Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Serious golfer? You know you’ve got the talent—but your brain keeps getting in the way. Think Above Par helps you master the mental game of golf, stop overthinking, and quit worrying about what others think on the course so you can play calm, confident, and consistent golf every round.
If you’re a serious golfer who knows you’re leaving shots out on the course, Think Above Par is your go-to podcast for mastering the mental game of golf. Hosted by Kathy Hart —a former Tour player, Top 50 Teacher, and Certified Mental Coach—each episode helps you strengthen your golf mindset, manage pressure, and play calm, confident, and consistent golf.
You’ll discover why you underperform under pressure, how to stop overthinking your swing, and what to do when you’re worried about what others think on the golf course. Whether you struggle with performance anxiety, perfectionism, or negative self-talk, Kathy shares proven mental-game tools to help you unlock your talent, enjoy the game again, and lower your golf scores.
Learn how to think above par—so you can play below par. Subscribe now to your weekly dose of golf mindset coaching and start transforming your golf brain today.
Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Avoid Home Course Complacency: 5 Ways to Sharpen Your Mental Skills and Prepare For Tournaments on Your Home Course
•Kathy Hart Wood•Episode 131
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As the summer unfolds, we dive into a vital topic for every golfer – avoiding mental complacency while playing our home course daily.
In this episode, we explore how repeatedly playing the same course can lead to a 'home course disadvantage' for our game.
We uncover five effective strategies to elevate both our mental and golfing skills. By changing tee boxes, hitting different shots off the tee, playing with better golfers, trying alternate shot formats, and challenging ourselves in various weather conditions, we can break the cycle of complacency and sharpen our focus. Embrace these tactics and step up your game when you hit unfamiliar fairways and greens with confidence.
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 girlfriend. Welcome back to Above Par. Hope you're having a beautiful summer playing your golf course over and over again, maybe. That's what I want to talk about today, is I want to talk about playing your home course over and over again and getting complacent, where it becomes a home course disadvantage for your golf game. I want to share with you five different ways that you can play your home course and build on your mental skills, as well as your golf skills. It's so easy to play your home course over and over again and not think. Just grab a club, just grab a driver, just plop it in the center of the T box, just hit it to the center of the green. Not even read the putts because you're so familiar with the greens that you know which way it breaks. So you don't even take your time. You don't go through your routine. You start playing with the same people over and over again, and you get distracted and carried on conversations. You don't go through your routine. You get sloppy. We play the same tea boxes over and over again. We're so used to the club that we need to hit into the par threes. And we get complacent. Okay, so why is this a problem? We get very comfortable on our home golf course. We don't challenge ourselves mentally, and then what happens is you go and play a course that isn't yours, and all of a sudden you don't have those skills. You feel rusty. Now your brain is busy. There's so much to think about and focus on, and you're uncomfortable because we've been going about this routine of playing our same golf course over and over again and gotten complacent. Dare I say, lazy relative to the mental part of the game, which is about your pre-shot routine. It is about club selection. There's a caddy component to it and making those club selections. It is about doing your routine on the greens in the short game area and the bunker shots and your full swing. It is about stopping conversation before you hit a shot so that you can have perhaps even and develop a trigger to start the process of focusing on the shot at hand, deciding what you need to think over the shot versus just swinging.
unknown
Right.
SPEAKER_00
That's why so many people are like, oh, I play so well when I'm playing at home with my friends. I have these, as I call them, green light days. I'm like, yeah, because your brain is quiet. All your little hamster thoughts that I talk about are they're sleeping. And then you go to play another golf course and you've shaken the cage and you've had a hundred hamster thoughts going crazy in the back of your brain. And then you don't know what to do. And then our best game doesn't show up. And you're like, who is that person that just played that golf course? I play so well at home, and I'm just like a different person over here, and it was embarrassing, and you feel disappointed and defeated, and you know it's not you. And part of it happens because we do get a little complacent. So I'm not saying don't go out there and have a nice relaxing round with your buddies, doing your thing. I'm saying I'm gonna give you five ways to shake it up so that you stay on point mentally, so that you can stay in the convenience of your home golf course and shake things up enough that you're gonna have to focus, maybe put a little pressure on yourself so that you can pivot away from it and start looking at your golf course from a totally different angle. All right? All right, so number one is change your tea boxes. It's pretty easy. When I grew up, my dad, who's a golf pro, he encouraged me to play from different sets of teas. I did not want to do that. It's like go back and play the blue tees. I'm like, I don't want to play the blue tees. I have to hit fairway woods into all the greens. Well, that's good. Right? You might be playing your golf course and never hit a fairway wood into a green or a hybrid into a green. Then you go play another golf course that's maybe a little bit longer or it's rained a lot, just the ball isn't rolling anywhere, and next thing you know, you have to hit a fairway wood or a hybrid into a green, and your brain is bitching at you. Well, I haven't had to do this. This course is so long, this isn't fair. I remember doing this recently, not on purpose, but I played this one golf course from the set of T's, I had a five iron into like five holes in a row. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want to hit another five iron. I want something shorter. Because I had been playing a golf course where I was hitting a lot of short irons. I didn't have a very good relationship with my five iron. I had been stuck in the bag for a while. It was a little irritated at me because I hadn't pulled it out very much, and then I had to pull it out five holes in a row.
unknown
Right?
SPEAKER_00
So play from a different set of T's. Go back. Play back, play short. Mix them up. You don't have to give me the handicap excuse. I've already had someone tell me that you can adjust your handicap for that. There's a whole formula for it on the USGA website. When you're used to who when you're used to hitting a wedge into the green and now you have to hit a seven iron or six iron, it looks different. It plays different. You think about things differently. Now you have to focus a little bit differently. Alright, so shake up your T boxes. The second thing is hit different clubs off the T-box. If it's challenging for you to s shift up your T's, then take different clubs off. Don't hit your driver on every hole. Hit a three wood every once in a while. Hit a hybrid off the T-Box. Why would you do that? Because now you have to hit a different club. It gets you used to hitting a three-wood off the T just in case your driver goes wonky when you go out and play somewhere else. You're like, you know what? I haven't hit a three wood off a T in a while. Your landing area is gonna be different. You're gonna look at the hole differently. So you can change what you hit off the T so that you can change the look off the T-box, getting familiar with hitting a different club off of off of a T, off of a low T versus a high T, and then you're gonna have a different club into the green. Number three is play with a new group. Preferably people who are better than you. My dad used to make me do this. I was so uncomfortable. He said, you have to go out and play with the guys, you gotta go out and play with some of the good players, the golf pros, the low handicaps. Now, it was guys because I was pretty much the lowest handicapped woman at the club. So he'd make me go out and play with these guys who are really good golfers. I was super uncomfortable at 16 or 17. Why? Because I didn't think my game measured up. I was worried about the same things you are, that you're going to get judged, that you don't measure up, that you're not good enough. Deal with that drama. Put yourself in that situation, and then watch what they do. Learn from them from course management. Watch them play the holes differently than you. Watch what's possible also with your golf game. There's so much to learn from better players, not only about their golf game, but about how you show up, what's happening in your brain, the dialogue that's going on in your head is going to happen in a tournament. So learn how to manage it now before you get into that tournament. So play with better golfers. Different golfers, different groups of people. On purpose. That would even include people that you don't like.
unknown
What?
SPEAKER_00
Yes. Like deliberately put yourself into the ring of fire with people that you don't care about so that you can manage your mind. I'm gonna get so many emails on that one. It's like, why would I spend four hours on purpose with someone I don't care about? Just because you can. Okay, I'm not saying you have to go out with your worst enemy. I'm just saying go out with a different group of people that makes you just manage your mind a little bit differently. Okay, number four is play an alternate shot format, maybe with a friend. Why do I say that? Because your friend is gonna hit it in different places and you're gonna hit it. You're going to have to deal with partner golf and the mental drama that's gonna show up with worrying about putting your partner into a bad spot, your partner putting you into a bad spot, and pivoting quickly out of that before you take a swing. You're gonna get put into positions that you've never been put into in an alternate shot format. And then you'll be ready when you sign up for an event that has alternate shot in it. But it's a fun way to go out there and play to learn how to hit from different yardages, different positions, dealing with all the little hamster thoughts about what your partner is going to think about you and where you hit that shot and the pressure you put on yourself to make sure that you make the putt for the sake of your partner and worrying about their feelings, all that stuff's gonna come up to you when you play in an alternate shot or in a best ball. So that's a good way of shaking things up at your home course and having a little bit more fun. Maybe sometimes it stops. It's not so fun. I played an alternate shot with my husband and it was not fun. The divorce open. And the fifth one is play in different conditions. So if you are a fair weather golfer, which will only play if the weather is nice, you cancel when it's raining or when it's cold or when it's windy, but you do play in tournaments and you go play in other events. And sometimes when you play, you don't have a choice. You have to play in bad weather unless you decide to cancel and drop out, then this is something that's worth doing because you're gonna have to think a little bit differently. You have to figure out how to play in the rain. You have to figure out how to play in windy conditions. Go out and practice in the rain. Because what happens if you go play in a tournament and it starts raining and you've never done it before, your brain is going to be very busy trying to sort out all the things that you have to do. But if you have a system and you know exactly what to do and you know how to handle yourself in rainy weather, you become a mutter. You become a player that plays really well in bad conditions. While everyone else is going backwards, you're going forward because you practice it, because you have a plan, you have a process. It's not a problem. It's a problem for everybody else. Mentally, it's a problem for them. Logistically, it's a problem for them. So play your home course, and when it's raining, head to the first T. It'll be wide open. Nobody else is playing. You can whiz around, figure out how to stay dry, figure out how to keep your clubs dry, figure out how to focus, not complain about the weather and the conditions. That's gonna help build up your mental skills while you're playing your home course. All five of these. Changing the T boxes, hitting different shots off the T, playing with a new group of people, playing an alternate shot with a friend, and playing in different conditions. They're gonna keep you from staying complacent, playing your home course over and over again so that you're ready to perform when you take your game on the road. All right, my friends, if I can help you in any way, head to kathyheartwood.com. Have a beautiful week. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.
