Maximise Your Success On Course
IN: Golf Psychology | by Andrea Furst | 29 Jun 2007
“Stick to the process and the result will come”, “Focus on the present and the future will look after itself”, or in money terms, “Look after your cents and the dollars will look after themselves.”
How many times have you heard those types of statements when pursuing a result?
In a world where outcomes and results dictate success it is important to work out how in fact we maximise our chances of obtaining our own personal success.
Outcomes in professional golf come in the form of ranking, wins, and dollars earnt. Given that these tell the players, as well as the rest of the world (via the internet), where they sit in relation to other players, it is no wonder that the outcome gets the attention that it does. Despite these obvious pressures to achieve the desirable outcomes, many touring pros have finely developed the skills to direct their minds to the process of competing at their best – to keep it there and if the mind does wander (and get tempted by thinking of ‘the win’), to bring it back there!
So, if the pros can manage to work out a way to focus on the task at hand then golfers of all levels should be able to as well. Sound good in theory? Let’s see how.
Often what I will do with pros is get them to look at the outcome goals that they want to achieve in a year and most of the time it is in relation to their outcome goals in the previous years. In most cases golfers of all levels want to improve upon, or at worst, maintain, their level of performance from the previous year. I encourage all players to only compare to others when they are determining the ‘gaps’ in their own performance – there is so much to learn by comparing to peers or heroes and how they do business. If we do have outcome goals such as winning an event or improving ranking then these are the driving forces which ensure that you continue working hard through out the year.
Outcome Goals
Outcome goals are generally based upon your results but they involve other people – so when you want to win or improve ranking – others performance does in fact influence your chances. The best example I can think of in the golf world is if we were to take Tiger Woods out of the mix for a year – how different the performances would be. Does that mean that other players are playing any better or worse? No, it just means that by taking the best player in the World out of the field, the chances of winning or coming top 10 changes for the rest of the field. You cannot control these factors, you can just work the aspects of your game that assist you gravitating towards the results you want.
These outcome goals need to be supported by performance indicators, which are the aspects of your game that need to improve (or be maintained) to increase your chances of getting the result you want. Performance goals (or performance indicators) are the indicators of change; just like Key Performance Indictors (KPIs) in a work setting. I encourage players to split their game in to four areas: technical, physical, mental, and tactical. You can pick 1 or 2 skills that you want to work on in each of these areas.
The Process
The next step is to work out the way that you achieve these ratings; the process. This is where you can talk to your teaching pro and work out the best training activities and drills to get the success in each area of your game. These processes should be trainable and can be put into your weekly schedule. You have 100% control over your processes.
To add some grunt to the effectiveness of your process goals, I suggest that you set process goals each round. These “round process goals” are factors that you are in charge of, that are 100% within your control; you either do them or you don’t. Setting these types of goals create a “game within a game” for players and keeps you focussed on the way to be competitive and the way to get the results you want, rather than the results themselves.
Examples
- I am going to pick the shot I want to play then take the club out of the bag
- I am going to plan each hole from the tee
- I am going to take a deep breath over the ball before I execute
- I am going to pick a target to focus on for each shot
- I am going to keep my body language tall and the pace of my walk brisk between each shot
You can see that each of these simply goals can be ticked off your checklist either each shot, hole, or round. From the checklist you can determine the percentages of adherence to your ‘round process goals’. These statistics should become the most important to you achieving your result; they become bigger than the result.
The golfers who I work with that get the most out of their game, whether they are at a recreational level or a competitive amateur or professional level, remain disciplined in their focus on the process.
