Take a close look at how you react to a miss-hit shot and ask yourself if you judge it for more than what it simply is. Everyone hits shots off line, not on the sweet-spot, short and long. Out of bounds and in the water. These are shots that go astray of our intent. They should be treated no different than just that. How do you react?
I'd have to say 90 percent of the golfers that I meet for lessons have a far different attitude toward miss-hit shots than what we are accustomed to watching at a PGA or LPGA Tour event. The point has been made that the average golfer will take the miss-hits of the pro all day long. My contention is that if the average golfer could work on their reaction to miss-hit shots and get to a point where there was no judgment than there shots would get better. Perhaps more like the miss-hits of the pros for starters.
Denial in golf is like a blink in your consciousness -- it starts with a blink and becomes a wave. The wave affects everything you do with your swing and game for the round and perhaps many rounds to come. Have you ever experienced being around a person that is very set in the way they do things, it could be a simple act of folding clothes or swinging a golf club? Perhaps they have a very specific way of doing it and that comes from a model. That model is, perhaps, very important to them. It represents the right way to do it for them. They might even admit, "I'm not judging something as right or wrong; it's just that some things are either right or wrong." That person will judge every thing else based on the model that they have.
There really is no right and wrong, it simply is a notion that our mind uses to make itself useful and in many ways feel some sense of power by being right through the judgment that it makes toward the other possible ways of folding clothes or swinging a golf club.
Denial creates a wave of stress. Pay close attention to how you feel when you pass judgment on someone or some issue and you will see what I mean. Many of you may already be well aware of the things that stress can cause to your physical health. The root of the problem lies in the denial and the judgment that we ourselves inflict upon our being. I find it ironic how people will go out to the golf course to escape their problems and in so doing create the very same stuff on the course in which they are desperately trying to escape from. This situation will create the conflict that always comes back to, you know who.
Take a closer look at judgment and you will find that there are two signals that come to us, a feeling of comfort from making something wrong, or being right about something and the signal of discomfort from having passed judgment. It's a no-win situation -- the price we pay for having to be right.
The problems of a miss-hit shot in so many ways start with the stress that we already have in our bodies. The stress that we have begins with denial and is confirmed through judgment. So stop judging yourself and your golf game. Saying, I don't know if I am right or wrong, can be a liberation. There doesn't have to be a perfect model to hit the ball where you want it to go. There doesn't have to be a model at all, just a belief that it could be done. You will find the stress levels drop and perhaps so will the putts. Come see the 7mythsofgolf.com to become a more enlightened player.
