How A Scramble Can Mess With Your Golf Brain

Playing in a scramble, best ball, alternate shots, or one of the seemingly endless options of team golf can mess with your golf brain.  We run into different pressure and fears in team golf more than we do in individual play.

In this episode, I talk about the different thoughts you have to manage, the emotions you encounter and the way it ALL affects your ability to make your best swings.

This is an ideal opportunity to naturally shame ourselves and put a huge dent into our confidence. I share with you 5 ways to thinks about team formats so that you can finish the round with your confidence in tact.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it. Hello, my golf friends. Welcome back to Above Par. I hope you're having a beautiful week playing some awesome golf and some nice weather. That would be that would be ideal. So I want to give a shout out to all my above par club members. We are having an amazing time in Above Par Club. If you don't know what that is, that's a little bit of a community that we have where you want to dive deeper with the content that you hear in the podcast. I do a lot of live coaching. You jump on live with me. We talk about what you have going on. You learn a lot of the tools that I talk about in here in a portal that you can access all of those. I just help people up level the way that they manage their mind around the game of golf. And we are tackling all kinds of awesome topics. You know what I love is that we all have one brain. There's different levels of golfers. There's men, there's women, there's people who are younger, there's people who are older. It doesn't matter what your handicap is, it doesn't matter what level of tournament play that you're in. You still have a brain to manage. And it's all relative. We all are can relate to the same topics about feeling that pressure, having crappy thoughts, or keeping ourselves stuck, or being resistant to changing thoughts. We can keep repeating the same mistake over and over again and not have those tools or those skills to be able to stop it and create something different. So I love that how everybody is connecting with that inside the club. And if you want to learn more about it, you can go to my website at KathyHartwood.com and you'll see about the simple mental fix for golf and how that leads you into the membership. So today I want to talk about different formats that can mess with your head, right? That require a little mental management. And sometimes we use them or take them as an opportunity to beat ourselves up, to create more doubt, less confidence, to shame ourselves. And I want to just put a little bit of a different angle on the tournaments that you play in, the different formats and how everybody has a tendency to think the same thing. So there's nothing wrong with you if you think these things. And I just want to put a little spotlight on them and just so that you can notice the next time you go out there and play to put things a little bit more in perspective. And don't use these tournaments as an opportunity for you to beat yourself up or to lose confidence and question your ability to play individual play. So this includes scrambles, best balls, best ball of the foursome, two best ball of the foursome, heaven forbid, alternate shot. That would be the ultimate. I gotta tell you, I played in a pro pro with my husband. We had not been married for very long, and it was over in Southeast Florida, and we were playing the first day, I think was best ball, and we were pretty good. We were in contention. We were probably a shot back. And the two of us have totally different competitive styles. Now I played for a living, he did not play for a living. He's a teacher, but nonetheless, we have totally different personalities when it comes to competing on the golf course. And the next day, the second day was alternate shot. And this golf course was like crazy narrow. And I had my ball was flying right, and his ball was flying left, and our balls were out of play, and we were totally aggravated with each other. And he was telling me to get like get more angry and into it, and I was telling him to calm down. It was not good. We called it the divorce open after that. We never played in another partnership tournament again. It was horrible. It was horrible. But now, looking back in hindsight, is we were encouraging each other to play outside of our own comfort level, right? We were saying things to each other that we would never say to ourselves on the golf course, like, make sure you hit and play. Like, we need this here. You gotta save me. All those things that you can hear your partner say on the golf course, which you don't need to hear. We have enough voices in our own head, we don't need it coming from our partners, putting in some negative thoughts or some thoughts that create pressure. So funny. I think it took a year before I even played golf with him again. Oh my gosh. Oh. Okay, so let me talk about a couple different things that you're gonna have to manage with your brain. You may or may not. I'm just gonna say if this resonates with you, great. If you're playing in a scramble with your buddies that you've known your whole life, not a big deal. If you're playing, you're probably really comfortable in that scenario, right? But if you're playing with some people that maybe you don't play with so often, or if it's flighted A, B, C, D, you're gonna have to do a little bit more mental management. So one of the things that pops up for people is people watching them, right? When you're playing in a scramble, all eyes are on you. We're all at the same spot, everybody is watching you. Sometimes we like people to be distracted hitting shots over in their own little corners of the golf hole. But now, if all eyes on you, you can anticipate if you're not comfortable hitting golf shots in front of other people, you can anticipate your brain starting to chatter at you that people are watching you. And then what pops up is a little bit of a fear of embarrassment. I'm gonna embarrass myself. I'm gonna miss this in front of everybody. This is going to be horrible. You're for sure not focused on the shot at hand. You're not going through your typical routine like you would if you were just playing by yourself. You have that little extra chatter in your head that other people are watching you. You could have compare and despair. You tee off, other people hit it further than you. Other people hit more greens than you, make more putts. I'm not hitting it close enough. I'm not doing well enough. Basically, that is you shaming yourself, which does not feel good either. That's you saying, I'm not good enough, or other people are better than I am. When we're playing our own ball, we can kind of chug along and know that we're gonna add them up at the end, even if people are hitting it past us or people are hitting more greens. We're not paying as much attention to that as we do when we're in a team environment or scramble format or a best ball environment. We're paying so much more attention to the other people in our group because we are part of a team and we're contributing. So we're gonna have this compare and despair. It is normal. We have our little tribe, we don't want to get kicked out of the tribe. We want to hold our own. So anticipate that your brain is going to chatter at you about that topic. You're gonna feel pressure, not like you have playing your own ball. You're gonna hear yourself saying things like, I need to play well for the team. My partner is relying on me, I might let everybody down. I need to contribute. Right? Depending on if you're the number one player in that team, the lower handicap in that team, you might feel pressure to have your game show up because everybody's counting on you. But if you're the number four player on the team, you might have the pressure of, I need to contribute. I'm not holding my own in this team environment. Right? These are things that pop up in our head that we wouldn't have otherwise. You might be on the T-box saying to yourself, I need to hit it far and I need to hit it straight. I need to get it in play. I need to make this putt. You might say to yourself, I don't, I can't mess up. Don't miss it. We're so preoccupied with language that we normally don't have when we're playing our own ball. It's so hard to focus and have your best skill and talent come out. So you're gonna deal with worrying about what other people are thinking, you're gonna deal with little compare and despair, pressure, unlike you would if it was your own ball, because now you have the pressure of your whole team out there, which can lead to a little bit of a fear of failure, fear of disappointment, letting other people down. And then we can have a tendency to get really aggravated quickly and frustrated when we're playing in these team events because our expectations exceed reality. Like a lot. I played in so many scrambles. I'm always, it always amazes me. Actually, it cracks me up. It doesn't amaze me anymore. It cracks me up on how a bunch of middle handicapped golfers who have about a 30% chance, 25% chance of making a 15-footer, all stand over a 15-footer and get totally pissed off that they don't make it.

unknown 8:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Right? And it's like everybody thinks suddenly that they should one putt every green as a team. It's so funny. This is where we get so aggravated that we're not making. We know we need to make them when we're playing in these events because we're we're likely not going to win unless we make a bunch of birdies. But really, the likelihood of making all of those, depending on what your handicap distribution distribution is throughout the group, is not very high. It wouldn't be high individually. Now, granted, you get four shots at it, but not everybody is at the same level. But it's so funny on how ticked off people get with themselves, mostly, when they start missing 20 footers. Where if you're playing by yourself, you're like, please, dear God, just two putt. You play in a scramble, you're like, God, I can't believe I missed that. It's so funny. But unfortunately, what happens is we create these expectations for ourselves like that. We should hit every drive really far and long. Every approach shot should be on the green. Because if it's not in the green, really it doesn't count, right? It doesn't matter. Somebody else is gonna be on the green. So my only way to contribute is if I hit the green. I mean, not always, but most of the time. Or if I don't make every putt. It's so funny. So the expectation over every single shot out there is that it is awesome. The best one, the closest, the furthest, the sunk putt. When you're playing your own ball, you don't have those expectations because you can rely on getting up and down in your short game and you're gonna know you're gonna miss some. So many people get very frustrated playing scrambles because their expectations are so high. Okay, so when all of those things are happening, when we have some compare and despair, we have all those different emotions that I just mentioned, all the different fears and the pressure and the stress, the disappointment and the anger. What happens is, as I've talked about this before, those emotions are not your preferred state to play your best golf. We want to be calm, certain, or confident because we can think clearly and we can move our body the way that we know we can on the range when we are calm, certain, and confident, the way that we've practiced and we've taken those lessons and the moves and the swings that we can do, the actions that we can do, we need those emotions so that they allow our body to move. When we're feeling pressure and tension, we're tighter. So what happens is you stand over those golf shots, you might squeeze harder, swing faster, swing harder. You don't focus. When we're in those negative emotions, we do not have access to focusing and make good decisions and being very present. You have all that chatter in the back of your brain going on about the other people in your group and worrying about the miss or what might happen after you hit the shot. So you're very distracted. Your pre-shot routine is out the window. You do not have a pre-shot routine, you're not going through your typical pre-shot routine because everybody's standing right next to you, watching you, plopping a ball down, right? Rolling it over. You're standing up and hitting it. So for most people, their pre-shot routine is something totally different than they do when they're normally playing. Your tempo is going to be off. So when we do those things, clearly we're not going to make our best swings. And then what happens is we take that as an opportunity to beat ourselves up, think something's wrong with us. We're broken, we need to go to the range, we need to fix our swing, and we can lose a little bit of confidence and create more doubt for ourselves. When I want to tell you, of course you did not play very well. There's no way you could have played very well because of all the chatter in your brain that were creating all those emotions, those negative emotions that led you to do all those things that I just listed, which is swing faster, not focus, squeeze harder. Of course, you're not going to play your best golf. Now, conversely, if you're still listening, right? If you're like going, yeah, that's not me. I play way better when I'm playing in a scramble than I do when I'm playing my individual ball because I'm not focused so much on results. So I take the pressure off of me. I care less. That's so interesting to look at too, because I've seen that happen. People are like, oh yeah, my ball doesn't matter, my score doesn't matter. I'm not counting up. It's not an opportunity for me to beat myself up at the end of the round. If I don't like the number, I'm totally laid back in scrambles and I play awesome. That's worth looking at too, because your talent is in there. And what that proves to you is how the way that you think and that you feel, one of those two scenarios is allowing your best swings to come out. And your job is to do that more often. Figure out which one that is and do it all the time, as many times as possible, in whatever format you're playing. So the other thing that can get in your way too is adopting other people's thoughts. This cracks me up. The things people say in format when they have a partner, a scramble or a best ball, it blows me away. It could be like, Billy, don't forget there's water up there. There's outer bounds on the right. We need your drive. Don't mess up here. We're counting on you. We're relying on you. Make sure you hit it hard enough. Don't forget it's downhill. You have a little bit of an uphill lie. There's a big old bunker there on the right. Don't hit it over there. We don't want to be in there. All right, nobody's on the green. It's all on you. How about you get a shot here? Oh my gosh. Not helpful. Those are not useful phrases. If you're one of those people who is out there telling your partner all those things, would you want someone telling you those things? If you want to help your partner perform better, then say things that are going to be useful, that are going to help calm them down, create certainty, and create confidence. Not phrases that create pressure or stress or fear. We are all relying on you to make this shot. We are all relying on you to make this putting is not calming. Don't hit it out of bounds. It comes in close up on the right side over there. Is not helpful or useful. Don't forget this putt is downhill is not helpful. I've been in tons of scrambles and listen to all kinds of advice from people who are not golf pros. I'm the golf pro in the group and they're still giving advice. And it's not good and not useful. But it's so interesting how once we get into like these team events, how everybody decides that this now is the time for me to really warn people and emphasize how important everything is. Because that's really gonna help, right? So funny. So these are some things that I would suggest you do when you play in these different formats. There's all kinds of formats that are created now, but play in lots of scrambles, lots of best balls. Um, they're really fun, but I want to make sure that you're making the most out of it. You're not using it as an opportunity to lose confidence or to shame yourself. So know that first that there is some mental management involved, right? And you want to manage your expectations when you go out there, especially when it comes to you making misses, where like we suddenly feel like we should never miss the ball when we're playing in these formats. That's for sure is not the case. I encourage you to do a pre-round prep, which is where you clean out all your thoughts about everything and decide what you want to think beforehand. I walk people how to do this in my mental prep protocol for tournaments. You can find out more about that on my website. But I also call this a junk drawer technique. Just really clean out all of your thoughts as best you can and decide what you want to think going into that tournament. So that you're not blindsided by anything, including what people say, how many shots you get, what number you are in the group, where you're hitting, what order you're hitting in, whether you miss hit shots, as many things as you can think about so that you can go out there and play with so much more certainty. That's what the pre-round prep does, is it allows you to create a lot of certainty for yourself, which is one of the preferred emotions. Like if you can't be calm, find certainty. And you can be certain in the way that you prepared, especially mentally going into that round. I'd also encourage you to have some saying or phrases that you like to remind yourself that help you calm down, keep yourself from beating yourself up, feeling that pressure. Write those phrases down, think of what a caddy might say to you and put them in your bag. And the reason you do that, even though it seems like really nerdy and elementary, is because when you can't focus, you can't think of those phrases either. You're like, yeah, I know I had some really good ones, but I can't think of them right now. You just unzip a pocket in your bag and you can look at them and remind yourself of some of those thoughts. That's gonna help get you back up to the front part of your brain where you can focus and take some of that temperature down and all the pressure that you're putting on yourself. And then the last thing I would remind you is don't make it mean anything about your golf game. This is a unique situation. It doesn't mean that your swing is broken or that you can't play well under pressure or that now you don't have any confidence in what you're doing. Have a little grace and compassion for yourself. It is a different format. You're battling so much more mentally than you do when you're playing individually. You got other people to manage, different personalities in there, different pressures, comparisons, fears that normally you would not have to encounter on your individual ball. And like I said a few minutes ago, if for some reason you're feeling totally relaxed, I'm just gonna say that's a red flag for you to look at and how much pressure you put on yourself when you play stroke play by yourself. And remind yourself that actually you can hit it and play and score when you take that pressure off of yourself. All right, my friends, different formats. We don't want to let them sabotage our confidence when we go and play our individual ball or stroke play. It's a totally different animal. And instead of taking it as an opportunity to beat ourselves up, that we're not performing as well as we think we can, take it as an opportunity to manage your mind around all the things that I just mentioned in this podcast because they are gonna happen in different formats that you play throughout the season. And make sure you check out KathyHartwood.com for any programs that I have going on right now and how to become a member of the Above Par Club. I'd love to see you there. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.