Golf Stress: How to Handle It

By Jennifer Scott, Clinical Hypnotherapist

It goes under many different names. "First Tee Jitters." "The Yips." "Choking When Ahead." But its really all the same thing. Its stress taking over on the golf course.

What can an otherwise good golfer do to keep stress from taking over? Two things:

1. Distract your Conscious Mind
2. Educate your Subconscious Mind

Because you cant think your way out of stress. Thinking is conscious activity and that's where the problem starts, not ends. For example, you think, "I'll use an old ball on this water hole, so if I hit it into the lake, it wont be so bad." Plunk!

That was exactly where you didn't want to go, so why did you hit it there? Because your Subconscious mind took over your swing. It doesn't hear negatives like not or don't. It hears lake and processes it as "Hit to lake."

So you've got to concentrate on the positive. Think only about where you want the ball to go. This is a universal rule. It works on drives, pitches over sand traps and putting as well. Focus on the Target. (By the way, it works in life off the golf course, too, but that's another story.)

You have to find a way to distract the Conscious Mind. Fuzzy Zoeller does it by whistling. I train my golf Clients to substitute peaceful thoughts for tense ones through Self-Hypnosis. They use it as part of their pre-shot routine, so nobody else knows it's happening. Of course, my Clients know it's working because their handicap is going down!

When you can distract your Conscious mind and educate your Subconscious, you'll be able to eliminate stress on the golf course. Then, when your partner says, "Watch out for water on the right, you'll have the answer."

"What water?"