How to Get Your Round Off to a Good Start

Most golfers experience first tee jitters. They are not a problem unless they hang out for a couple of holes and then we get off to a bad start.

There are other reasons you may not get off to a good start. It can be the beliefs you have about what a good start means. it could be the pressure you put on yourself to par or play the first hole well.

This can backfire and end up creating the result you are working so hard against...bogies and doubles on the first few holes.

In this podcast , I go into more detail about how you get off to a good start including what to think if you have a bogey or worse on the first few holes.

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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. Well, hey there, my girlfriends. I hope you had an amazing Labor Day weekend. The end of summer for some of you. Kind of sad. That went by fast. I know my dad lives in Rochester, New York, and he was telling me that it was freezing the other morning, like in the 50s. It's just like when it turns to September 1st in the Northeast. Sometimes it just gets instantly cold. Kind of crazy. But anyway, I wanted to make sure that I gave a shout out to someone who left a review, a very nice review, on my Apple Podcast. And I wanted to thank all of you for the nice notes that you're sent me. I get the emails, I get the text, I get the notes on social media. It's so nice of you to send those to me. And it's so nice to know that the podcast is helping your golf game. I really do appreciate them. So thank you so much. But this note comes from Lefty from Jersey. And Lefty says, Kathy rocks. Not only does she give great golf advice, she is just wonderful to talk to, down to earth, smart, and great sense of humor. If you have a golf problem, such as you criticize yourself as you walk up to hit your shot, you believe your round is doomed if you hit a double bogey, the first hole, or you can't seem to play well in competition, Kathy will fix your faulty thinking and your enjoyment of the game will take off. Well, thank you, lefty. That's like super nice. I'm gonna paste that on my wall when I'm not having such a good day. I have a feeling I know who this is since it sounds like we work together privately, but I totally appreciate you leaving that uh review on Apple Podcast. And that is an apropos topic that you just discussed in there about not getting off to a good start because that's what we're gonna talk about today. Most people, when they start on the first hole, if it is a match or a tournament or a round that has any importance to you, we can have first T jitters. This is super common, right? First T jitters, it's a nervousness or an anxiousness that shows up as a vibration in our body and our hands might sweat and tremble, our chest might palpitate, our stomach might flip a little bit. This is very common. Tour players down to junior golfers, everybody who's playing around where it matters, have first T jitters. This is not a problem. It's just important to know that this is your brain doing its job, trying to protect you and warn you that there might be some danger out there for you. It is not a problem. You can calm yourself down, get yourself back up into the front of your brain, make a good swing on the first T, hit a good drive. It could become a problem, however, when we have first T jitters that turn into the first couple whole jitters, where we don't really get an opportunity to relax or calm down. We kind of stay on that high alert the whole time. So we're making lots of swings, lots of putts, chips, whatever we're doing from a state of anxiety or nervousness. It's not how you want to play. I always talk about how we'd rather be calm, certain, or confident over the golf ball. And what's happening is you're staying kind of stuck in the back of your brain. It likely happens from some thoughts that you are having that you're repeating in your head. I would totally encourage you to take a look and see what you're saying to yourself. What are you making it mean that you get off to a good start? What are you making it mean on those first few holes? Why can't you let yourself relax and get into the rhythm of the round? It is coming from things that you are saying to yourself. And of course, you want to be very clear on what is a good start for you. How do you define it? A good start is just not a general term that everybody has. So define what a good start is for you. I'm gonna give you a couple examples of things that can keep you in that heightened state of feeling like you have the first hole jitters, or another reason why you don't get off to a good start. And one could be is that you tell yourself that for you to have a good day, you need to get off to a good start. For you to have a good round or a good score, you need to make sure that you hit that first drive in the fairway. You might tell yourself that you need to make a par on the first hole. You might have a story that you tell yourself about how you need to par the first three holes for you to have a good day. This is what I want to tell you. Let's just say, for instance, that you played a round of golf and you had five pars and two birdies and you shot three over par. There is nothing about that that says that we have to have those bogeys on certain holes. There's nothing that says that number one is exempt from it or number 18 is exempt from it. I could bogey one, two, three, four, and five and still have three birdies coming in. But what happens is we tell ourselves a story that I need to par the first hole, or I need to birdie the first hole, or I shouldn't have a bogey in the first X number of holes, and therefore I'll have a good round. What happens is you shut yourself off to the opportunity to have a good round despite the fact that you bogied the first hole. You make it a big deal. I bogeied the first hole, now I'm not gonna have a very good round, right? We become defeated right away, and then what happens is that snowballs, and then you prove to your brain that you're not gonna have a good round. So just be very conscious of what you're saying to yourself about how you think you're supposed to start a round. There is no RAM or reason, no justification for what holes you're going to bogey, double bogey. You could have a blow-up hole on your first hole and still play amazing the next couple holes. But the more you tell yourself that you're supposed to start your round a certain way, you put pressure on yourself. You're asking your game to perform for you so that you can ensure that you're gonna have a good round and it's just not true. So, what do you do if you notice you have that thought? The first thing I tell you is to drop it. Just let it go. The second thing I tell you is to shift it slightly. You could start telling yourself, it's possible that I bogeyed the first hole and still have a good round. It's possible that I don't need to get off to a good start to have a great round. Another reason that you might not be getting off to a good start or being able to settle into your round is you're waiting for proof that you do something well during the round. So for instance, you might say to yourself, I need to drive it well. I need to hit a couple good drives before I'll settle down and relax. I need to test out and see how I'm putting or make a par before I can relax. I need to feel good over the golf ball to make sure that I can settle down and enjoy the rest of the round and believe that it's possible that I can score well. You're waiting for something to happen. You're waiting for a situation or a circumstance to happen before you allow yourself to relax. That's not the way it works. Situations, circumstances, things, events do not produce our feelings, do not produce that sense of calm or certainty over the golf ball. It is what you decide to think about it. That's where you have that power. So if you're waiting for a situation to happen, if you're waiting to see something happen in your golf swing or your golf game before you're gonna be able to relax, you're going to stay on heightened alert. Because we say that unless I drive it well or hit it in play, then I'm not gonna score well. Unless I make a couple putts or I feel good over my putter, I'm not gonna play well. That's not true. This is the other thing I want to tell you. So many people tell me that, you know, I just lost it today. My my my swing disappeared on me. I lost my putter, it went away. I I just it just didn't work. And that is not true. Your swing cannot disappear that quickly. And I will argue with you that if you believed it could disappear that quickly, then do you believe that it could come back just as quickly? Yes, totally true, right? So your swing cannot disappear on you. This is what can happen. Your tempo can be off, your setup can be off, or your thoughts can be off, which means you're standing over the golf ball and not one of your preferred states. So you're not able to make your best swing. It's so hard just to make a swing change, let alone for it to like disappear. I'm like, where did it go? It's always my favorite. I lost it. My swing disappeared on me. That's not what happens. And when you believe that, when you think that's true, what's what you're doing is you're going out there waiting for something to happen before you believe that you own your swing. Instead, you can say something like, you know, I'm I'm not hitting it very good, but it doesn't mean I can't play well. My swing didn't go anywhere. It could easily come back. And then you're gonna keep your mind curious, looking for ways that your swing is coming back to you wherever it went. It went to the 19th hole to get a drink, and then it's coming back. It did not go anywhere. You might not have a great day, your tempo, your touch might be off, you might not have slept well, your rhythm's a little off. That's it. Right? We make such a big deal out of it. It could easily come back on the next hole. This is not a problem. I don't need to feel good over the golf ball to play well. That is another mistake that people make. We don't always get the luxury to feel great over the golf ball. I've played more rounds of golf not feeling really comfortable and set up properly over the golf ball, but I can still play well. So pay attention to what you're saying to yourself about your game disappearing on you, your putting disappearing on you. And then the other thing, not too dissimilar to how we finish, is sometimes we can have a couple bad starts, whatever that might be to you, where you bogey a couple holes, maybe you don't feel very good over your driver on the first hole because you have first T jitters, that you haven't parred the first hole in a few rounds, and we start labeling ourselves as a person who doesn't get off to a good start. The more that you label yourself as a person who doesn't get off to a good start, you're going to keep producing that for yourself. If you're telling yourself that story, you need to shift that. And again, I would go with some buffer words like telling yourself that it's possible I can get off to the good start. Sometimes I get off to a good start. If you can't believe either one of those, then you're gonna go, one day I might be able to get off to a good start. At least you're putting your brain to work to look to the possibility that you could get off to a good start versus just stating the results before they happen. I'm a person who doesn't get off to a good start. Let me show you. See, I didn't. This is what we do to ourselves in golf. You really want to watch that for so many different areas of the game. Where you start telling yourself, I'm just a person who three putts like two or three holes, I'm a person who doesn't get off to a good start, I'm a person who has a blow-up hole. You might not be saying it in those words out loud, but you can think that. And we state it like it's a fact. And it's not a fact, it is a thought. And then when it becomes a thought, then you can shift it. If it's a fact, you can't shift it, you can't change it. You've got to bring it down into being a thought or a belief and ask yourself, how might I be wrong about that? How can I shift that to something that feels better and is more believable? That's going to give me better results on the golf course. So if you find yourself struggling to get off to a good start, I want you to look in a couple different areas. I want you to look if your first T jitters are turning into first whole jitters and you're not allowing yourself to settle down into the round and relax. You're staying in that fight or flight and in a heightened state by some words that you're saying to yourself about the round. Some of those things could be that you're telling yourself that you need to hit a certain shot. You need to see something happen before you allow yourself to relax. You might have to see a couple good putts or a drive in the middle of the fairway or a par or a solid wedge shot before you're finally going to relax and say, okay, now I can play. Just be curious. Ask yourself. You might be telling yourself that you need to get off to a good start for you to score well or have a good round. You need the evidence that you get off to a good start, otherwise, you're not going to have a good round. That puts so much pressure on your golf game. Notice if you're telling yourself that. And then ask yourself, is it true? Have I bogeied the first hole before and had a decent round? Have I bogeyed the second hole and had a good round? Have I doubled the first hole and had a good round? There is no rule that says that the first hole is exempt for you to bogey or double bogey before you can have a good round. And when you open up the possibility in your mind, it's possible that I can bogey the first hole and still have a good round. It's possible I can bogey the first three holes and still shoot under par, whatever your score is for you. Right? There is no rhyme or reason for where the bogeys fall during the round unless you make it a big deal by what you're telling yourself. That's where we get stuck. That's where we start showing that evidence that see, I bogeied the first couple holes and I didn't have a good round. Well, of course, because you said that. You already told yourself that. You told yourself if I don't get off to a good start, I'm not going to have a good round. And your brain wants to be right. Which is the third one is that you label yourself a person who doesn't get off to a good start. You tell yourself the story of how you start the round, and again, you're going to pre keep producing those results over and over again. All right. I hope you found that helpful. I hope there's something in there that resonates with you. It's time for you to get curious and figure out why you're not getting off to that good start. All right, my friends, you can do this. I'll talk to you next week.