Are you ruining your golf by overthinking?

Standing over your golf ball, what are you thinking just moments before you swing at it? If you’re like most recreational golfers, it goes something like this: “Don’t slice it!” ‘Don’t hit it in the water.” Or the longer version goes: “Keep head down, left arm firm, not too fast, shift the weight through.”

Most weekend golfers don’t play the game with a clear mind. That’s generally true while heading for the first tee, preparing to hit a shot, moving between shots, and brooding over the bad shot you just hit. So, let’s look at silencing that inner critic and calming the mental chaos most everyone experiences so that our thinking doesn’t handicap us.

Thinking clearly is one of my 14 fundamentals of mental toughness. It’s a skill that doesn’t take any physical strength or special gift. But it does require understanding, commitment and practice because it is a mindset shift. 

We need to understand when to think, how to think, what to think and when not to think and just play. All golf coaches and teaching pros agree on the fact that almost every amateur golfer tends to make the big mistake of overthinking.

It’s as though they feel “I have to check all the boxes, so I don’t mess up this shot.”

The golf swing doesn’t work that way. Golf is not like a pilot going through his checklist in the cockpit of a 747. Overthinking creates confusion, and more so, it creates tension, partly because it’s preceded by doubt.

Not only is there technical overload (“paralysis by analysis”) when it’s your turn to play, there is often an obsession with outcomes. Your mind races ahead as you worry about pulling your shot left into the eater. The nerves and panic attached to focusing on negative outcomes leads to frustration and further clouds your judgement.

Perhaps you might consider focusing in terms of a “think zone” and a “play zone,” which can be your 30 second (no more) pre-shot routine. Standing a few feet behind or aside the ball, your think zone is when you pick your target, picture your shot and repeat your one swing thought. You then free your mind and step up to the play zone, take a deep breath, and swing.

It may be that the biggest issue leading to overthinking and negative thinking is the focus and anxiety about the outcome of each swat at the golf ball. We distract ourselves in that way since we are programmed to get immediate feedback or results.

Golf is different from basketball or tennis in that respect, since players in other sports see their shots immediately. We stand alone over a stationary ball, trying to remain perfectly still, before unleashing a mighty blow, without getting to watch it until a few seconds later.

To solve the problem of obsessing about outcomes a golfer needs to obsess about “process” instead. Process is basically the manner in which you play your game of golf. It’s whether you remain calm, whether you maintain a positive attitude, whether you go about your routine with discipline, whether you trust what you intend to do on each shot. 

That doesn’t mean you are devoid of all emotions; of course not. It means you are in full control of managing your emotions.

One of the worst ways to scramble your thinking during a golf round is dwelling on past mistakes or worrying about future holes and fearing mistakes to come. The antidote to that is to continually stay present.

If you make a bad mistake, consider it for 10 seconds, take a deep breath, and then move on. Take one shot at a time — I know that requires practice and discipline — and don’t get ahead of yourself. Good golf is played in the “now.”

Remember: “Thinking instead of acting is the number one disease in golf” (Sam Snead).