TG Blog: Confidence comes and confidence goes

Published:

Friday 19th August 2011

I had a catch up session with James last week where he wanted to assess how capable I was of playing different types of shots. I stood with a ball at my feet and a 6-iron in my hand and waited for an instruction… “High draw” said James. After a couple of swings to get the feel right I would step to the ball and hit a high draw. “Low fade,” James would continue. I was buzzing. I could hit every shot I wanted.

When we went out to play a few holes I was hitting the shots better than James. When we played a full round he was taken aback by my ball striking and my confidence. If I’d had his short game that day a par round would have been within reach.

Roll forward one week. I’d lowered my best score around a golf course twice, practiced my short game intensively and then had one day off. I woke up the very next day feeling that I couldn’t swing a golf club. I don’t know where all the confidence went but as I stood on that first tee I wasn’t thinking about executing a perfect shot, I was hoping to hit the fairway.

Yesterday I caught up with James again. “You need to commit to your shot,” he said. But how do I commit without confidence? “…and you need to stop straightening your right knee at the top of your swing,” he continued. Now there’s something I can work with.

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