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
3 Steps to Make One Day Tournaments Easier
•Kathy Hart Wood•Episode 121
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If you have a one day qualifier on your schedule this season whether it is a USGA or club championship qualifier, I have three tips to help you get through these rounds easier and with more success.
One of the keys is to not make the event too big of a deal for the sake of your brain. The bigger of a deal you make the tournament the more your brain is going to freak you out.
I share three mental hurdles that typically show up on qualifying days. If you are aware of them and have some strategies to pivot back to a more calm or certain state, you will produce better and easier results.
Learn more about the Academy and Unleash Your Game at KathyHart Wood.com
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. Think above par so you can play below par. I hope you're playing golf, playing some great golf. The weather's turned around, I think, in most of the country and to my Canadian friends. And speaking of friends, I have to tell you, I had a call today in our Above Par Academy. It's also part of the calls that you get when you join Unleas Your Game. And we have such a great community of people who come live. You can also watch it on recording. But a couple of my clients and people in the academy are connecting and playing in tournaments and creating friendships. And it's just such an awesome environment. I just love the people who show up and the questions they ask, and everybody supports everybody and learns from each other. But it was very fun. I had a client, Adam, who was in one of the podcasts about driving yips. I don't remember the number. He went from amateur and turned pro and he was playing in a pro am and invited a few of my clients and above par members to play with him. And they created this amazing friendship. It just warms my heart. I love that. So it's a great little community, and I appreciate everybody who comes out and joins the calls, and we all get to support each other as they ask coaching questions about things that they're struggling with and things that are going on with them in their golf game. And the thing that's so awesome about getting on these group calls is that we all have similar things going on. It doesn't matter what level golfer you are. I say this all the time. Doesn't matter if you're a scratch golfer, a golf pro, a high handicap. We experience the same things. Our brains are doing the same things. It's focusing on results. It creates negativity. We have green light days where everything is nice and easy. We have those days that aren't so easy. Doesn't matter if you're shooting 68 or if you're shooting 88 or 108. We all can learn from each other. So one of the conversations that came up, and I've had to come up with a couple other people, are about qualifiers and one-day tournaments because it is qualifying season if you're trying to play in some USGA events or qualify for state events, or even if you're qualifying for a team, or it could be just a one-day tournament. I want to give you three tips, three things to focus on so that you can make that day a little bit easier on you and your golf game and create some better results and hopefully qualify more frequently, which would be great. Now I have played in plenty of qualifiers, and one of the things that I had a thought about, which probably isn't a great thought, was I always felt like somebody was going to play out of their mind. And it usually happened, somebody did play out of their mind who typically could not shoot those numbers or do those things. So in other words, some girl would shoot in the mid-60s and she hasn't shot in the mid-60s ever that I knew her in competition. But somehow they would play amazing in these qualifiers. And people who were really good and consistent often would blow up during these qualifiers. I always thought it was very interesting, and I've taken some time to think about it. And this is my very rough unscientific theory. I think the people who are not used to playing really well in events really lower their expectations. They go in not anticipating much or not even trying super hard, and then they play amazing, right? Outer body experience kind of golf. And then you have the people who are really good on a consistent basis, and they go in with really high expectations and put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform well, and now think now is the time for me to shoot a low score, and it ends up backfiring and they shoot a big number. So I want to give you a couple things to look for out of yourself that can sabotage you and your round and your performance. The one thing is you want to look for pressure. There's going to be three main emotions that are going to show up for you in a qualifier or one-day tournament. The first one and the most obvious is pressure. Pressure is going to sound like I have to play well today, I need to make some birdies, I have to go low, I need to take advantage of the par fives. I need to make a lot of putts. My game needs to show up today. If that dialogue is going on in your head, you're going to produce pressure. Now, unless you're very good at pivoting out of pressure, you're going to play under pressure. And if you're going to play under pressure, that means you're going to squeeze a little bit harder. You might swing a little bit faster, you're going to be a little tighter, you're not going to think very clearly, you might make some stupid mistakes. It's not calm, certain, or confident, and you're most likely not going to take your best game out there. So you want to listen for the words, I have to and I need to. Or I should if it's happening before a shot. Should, after a shot is shame. So that means I should hit the screen, I should make this putt. After the shot, I should have made that putt or hit that green, and then we shame ourselves. So should can also be pressure if it's happening before a shot. So this is the thing about I need to and I have to. You don't need to or have to do anything, right? We want to, we want to play well. If you could turn it on like that on a dime, it's reminding yourself that if you had the ability to turn on making birdie putts and playing well by just telling yourself I have to do that today, why haven't you been doing it all along? Right? It's so funny. If it was so easy to all I had to do was say, I have to make this putt, or I have to hit this green, and it worked, then it should be a usual status for you. You should be very comfortable with that verbiage. It should not be producing pressure. It would be producing more of a determination and a focus for you. Which this could be the case. That's why you want to check in. If you say I have to and I need to, I have to hit the green, I need to make the putt, I have to hit this fairway, I need to make more birdies, I need to make some birdies on these par fives. If that creates focus for you, keep it. But if it produces a little bit of pressure, it's not useful. It creates this feeling of neediness and urgency. And at that moment, I would get back to going through your routine and hitting the shots calm, certain, and confident, taking the pressure off, reassuring yourself with whatever certainty that you've created, and hopefully you created some certainty before you went out and played. So you want to listen for those words because they seem so true and right and useful. But rarely are they. Unless you're a tour player or a very seasoned competitive golfer and you're trained in pivoting or using the I have to and I need to to focus more, it is most likely going to be creating some pressure for you. The second emotion to look for is fear. Fear is going to show up when we start thinking about our result and start adding up our score. Start thinking about what might happen. We might get a little afraid of making mistakes. We might start guarding against a good round. Now, your brain will want to go and start adding up your score, especially if it's a one-day qualifier or one-day tournament. The more important you make this qualifier in this tournament, the bigger of a deal you make it in your head, the more likely your brain is going to go and start adding up the score and freaking you out. And it's going to produce some fear. Fear can be anxiety or nervousness, this heaviness that stays with you all day. If you notice your brain going to the end and adding up the score, or if you notice yourself starting to worry about making mistakes, if you say to yourself, I can't afford to have any blow up polls, I can't afford to make any mistakes, I can't afford to make any bogeys, I don't have enough birdies in me, you're going to produce fear. It's not a very good place to play golf from. So I want you just to watch your brain. If your brain goes to the end, starts adding up the results, just bring it back to being present. One shot at a time. Hitting as many shots from calm and certain as confident as possible. Reminding your brain of what you do know how to do, and then stay patient. Don't make a big deal out of a bogey, don't make a big deal out of a double bogey. Remind yourself there's plenty of holes left, there's plenty of birdies left. Anything to create a little bit more calm. I would encourage you to resist making the qualifier a big deal. For the sake of your brain. It's just another tournament, just another round, make them all even, just another hole. Anything you can do to neutralize the round and the tournament and your score, the better for your brain. The better for your emotions. The better for that fight or flight that's gonna pop up in that fear. So look for fear. And then the third one is doubt. Doubt is gonna show up with I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't know what I need to do here. Doubt is the opposite of certainty. Your brain does not like that. It doesn't like that you're not certain. It's gonna probably create more negative thoughts for you if you have doubt. Doubt's gonna show up with you questioning your club selection, with how to hit a short game shot, how to read the putt. You might start questioning the speed of the greens. You might start overanalyzing the grain and the break. You might start overanalyzing the weather and the wind and the conditions. And when we do that, we create a lot of doubt for ourselves. Doubt is going to show up with squeezing a little bit harder. We can decelerate, we can start steering it around the golf course, guiding our swing and guiding shots. It's not a very comfortable place to play, but it can show up in qualifiers and one-day tournaments. Ultimately, for you to perform your best in these events is for you to stay as present as possible. I know that's easy to say, but that's why it's useful for you to really set an intention, which I'll talk about in another podcast, before the round. And the intention of going low usually is not useful. It's not effective. Because if you could do it, why wouldn't you do it all the time? All you can do, and the best you can do, is show up and hit as many shots from calm, certain, or confident as possible. Slap your score up on the board and see how everybody else did. That's all you can control. You can't control what other people do, you can't control what they shoot, you can't control Crazy Betty going super low, playing out of her mind, making 740-footers. I've witnessed these rounds before. It's like you're going, are you kidding me? Another one? They happen. I just want to say, I think it's bad mojo for you to wish other people do poorly because we want what they're having at those moments, right? All right, my friends, go out there. If you're signing up for some one-day tournaments, you're signing up for some qualifiers, be on the lookout for pressure and the verbiage that I talked about goes behind that. I have to and I need to. Fear, which is where we start focusing on our results and what we make that mean because we made the tournament a really big deal in our heads, and doubt, where we start questioning ourselves, our club selection, the green reading, our swing even. And just get your brain back to being calm, certain, and confident. And that's the best you had that day. And whatever happens, have your own back. And if you are interested in signing up for Unleash Your Game, if you're interested in joining our community at Above Par, to my website at KathyHartwood.com. I'd love to see you there. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week. I'll talk to you next Wednesday.
