How The Rules Of Golf Influence Our Mental Games
1. Golf is one of those sports where every shot counts . This is mentally very tough. It's not like soccer, basketball or similar sports where your miss is not automatically points. This of course puts a lot of pressure on you. Here is one thought to ponder on - when you hit a good shot in, it's not necessarily a birdie . But when you hit a bad shot out of bounds it is immediately a penalty. So if you hit 20 good shots in the round and 20 bad shots your score will err more on the bad then good! You've surely hit 20 good shots in a round and maybe had only 4 or 5 pars from the 20 good shots. 2. Golf has no time limit - that means that the game is not over until it's over. You can't be saved by the bell. When you play soccer and you are 3:0 and there are 5 minutes till the end you are almost 100% sure that you'll win unless some miracle happens. But when you play golf and you are 2 shots in the lead with 3 holes to play no external situation can win the tournament for you . You have to finish the round off for yourself. 3. Golf is an individual sport - you cannot be substituted, you can't take time out when things go against you and no one encourages you except maybe some of your supporters from the stands, ... 4. There is no coaching - except for some team competitions - you are not allowed to have a coach on the course. Coaches are extremely valuable in other sports where they can see the game from outside and the good ones are very calm and collected. They are able to think clearly in tough times and their judgment is not emotionally clouded. That is a very difficult feat to achieve for a player since he is in a round and these golf game rules that don't allow a coach are making golf tournaments mentally very demanding. 5. Golf Tournaments have Cuts - when you miss the cut you go home . In Tournaments 120 players enter the tournament and only 1 wins. 127 players lose sooner or later. So golf is basically a game of losing. Even the best players in the world (except some very rare exceptions) win only a couple of tournaments per year. They all lose the rest of them - sooner or later. This puts players under a lot of pressure since they may have traveled long distances, spent a lot of money to get there and now they can miss the cut and fly for big bucks to the next tournament. This part of the game is very very tough. Do you have any other ideas how the rules of golf make this game so mentally challenging? Let me know here http://golsbygolf.com/readers-golf-articles-digest-golf- ... and I'll update the page. Darren Golsby www.golsbygolf.com Disclaimer: Article submitters are solely responsible for the content of their articles. ArtiLib can't be held liable for the contents of the articles. Report Abuse | Browse By Category |
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