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.
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Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Slow Golfers, Slow Play and Being Slow
•Kathy Hart Wood•Episode 135
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If you play enough golf you are going to run into slow play or slow golfers.
And, you may actually be a slow golfer.
In fact, many golfers fear being labeled as slow to the point that it affects their performance and enjoyment of the game.
In this episode, I cover it all:
waiting on slow golfers
playing slowly
fear of being a slow golfer
I describe 3 types of slow golfer scenarios that you likely have to deal with on the course.
You definitely want to get your head around slow play because without a plan you can get the rug pulled out from underneath you and derail a perfectly good round.
I share with you how to get ahead of slow play in this episode and how to reframe the way you look at slow golfers.
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 friend. How are you? Welcome back to Above Par. I'm super glad you're here and listening. So today I wanted to talk about slow play, slow golfers, some of the slow golfer stigmas that we deal with in golf. Because let's face it, we all run into a little bit of slow golf and it's not so fun. But it is an inevitable part of the game of golf, is that some days are going to be a little bit faster than other days. We're going to have days that move smoother and quicker, and we're going to have days that are torturously long to play golf, especially if we're playing in charity events. But slow play for sure has a tendency to affect our performance. It affects the pleasure that we have when we're out there playing golf. And I want to talk to you about it in a couple different ways. You could be the slow golfer or you could be the golfer that it affects. So I'm going to try and cover everybody or as many people as I possibly can in this episode. The reason is because I want you to get your head around the pace of play so that you can perform your best, so that you can not get in your own way. You can not have the rug pulled out from underneath you when you're out on the golf course. And I'm going to make some analogies to driving, to driving on a highway, to driving in traffic, because slow play and traffic are a great analogy. Okay, so my first example is the person who's standing in the fairway with their hands on their hip waiting on you to play. I think this one comes up all the time where people get so annoyed when there's golfers in the middle of the fairway waiting to hit with their hands on their hips. There's a lot going on with the people who are watching the person in the fairway with their hands on their hips, and there's a lot going on in the head of the person with their hands on their hips. And the analogy that I have for that in traffic is like you riding someone's bumper. If you are tailgating and riding someone's butt, that is similar to you standing in the fairway with your hands on your hip. You're sending a message. Your message is to speed up, just like it would be if you were tailgating. If this is you, you are doing yourself a disservice because you're aggravated, you're impatient. That is not going to help your golf game. Even if the group is slow, it's not behooving you in any way relative to your golf and your mental state and you staying in a relatively relaxed, calm, certain, or confident place. The person on the green is anxious or annoyed, ticked off. They're complaining about the person in the fairway with their hands on their hips. I've been in this group hundreds of times with seasoned golfers complaining about that person in the fairway. Look at them with their hands on their hips. Standing there like, we have nowhere to go. Why are they doing that? My advice would be you can't change reality. That person is going to stand there with your hand, their hands on their hips as much as you get aggravated or not. Why are we shocked that people tailgate? Why are we shocked that people stand on the fairway impatiently waiting for you to get off the green so they can hit? It doesn't serve us. So on the highway, if you have space in front of you and someone's tailgating, you move over. If you don't have any room in front of you, there's not anything you can do about it. If you're on the golf course and there's nowhere for that group to go, there's nothing you can do about that. Let them be aggravated and angry in the fairway. They're affecting their own golf game. They're doing so at their own expense. So at that moment, you have two options. Let them go through or don't give them the power to get into your head and bother your golf game. All right, that's the tailgator. The second one is the person who is playing slow and holding up play. You have lots of groups behind you, and you have lots of space in front of you. The people behind you are getting impatient. Relative to traffic, this would be the person who's in the left lane driving 10 miles underneath the speed limit, and there's a bunch of cars backed up behind them, and they're clueless. We know these people. Chances are if you're listening to this podcast, you don't even know that's you because that person is very unaware of their surroundings. They don't know enough that they're not supposed to be in the left lane, they don't know enough that they're supposed to keep up with the group in front of them, or they're totally unaware of their surroundings. It's a bless your heart kind of moment for them. On the highway, what would we do? We'd go around them if we could. And golf for your own benefit, if you can skip a hole and go around them, skip a hole and go around them. But if you're getting aggravated and telling yourself a lot of shoulds, like these people should be playing faster. These people are really slow. It's not right that they're taking up this much time on the golf course. You're doing so at your own expense. Make it neutral. There's another slow person in the fast lane. Of course there is, because as long as golf has been around, as long as drivers have been around, there's been slow people in the fast lane. So we don't want to argue with reality because when we do, we do so at our own expense. So decide what you want to think about it. You got two options. You got three options. You can settle in and go the pace of the car in front of you and keep your head in a place where you can make your best swings and stay present and focused. You can go around them or you can go in. Decide. But arguing and trying to control somebody that's in front of you that you can't control is a no-win situation. All right, that's the slow person in the fast lane. Number three is when someone comes behind you, when a group comes behind you and you speed up. You start playing faster, you start rushing because there's someone right on your butt coming right up behind you. This is the driver who, when the car comes up behind them on the highway, they pick up their pace, they pick up their speed, and they start going faster. This was my daughter, one of my daughters. She drove me across Alligator Alley down in South Florida, which is just a straight highway across the Everglades. And she was a relatively new driver. She was in college at the time, and I was a passenger. I'm gonna just say I'm not a very good passenger with my kids driving. They all have very different driving styles. Each one is different within these examples I'm giving you. This one was speeding up. Next thing I know, I'm looking at her speedometer and she's going like 85 across the alley, and which is about 20 miles over how fast she was going about two minutes before. So her pace of drive, her speed is all over the place. She hasn't figured out cruise control at this moment. And I say to her, I'm like, what are you doing? You're going like 85. Now, some of you might be going, 85 is not a problem. 85 for me is a problem when she's on my insurance, right? And she's gonna end up paying the consequences of that ticket. That was always the message I said, listen, you can speed, but you're paying the consequences, you're paying the ticket, and you're paying whatever insurance change I have. But she didn't really understand or she wasn't very aware that she started speeding up because there was a car behind her. Now, what she did is she became more anxious. I became more anxious and aggravated and nervous. It affected both of us. It affected her and it affected me. And with golf, it's gonna affect you and the people in your group if you start rushing, if you start telling people in your group, let's go, we have to hurry up. Now, I'm also gonna say if you have space in front of you and you are behind, then yes, you do need to pick up the pace of play. But if you're not behind and you're not playing slowly, then you're letting someone behind you influence your tempo and your pace of play, which is going to affect your results. Now, the person coming up from behind, they may or may not be playing fast. They may or may not be that hand hip guy. They may just be playing at a faster pace. But what you think about them and how you react to them is in your control. So whether you're the tailgator or the tailgate, you have people riding up their hands on your hips, whether you're the slow person in the fast lane and need to p pick up the pace of play, but you have no clue about it, and you're the people stuck behind them, or you're the person who changes their pace of play based on who is behind you. What often happens with slow play is we worry about being labeled a slow golfer. We can worry about what other people think about our pace of play. I want to give a shout out to Ari who sent me an email asking me questions about this that inspired this podcast. So if you are a person who is worried about your pace of play, if you are wondering if you're behind, if you're pushing yourself to play faster and you're not even being playing slowly, I want you to get very clear. And your first step is to get the facts. The USGA has a rule or a suggestion that you should hit a shot in 40 seconds. Time yourself. Do you take longer than 40 seconds to hit a shot once it's your turn? So the PJ tour gives 60 seconds if you're the first person to hit. First person to putt, first person to hit on a par three, first person to hit your approach shot. Time yourself. See if you take longer. Pay attention to how many practice swings you take. If you're within that window, then you're not a slow golfer. So stop worrying about that part. There is, of course, the pace in between shots. As long as you're getting to your next shot directly, not taking time talking about what you're gonna have for dinner in the cart before you get out of the cart. If you're keeping up with the group in front of you, there's nowhere for golfers to go, then you don't need to worry about being a slow golfer. I've coached several people on this topic. It's very common we can go on the golf course and change our pace of play because we're so worried about people judging us as being a slow golfer. Part of the reason is that people are so judgmental. We hear them complain about slow golfers so much that we're worried that we're gonna also get that judgment. We're worried that people are gonna think that way about us when we're on the golf course. And I'm a slow golfer. I take too much time, and then no one's gonna want to play with us. And if you're very self-conscious about your pace of play on the golf course, one of the things I want you to ask yourself is what are you making it mean? What do you think people are saying about you? What are you worried they're gonna think about you? And the more that we have a tendency to judge other people for playing slowly, the more likely we are going to be worried about being judged. So I want you just to pay attention to that. If you're a person who's very worried about being labeled as not the fastest player at the club, don't want to play with that person. Oh, you're gonna have a long round today. If you don't want to be labeled as that person, first get the facts. See if you are they they might be right about you. You might be slow. So get the facts. And then pay attention to what you think they're thinking about you and then judge less. Judge less of yourself and judge less of other people. And when you do that, you won't worry about being judged so much unless they're right. And if they're right, figure out how to pick up your pace of play. Otherwise, relative to slow play, this is my suggestion, just like with traffic, go with the flow. Don't be that person who's trying to zig and zag in and out of traffic, and all you do is you meet them at the next light, and they spent all this energy and put themselves in harm's way, cutting people off, trying to get ahead, only to catch right back up and be at the same pace that you're playing. If it's slow when you're playing in a tournament or you're playing in an event, you just have to surrender to the pace of play. You want to learn this skill because if you go play in an event that matters to you and all of a sudden there's three groups on a hole and you don't have a very good mindset around this, you're gonna get the rug pulled out from underneath you. And it's gonna affect your mindset, your emotions, and your results. If you're out driving along and then you suddenly hit traffic and you lose your mind on the road while you're playing golf, you're likely going to lose your mind on the golf course. There's nothing you can do about traffic when you're driving. There's not much you can do about traffic when you're playing golf. Your best hope is that people pull over and let you play through. If they don't, you go around them. And then your third option is just surrender to the pace of play. If that means you're going 25 with everybody else on the highway in a 70 mile an hour zone, you're going 25, but you're moving. All right, my friends, I'm not saying that playing slow is fun. I actually don't like people on the golf course at all. I would like to be the only person on the golf course and just play. Love it. My favorite day. But it is part of golf, especially part of golf now that golf is so popular. They overcrowding golf courses. You have all different levels of golfers out there playing. You have a lot of not experienced golfers who don't know rules and etiquette. These are the things that we're experiencing right now in the game of golf. COVID did golf a big favor by increasing its popularity and giving it a little lifeline again, but it also brought with it a lot of new golfers who don't have that experience, who might not be familiar with pace of play. I know it's something that a lot of clubs struggle with is keeping up with that pace of play. But it is going to help you and your golf game and your enjoyment of the game if you can get your mindset around all the different scenarios you're going to run into with slow golf. All right, my friends. If I can help you with anything, make sure you check out kathyheartwood.com and have a beautiful day. And I'll talk to you next Wednesday.
