How to Control Your Anger on the Golf Course

No doubt, golf can be a frustrating game.  There is nothing wrong with being angry until it affects your next shot or next few holes.  You want to learn how to control your anger on the golf course so that you perform your best.

In this episode,  I discuss the main reasons anger occurs, how it builds in a round and how to categorize it.

Also I share 4 action steps you can take to control your anger on the golf course.

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Transcript

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Well, hey there and welcome back to Above Par. So this week, I am calling out all the hot heads and the anger management issues on the golf course, people who throw their club, slam their club, swear, anybody who has a problem or allows anger, their anger over a golf shot or anger over a result to affect the next shot. Any time you're out on the golf course and you're playing angry, it's not the best state to be in for you to make your best swings, and I talk about all the time how you want to be able to get into your best preferred state over the golf ball, so that your body can make your best swing. For most people that has come certain or confident or a synonym of that, so being angry for sure is not one of those states and you're just not gonna make your best swing. So today, I wanna talk to you about where anger is coming from, what you can do about it, some ways that you can lessen it or prevent it from affecting your round out on the golf course. And I wanna start by saying that there is nothing wrong with being angry. Golf is a very interesting game and there's definitely gonna be times where you're gonna be angry on the golf course. It is just a negative emotion that shows up in your body, it shows up as a vibration in your body, you're either gonna feel it in your chest or your jaw or your neck or your shoulders, you can feel it, you might feel it in your grip pressure. In fact, there's a show called "The History of Swear Words" with Nicolas Cage, which I got watching with my daughters mostly because I think I wanted to watch Nicholas Cage, but in it by the time we got to the swear word, the F word, I'm not gonna say that on this podcast, 'cause I do get some teenagers, let's say this, that they probably say it anyway, but you know, I'm trying to be a little considerate. So we got to the F word, and there was a statistic in there that your grip pressure, when you say the F word from anger, or it doesn't even actually have to be angry, I think it was just saying the word that your grip pressure changes 5% gets stronger, 5%. I thought that was so interesting. It had nothing to do with golf, but of course, I related it to golf, so it shows up in your body, that means you're going to squeeze the club harder, 5%. Does that make that big of a difference, maybe it maybe does for your swing and in your putting for sure. Or chipping, it's going to show up and you're not gonna make your best swings, you might be more tense, you might get faster swing harder, you might rush, not focus, take a swing, you're like, Oh my gosh, I was so stupid, I didn't even think about the water up there, and you just made another mistake, you just compounded the error of the first shot that made you angry to begin with, so why being angry is not a problem, granted it can be for some people, and I'm not focusing on that, I'm just talking about on the golf course while being angry is not a problem because it is just in one of the ranges of emotions that we get to experience as humans, it is a problem for us in the golf course when it carries over and affects our score. Our job then is not to go to the range and hit more golf balls and try and figure out

our swing, our job is like: 3:09

How can I be less angry over more shots? How can I process that feeling of being angry? How can I get myself back into that state? What do I need to do? Where do I need to work or spend some time so that I can manage my emotions better on the golf course, so that I can take my best swings out there? This is what I coach people on all the time. Not everybody has anger issues, but it doesn't matter what emotion it is that is affecting your or your round or your performance, you want to be able to manage those. So we're gonna talk about just anger today, and all the emotions that are associated with anger. So often anger can come from, have a base of emotions that have build from. It can go from being sad, disappointed, hurt, you can be tired, overwhelmed, hungry, we can be so hungry that we get angry. That's the word hangry. I've definitely been there, anxious, can be insecure and become angry, shame, guilt, embarrassment, those are all different emotions that then can build up into being angry, but I think on the golf course for the most part today, specifically, I wanna talk about how anger can start to build up and it starts with annoyance. So you can hit a shot or have a situation on the golf course that you become annoyed at, and if we don't deal with that right away, and then you have another shot that gets you to be annoyed or another situation. And it keeps repeating it, then we get frustrated, and then once we go from being frustrated and we still aren't dealing with it, then we get to anger. Now, I heard it described in a very interesting way that it starts, there's four stages of anger, there's the build up, which is what I kind of just described, then there's the spark, and then there's the explosion, and then of course, there's the aftermath. So what that means, as far as golf is concerned, you might have a series of shots or thoughts that you have that you have not cleaned up, and I'll talk about that in a minute. That build up, right? So you have one after the other and they start to build up then because you haven't processed that anger, it's building up inside of you, sometimes it can take that just that one incident or that one shot, that's the spark that then we explode. Then we kind of snap, then we throw the club, or we kick the bag, or we do whatever you do, however you express your anger. Right, so then we have that explosion and then the aftermath is how it's going to affect your score, the aftermath is not the consequences that you're gonna pay because you had that explosion. What I wanna tell you is that there are... Which I've talked about before, there are four ways to deal with emotions, one of them, and what this kind of describes is a way of resisting your emotions, so we have this annoyance, we resist it, and we keep kind of holding it inside until it builds up and we explode. That would be resisting. So I'm mad, I'm keeping it as, this is definitely the way I played golf. You would not know from the outside that I was mad or angry for the most part until I had that spark and then I kinda lost it, and I was in a bad way, 'cause my brother was just... To me, he goes, "You do it, you need to throw a club or something, you're holding it inside too much," and he was known to throw clubs and slam clubs, and I'm like, "You know, I think you need to hold it inside more." Neither one of them were effective ways of dealing with your anger, it doesn't matter whether you're holding it inside, that's resisting emotion, that's where it builds up, or throwing clubs that's reacting to your emotion, neither one of them are a mature way of handling your emotions because we have a huge range of them, the better you get at dealing with and processing your emotions, then we don't have to worry about any situation creating an emotion for us, we can... No big deal. We can deal with that. I can process it, I'm not making it mean anything, I can let it go and then I can carry on and get to where I really wanna be when I'm on the golf course, which is not angry. So the other two ways of dealing with emotion, which like I said, I've talked about before, on other podcasts, one is avoiding it, so avoiding anger would be pretty much not putting yourself in any situation to be angry, which sometimes for golf would be not playing... That's when sometimes people quit, that they don't want to feel that emotion, they might not wanna feel that frustration before the anger or the annoyance or the disappointment... So you know what, I'm just gonna quit, I'm not gonna play any more. Right, I'm not gonna play in tournaments or I'm just not gonna care, that's another way of just avoiding it, if I kinda give up and don't care, I won't have to experience that emotion because often anger comes from that feeling of injustice or we have super high expectations, and that's very often the case in golf, both of them actually could be the case, but a lot of times we go out there with these high expectations on how we're supposed to play, and then when we don't meet those expectations, we can get very angry. We can also go on on a golf course and feel like things should be happening the way they are happening, so we feel like a big injustice has been served, and then we get angry as well, and then the last way to deal with in the most healthy way to deal with emotions is to allow them to be there, not to make it any big deal, like I'm ticked off, I'm really pissed off right now. Right? Usually you're not talking that calmly. You're gonna allow yourself to be pissed off, and then 30 seconds is what I tell you, you get, and then you're gonna get back to where you wanna be. When we're not in charge of our emotions, when we give away the power of that emotion, then we don't have that ability to process it, your first step is to take back the power to understand where you are that emotion or that anger is coming from. So let me talk about the three different areas or buckets that it's going to, that really the anger comes around the golf course, so that you can categorize it, start paying attention to it, then we're gonna create a little space in there so that you can take back more control of your emotions on the golf course, so then your next step, of course, is to just to process it and let it go and not let it carry over to that next shot. So. The first area is just situations on a golf course, we can get angry, mad, frustrated, annoyed, a different situation, your ball might be in a divot, you might have a buried lie on the bunker, you might hit it out of bounds, you might've got a bad kick, you might have just hit a big fat shot out of a fairway bunker, that is mine I used instantly fat shot out of a fairway bunker, I will get instantly angry. So different situations on the golf course might trigger you being angry. Another place are people. So you're gonna have different people on the golf course, whether they're in your group, maybe a caddy, I have people who are walking ahead of you, who are talking too much, you might have people who walked in your line, you might be angry at the group behind you, or the group behind you might cause that frustration or annoyance because they're pushing you, or have the group in front of you that's playing slow, people behind the green. For kids, it can often be their parents, their parents caddying in tournaments. It can be a coach. It could be just the beverage cart girl, like. I always bring up the beverage cart girl, I don't know why there's always so much drama where the people and sometimes I play with about the beverage cart girl, they're not showing up fast enough or soon enough or that she's coming up at the wrong time when you're swinging, but anyway, the beverage cart girl could also create maybe some frustration, annoyance and build up to anger, we can even stack these on they don't have to be the same thing. You could have a bad bounce, someone said something, and you're annoyed right, now we're building it up, then you got... Someone said something, then someone walked in your line, then all a sudden the beverage cart girl's late. Right? Now we're building up that annoyance to build to frustration that we need, that all we need is that spark for that anger to come out on the golf course. So we haven't dealt with that because you're allowing that all that annoyance and frustration to slowly start affecting your round, so then the third way or the third bucket that you could be an angry or mad on the golf course, is at yourself. You get mad at yourself for hitting certain shots, you might get mad at yourself for not focusing or not being able to do what you think you should do, maybe you're mad at yourself for missing a putt. Or misreading a putt. I think it's important for you to first notice exactly what areas that you're being frustrated in. Is it a situation? Is it a person? Or is it yourself? Then what you wanna do is you want to notice that any time you do that, you're giving away your power, you're giving away way your emotion to something else, and you're missing a step in there. When you do that, you have no power. You have no control. You're disempowered. You feel out of control in the golf course. So my ball's in a divot, I'm instantly mad. So now, any time I have a bad lie, I'm mad. I can't control my anger, I can't control my noise or my frustration because I don't know where my ball's gonna end up. So I'm out of control, I get a buried lie in the bunker, instantly mad. I hit the ball out of bounds. Angry, that is not the case. We're missing a step in there, there's space, and I want you to start creating space between those different situations and that emotion, whether it starts out as annoyance or frustration, or it's built to anger or being mad, furious, whatever word you want to call it, in between that is a thought that you have about that situation, that thought is what is causing your anger, and when you know that you can take back some of your power, now it's like you have an optional thought in there that actually you are creating your emotions that's where you create your emotional responsibility for yourself, you are in charge of your emotions, nothing else on the golf course, nobody, no bounce, no swing. Can make you mad. Your anger comes from the thoughts you have about those things, this is good news from the standpoint that now you have some power back, now you can pick and choose what to think, now you can set a flashlight, shine a flashlight on those thoughts and start noticing them because they're probably running in the background and you haven't been paying attention, so these are what some of the thoughts might sound

like: 13:43

Your ball's in the divot and you like your thought would be, that's a bad break. I always get a bad break, nothing good happens to me. This isn't fair. That goes back to the injustice part. Right? This is so unfair. It is the thought that this is unfair, or I don't get any good breaks that is making you mad, that feeling of there's an injustice being served there, someone could step in your line, and your thought is, again, that's gonna go to an injustice people, He shouldn't just step in my line. That's so rude, that's such a bad break that shouldn't have happened to me. Right. That would be those thoughts or what are creating that anger or that annoyance or that frustration, people pushing you from behind, why are they playing so fast, they shouldn't play that fast they're pressuring me. Right, that's not fair and that's not right. Now, I'm rushed, I'm not gonna pay very good because I'm rushed, same with people playing slow in front of you, parents to teenagers could

be like that: 14:41

My mom and dad didn't say those things to be on the golf course. That they're always pressuring me, they're always saying the wrong things, your thoughts about yourself might sound like, I should do better than this, which is shame, I can't believe I can't hit good shots. I never put a good round together, I'm always failing, I'm always messing things up, I can't put three good holes together. This is ridiculous. I should be better than this. That's in there is with these expectations, those are more about, the expectations is more about you and what your ability to do on the golf course, what you think you should be able to do on the golf course. Any time the word should comes up in the conversation of the thoughts that is in between that and between the emotion and the situation, any time should come in there, it doesn't feel very good, it's shame, were either shaming ourselves or we're shaming somebody else. We're blaming somebody else, so any time should come up in any of these situations where you're between a situation, an emotion, and you can hear yourself saying, that shouldn't have happened. They shouldn't have done that. Were either when we're talking about ourselves, we're shaming ourselves, which feels horrible, shame is not a good emotion, it doesn't feel very good at all, and sometimes it just goes. It takes a little bit of effort to get out of that, or when we're talking about other people that they shouldn't have walked in my line, they shouldn't have said those other things, and we're blaming other people, which also doesn't feel good, and that's where a lot of anger can come from. So this is what I want you to do, I want you to do three things. I want you first to notice where your anger is, put it in a bucket, I want you to notice it when it is small, when it is an annoyance, before it builds up to a frustration that then goes and explodes into anger on the golf course. Catch it at an annoyance, and then I want you to release it and let it go, and the last thing that I want you to do, so maybe that's four the last thing I want you to do is I want you to notice what you're thinking. What are you saying to yourself about that situation? Those words, those phrases are what are creating your emotion in that state, that anger or frustration or annoyance. What are you saying to yourself? Can you drop it? Can you shift it? Can you change it? Can you stop repeating it? Because the more you repeat it over and over again, then it's just gonna keep building. Start paying attention to what you're saying, create a little bit of space between that situation, creating your emotions, tackle it right away before it builds up, and then you snap or explode on the golf course so that you can stand over each shot in your best state, so you can play your best. Alright, my friend, I hope you found this anger management class helpful. All the best, I'll talk to you next week. Alright, so listen, if you wanna take this a little bit further as if this is of interest to you, there is nothing more valuable than a call. Jump on a call with me. Let's talk about your golf game, let's talk about how you're standing in your own way and not performing your best, I want you to have more peace around the game, and I want you to play with confidence, and I want you to take all of your talent out there, so in the description, there'll be a place that you can sign up for a call, let's talk.