How To Control Stress Over the Ball
IN: Golf Psychology | by Andrea Furst | 20 May 2007
“Here we go, just put it over there, just like in practise, keep it away from that water and those trees. I hope it goes there.”
“It doesn’t feel like it does on the range, maybe I just need to adjust my stance. Where was I hitting this again??”
“Just think of tempo and hips – and loose hands.”
“Try to put the ball there. What will happen if I don’t?”
Does this sound familiar?
Even if you don’t have all of those conversations at once with yourself over the ball, I dare say you can relate to one or maybe even a few of them.
Many players experience stress over the ball. Their mind goes into overdrive and they do not have the ability to manage it, let alone control it. The result generally is not a good one or at least it is not as good as it could be if the mind were able to shut up and just let you play.
What is Stress?
Let’s quickly review what stress is to help understand why it happens. Research and practise have given us many definitions of stress in sport; I tend to relate it back to the simple balance of resources and demands. Players get stressed when they feel like the demands of a situation outweigh the resources or the skills. Stress tends to show its face in many emotional forms – the most common on the course include anxiety, anger, and depression. It is important to realise that individuals demonstrate stress on the course in different ways just like they do in their lives outside golf.
So in keeping with our aim of focussing on thoughts and actions to make an impact, let’s look at how the body reacts when we are experiencing the stressful emotions.
When the mind is angry, the body can become tense, agitated, uptight, and rigid – the physiological symptoms of anger include increased heart rate, increased muscle tension, and a clenched jaw.
When the mind is anxious, the body can shake, sweat, and stiffen up – the physiological symptoms include a dry mouth, increased heart rate, increased respiratory rate, feeling nauseous , and frequent urination or bowel movement.
When the mind is depressed the body can be lethargic, heavy, and slow – the physiological symptoms may be stooped body language, slow walking, and frowning.
All of these symptoms may not occur, and these lists are definitely not exhaustive, but they give you an idea of some of the physiological symptoms that may occur when the mind puts the body under stress.
Generally, my advice is that the over the ball time “should” be the most relaxed and easy mental part of the playing time. It is, when the mind switches its activity levels to a much lower level so the body can “just act”. But how can this happen when the mind is out of control and thinks a million things at once?
We are trying to make this game more enjoyable, so in doing so we want to minimise the effect of these negative or toxic emotions. There are several emotional control strategies which are extremely beneficial for players to learn. The over the ball time generally becomes ‘stressed out’ when players have not drawn a line between what they do and think before they walk into the ball.
There is so much to remember when playing such a technical game of golf however each player must work out how much technical information is necessary to assist performance. Depending on the level of player there may be small or large amounts to work on – regardless of your level, overwhelming your brain with too much information makes life difficult for golfer of any level.
What To Do
Try to break up your time at each shot into segments:
- Information gathering – Get all the information you need to make a shot and make a decision for your plan-of-attack – Do this behind the ball before the club is in your hand
- Commit – Use this time to revise any cues that you might have for shot execution and commit to your decision – This is still behind the ball but with club in hand – You may like to do practice swings
- Execute – This is the automatic time when you walk into the ball and let it happen – if there are small cues you need to get set up right then use them but keep them brief and not many!
As you can see, I am motioning towards routines but before you go there, you must work out what toxic emotions are occurring during your over the ball time and from there we can work out emotional management solutions plus begin the process of integrating routines.
