Stop distractions from robbing your concentration

One of my favorite golf psychologists is Dr. David Cook, author of “Golf’s Sacred Journey; Seven Days at the Links of Utopia” (2006). The book was turned into a movie starring Robert Duval, with appearances by Brandel Chamblee and Rich Beem.

My favorite Dr. Cook quote is: “Golf is a game of interference and distractions.” I would personally add to that “mostly of our own doing.”

Intuitively we know it is most important that we concentrate and maintain our focus on the task at hand if we expect to play golf the way we want to. Unfortunately, we allow too many extraneous things to get in the way on that concentration.

Golfers may ask the valid question: “With all the things battling for our attention during a round of golf is it even possible to maintain one’s focus for four hours?”

Well, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Nancy Lopez, Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler did a pretty good job of doing just that — maintaining focus shot by shot and hole by hole for not just one round, but for all 72 holes over four days.

Average recreational golfers find it much harder to pay attention to every detail of the swing, the golf course and the game. Yet, the reality for us amateurs anyway, is that golf is only a game. And the good news is that we can vastly improve our ability to focus and concentrate if we learn how.

First, we have to understand the nature of distractions. Some distractions tend to be irrelevant, like a ladybug crawling next to our golf ball. Others can be interfering cues, such as yacking playing partners or a dog barking loudly (external), or negative self-talk or runaway nerves (internal).

Many golfers distract themselves by incessant addiction to their cell phones. Distractions are like excuses. They are basically infinite because there are so many and so varied.

For everyday golfers the presence of onlookers can be a definite deterrent to concentration, which is not the case in professional sports with large crowds, except for misbehaving fans who engage in heckling.

If we want to cope with distractions in order to keep our concentration on our golf game, we need to narrow our attention to only what is current, visible and important. This suggests that as the level of arousal increases our attention should become more focused on relevant cues, effectively blocking our irrelevant ones, both internal (e.g. over-thinking) and external (a leaf-blower nearby).

In the case of onlookers, I had a personal experience a number of years ago at Rocky Mountain Golf School in Gunnison, Colorado, when Herb Wimberly asked me to pull out my driver and demonstrate my golf swing to a class of 35 students. I tried to contain my nervousness but I instantly decided to make it like I was on the tee at a local golf course and stick to my pre-shot routine and timing.

That was the key. I hit a splendid drive, straight, long and true. I never had a problem with people watching. Positive self-talk, visualization and breathing are also helpful for calming the nerves.

A somewhat overused concept in sports is when an athlete seems to be playing in the “zone.” There have been dozens of books and articles about the idea of the zone, but let’s just simplify it to describe when an athlete starts and continues performing at an extraordinary level that appears effortless, as if he or she was in a trance.

We saw that in Tiger Woods at the height of his golfing powers. We saw that in Jack Nicklaus, when sports writers claimed that he could will the ball into the hole.

For both Woods and Nicklaus there was utmost confidence, a sense of mastery, total focus on each shot, all of which seemed automatic. Being in the zone requires blocking out all distractions and negativity, while letting go of any doubt or fear completely.