 54TOSCRATCH at checkout.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read - have a great game all!