Help! My Mental Game Sucks.

[Wreck]

I need help.

I have been playing for 3 years now...may will begin year 4. I have improved in leaps and bounds from when I first started playing. This year, I have been focusing on my putting and seen great improvements in that part of my game. I also had to recover from a complete mental breakdown last year.

Some buddies and I started a small league which goes from April to October. Last year was the first year. I was playing great until April when the league started. Then this vicious cycle began. I would do great for 3/4 of the round and then completely fall apart at the end. I worked really hard this winter to try and recondition my thinking to be more relaxed...improved my putting because I had a lot of confidence issues with it. Then, yesterday, we had our first round of the new season. I was in 2nd place...right up to hole 13. Then....I double bogeyed almost every remaining hole.

The problem is, I can't calm down after bad holes. It just builds. I try to stop and breath and remind myself that I can't do anything about what's already been done. But it's like my body knows how bad I'm doing and continues to throw poorly, even though I'm trying to relax my mind. This only happens when I play in tournaments. Casual rounds and practice rounds...I do great. I just can't handle pressure. What do you guys do to mentally cope? What can I do? Techniques?

 

[eegor]

All I can do to help is to tell you what I do.

Once I let go of the disc, it's gone. There's nothing I can do to change its flight. Wherever it lands is the spot for my opportunity to make my next great shot. Repeat.

Disc golf is a game to HAVE FUN playing. What has happened... has happened. You can't change it, you can only move on. How you move is up to you.

My favorite shot is --- the next one.

 

[JedV]

Zen Golf by Joseph Parent has been mentioned on this forum before as being a good, relevant reference even though it was written for ball golf.

I think that eegor's comment is bang on. Very smart.

 

[wlkent]

Xanax.......

 

[B3NDER]

Xanax.......

Take eegor's advice.

 

[thugjitsu]

^over do that and you lose many discs and probably have many more errant shots. God that is the most evil pill ever created.

 

[Dfwdscglfr]

dont dwell on the results get your head onto the next hole only thinking about what you would like to do and not what you did

 

[Jukeshoe]

Everybody has to conquer their inner Bruce.

 

[wlkent]

I didn't mean take the whole xanax...break it up and take a sliver. Of course if you can get past your anxiety on your own that would be best. just didn't sound like you could in the post.

 

[bradharris]

A lot of it comes with experience. You don't get that feeling in casual rounds as much. As you compete more and put the pressure on more, you start to learn to cope with it. It's very hard early on when you're not used to that pressure to get it back together once you start to crack. But over time you learn that one bad hole is not a big deal and can put it past you and play better on the next one.

 

[icedpuck]

Pull down your pants and jump up and down on your disc while screaming, the embarassment will make you forget about your last shot!
Go to your "happy" place, think of a favorite song and keep it in your head.

 

[jenb]

If you get butterflies, just take a few moments and breathe. My mental game has gotten better by not thinking about anything except just focusing on making it look easy. I think when I feel like a shot is hard, and I project that feeling with my body language, it makes me throw weird. So by focusing on making it look easy, I just relax and be smooth. It also helps me visualize a pro doing the shot and making it look easy, and then it's just monkey see, monkey do.

 

[biscoe]

"golf is not a game of perfect" is a great book on the mental game by dr. bob rotella.

 

[GLong]

"golf is not a game of perfect" is a great book on the mental game by dr. bob rotella.

this book has improved my game more than anything else.

 

[Banging Chains]

Read the Craigs corner sticky on the top of the techniques page. Timg offers a lot of great advice in almost a zen matter. Zen and the art of Disc golf if you will.

 

[TNDiscGolfer]

MJ....and were not talking about Micheal Jordan here either.

 

[atl scott]

In tournaments you should be focusing on the process of throwing the shot you are throwing, not the results of the tournament.

 

[Spinthrift]

this book has improved my game more than anything else.

^^^^
This. Rotella's principles, for me, are the equivalent of carrying a secret weapon onto the course.

After Whiz shared his views on Rotella with me as we prepared for Worlds last year, I became an initiate. While still a work-in-progress, I am a much better thinker and more confident golfer, with clear direction to understanding the process.

Rotella has seven books on golf thinking and confidence, including a new one I haven't read yet, "The Unstoppable Golfer." I especially like "The Golfer's Mind," "Your 15th Club" and "Golf is a Game of Confidence." You don't have to know anything about, or have played ball golf, to greatly benefit from reading his books and committing to his principles.

The books are quick reads (and re-reads) commonly available at libraries and online. I bought five of his hardbacks on amazon, used and in excellent shape for $5.82 (plus $19.95 shipping).

The beauty of his ideas is in their simplicity and innate grounding in common sense. His view is there are only two skills in golf: competence and confidence. If you're like I used to be, you spend all your time/energy on the first and flounder around with the second. The light bulb flashed on for me when I understood that confidence is rooted far less in past performance than in how I choose to think.

How much better would you be if, for each shot, you are able to:

Be confident.
Focus solely on the target.
Think only of what you want to happen.
Trust your throw.
Accept the result.

A lot, I venture.

 

[Hampstead]

A lot of good advice in here.

Life can be a long journey, no need to carry too much baggage with you. As cliched as it sounds, the best thing you can do is be in the moment. Far too many people carry the past and look to the future forgetting the "now" in the process.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift, that's why we call it the present.

Enjoy the gift of the present moment and let the rest take care of itself.

 

[JTacoma03]

A lot of it comes with experience. You don't get that feeling in casual rounds as much. As you compete more and put the pressure on more, you start to learn to cope with it. It's very hard early on when you're not used to that pressure to get it back together once you start to crack. But over time you learn that one bad hole is not a big deal and can put it past you and play better on the next one.

This ^

"golf is not a game of perfect" is a great book on the mental game by dr. bob rotella.

and this ^

and finally...(I don't know you so forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir here). In real life I get sick of certain people complaining about their game, and those certain people are ones who never PRACTICE. If you really want to get better, you HAVE TO PUT IN THE TIME. Get your ass to a field and break your game down. YES you'll start sucking in the short term as you fix your problems, YES it will wreck your rounds, and (most importantly) YES in the LONG-TERM you will be better than you ever have. Your new worst rounds will rival your previous best rounds. You'll throw shots you only imagined throwing before. You'll can those pressure putts because you've practiced how to block all of those things out! Get off of the course, get to a field, or get to a practice basket and dedicate. Not for one day, not for one week, but DAY after DAY, MONTH after MONTH.

If you have a weakness in your game, single it out and work on it until it's a strength.

[/practice rant]


like I said, I don't know if it applies to you, but if so then get to it!