Golf Tilt – searching for Zen (and the Art of Golf).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Golf is difficult.

Firstly, an aspiring golfer has to learn how to hit the ball. This entails learning completely new motor skills and repeating them over and over again until they become second nature. That takes a lot of time and practice. Once these new basic skills are mastered the golfer must ‘hone’ the skills some more as they need to be adapted to continue to improve.

This is a test of patience. Just when a part of your game feels almost natural your golf coach will change some other small thing and you start all over again. This process is, apparently, on-going throughout your golfing life.

All the while you are playing a game where your skills are measured and counted and you compete against your golfing peers in weekly clubs competitions, friendly weekend fourballs and in monthly medals. You even compete against the golf course when you are practicing.

As a result many golfers get frustrated and annoyed especially when they take to the golf course feeling this is your day or your week and it all falls apart. You know the feeling – you’ve put in hours of practice and your game feels great. You stand on the first tee looking forward to competing for a prize but your opening drive is pulled into the trees on the left. You take your medicine and hack out on to the fairway. Your approach to the opening par 4 finds the green side bunker and you slightly thin your shot leaving you a long way from the hole. A decent 2 putt leaves you signing for an opening double bogey and your round couldn’t have got off to a worse start – at least in your head. Wouldn’t it be great if we could let go of a start like that and stand up on the second tee feeling like we had just made a solid par?

That kind of start is certainly not a disaster but many golfers in this position will let the opening hole dictate how the rest of the round will pan out. This is what I like to call Golf Tilt. Tilt is where you have an over emotional response to something that has happened within the game. Golf Tilt stops you thinking straight and adversely affects your decision making process. It may have a negative outcome in the moment (like hitting a poor approach shot or having a bad bounce that costs you a couple of shots) but it shouldn’t affect your entire round. Golf Tilt is a part of many golfers game and some bring it to the course every time.

How often do you compound one mistake with another because you are not thinking straight?

Golf Tilt, I think, is the real obstacle to playing your best golf. The inability to put the previous poor hole or poor shot out of the thought process and concentrate fully on the next shot. The question is ‘how do I combat Golf Tilt’? The answer is …Zen.

One way to think of Zen is this: a complete state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a state of mind. It is also a way of being.

Zen involves seeing things clearly without any of the distortion created by negative thoughts. It sounds complicated but with a little practice a small change in attitude can make a huge difference to your golf game.

Here’s the Zen Golf process. You play all your shots as follows. Concentrate on your set up, alignment etc. Focus on your target/ target line only and most importantly – trust your swing. Now let it go! Regardless where it goes – down the middle of the fairway, left, right or short – accept the result! Stride out to where your ball is and start the process again.

This sounds nonchalant and somewhat casual but it really takes a lot of practice and concentration to be able to accept the result of your shots without exception. It will take a few rounds both in practice and competition to find Zen and put paid to Golf Tilt but it can be done. Removing Golf Tilt from your game is a must on the road to great golf.

Try it the next time you are out for a game and watch the scores tumble.