Why Golf Gets Hard Again (Even When You're Playing Well)

Ever feel like you finally figured golf out... and then the game gets hard again?

In this episode, I explain why that's completely normal. Golf isn't a problem to solve—it's a practice. Just when you think you've arrived, the game will invite you into a new level of growth, discomfort, and learning.

You'll learn why setbacks don't mean you've gone backwards, how your brain's negativity bias can pull you off course, and the one question to ask instead of, "What's wrong with me?"

Because there is no graduation in golf—only practice.

And that's actually good news. ⛳

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Transcript

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Have you ever had a stretch of golf where golf felt easy? The swing felt good, you were playing well, you weren't overthinking, you were staying calm after bad shots, and then suddenly golf got hard again. You started doubting yourself, you got frustrated, you got impatient. You may have felt like you went backwards, back to where you started. Today I want to explain why that's actually normal and nothing has gone wrong. Let's get to it. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, I've got this game figured out. I'm going through a really good stretch, everything feels good. I feel good standing over the golf ball. My mind is really quiet. I feel like I'm making a lot of birdies. I'm scoring pretty well. I finally got this game figured out. I figured out my swing. I figured out how to manage my mind. I figured out how to score. This game isn't as hard as I thought it was. And then suddenly it's like the rug gets pulled out from underneath you, and the game reminds you actually how hard it is. How hard the game of golf is in itself of just making a repeatable swing and how unpredictable it is. And how you have a human brain that is always up against challenges and new things and growth. And there is no done. We have to go back and we have to practice and we have to do more work. Golf has an amazing ability to humble us. Some people talk about the golf gods, right? You don't want to say certain things like I've got it figured out or I can't miss or I can't make a mistake, or the golf gods will come and take it all away. But I think what happens with golf is that we think that if we work hard enough, if we practice more, we work on mindset enough, if you're doing that, and I hope you're doing that, one day the golf will become easy. We think that it's going to be easier if we practice more. We take more lessons, we get the right equipment, we do all the things. But golf isn't a problem to solve. Golf is a practice. Golf is not a problem to solve, it's a practice. And when we can accept that and surrender to that part of the game relative to the physical part of learning the skills required to hit a golf ball or get the ball in the hole, and including the mental part. So often a lot of my clients will come to me and think, I've got it. I got it figured out. I understand the process. I understand the system. I have the tools to manage my mind. I know how to leave my brain. I'm good. I got it. And then the next thing you know, they're inundated with negative thinking, negative thoughts, feeling bad about themselves. Old habits creep back in. They're beating themselves up, they're putting extra pressure on themselves. They're staying ticked off for four or five holes when they got it down to maybe one shot that that anger was affecting their golf game. And then they're like, where did it all go? What happened? I thought I had it. And part of being a human is that we want to be comfortable. We want to be comfortable over the golf ball. We want to stand over a shot and feel good. We want our swing to feel good. We want our group to be comfortable. We want to be comfortable in our clothes. We want to be comfortable. This is part of the human experience. Being comfortable in golf is a luxury, in my opinion. Being comfortable with your swing and standing over the ball and feeling really good over it is a luxury. We always want the people to be just easy to play with, comfortable playing in tournaments, just comfortable inside your own brain. We think comfort means that we've arrived. I did all the work, I'm done. I got it. And then discomfort shows up again, and we assume we've gone backwards. But discomfort isn't proof you're failing. It's just proof that you're playing a really challenging game and you have a human brain. Golf is a practice. And when I say practice, it's not going out to the range and grinding and hitting balls. I'm saying the practice of playing golf with your skill set and with your mind and learning every day when you go out there and you have a new experience on how to adapt. And as your game evolves, understand that you are going to go through levels of discomfort. And you can't have growth without discomfort. Where we get challenged is when we think discomfort is a problem. But if we surrender to the fact that golf is actually a practice, just like relationships are a practice. Nobody says, I've been married for 20 years. I guess we don't need to work on communication anymore. Healthy relationships require practice, listening and patience and forgiveness. Just like fitness, nobody gets in shape and says, Great, I'm done forever. I don't have to work out again. Well, they do, but then they're not in the same shape as where they were. It requires maintenance. So does confidence. So does emotional control. So does mental self-leadership on and off the golf course. Meditation is another example. In meditation, the goal isn't to never lose focus, it's to witness it and bring your brain back. That's the goal. Sound familiar? That's golf. This happens in music. Concert pianists still practice scales, not because they're bad, because excellence requires practice. Golfers often think, why am I still working on this? Why don't I have this by now? I should be better than this with all the practice and the work that I've put in. Those thoughts work against you. They don't work for you. And that's because you have the mindset that you should be done, that there's an end. Parenting is another example. Every stage of being a parent asks something new from you. Just when you think you've figured your kids out, the game changes. And golf does that too. Practicing yoga, practicing law, practicing medicine. We're constantly learning, we're evolving, and we're going through stages of being uncomfortable. So I want to offer this to you that if you're thinking, I'm going backwards, or I thought I had this mental game figured out, or I thought I had that shot all figured out, why is this happening again? Why can't golf just be easy? Why can't I just be done? Why do I have to keep practicing? It shouldn't be this hard. Golf is hard. Golf is hard for you to be consistent and predictable. There's so many different factors involved, especially things that you cannot control. And because there's so many things that you cannot control, you have to step into the practice of managing your mind around all of it. And some days are going to be easier than other days. And you get to learn with every different changing golf environment that you get put in front of or put into. And then at those moments, you have an opportunity to ask yourself, what am I getting invited to practice? When I say what's wrong and what's going wrong, or why is this so hard, the question is like, what am I getting invited to practice today? Maybe it's patience or trust or acceptance or resilience or emotional regulation or self-compassion, grace, curiosity. The challenge might be different that you're faced, but the practice continues. It's an opportunity to keep growing with the game of golf. So one of the reasons why golfers suffer so much is because they think they're supposed to graduate from learning the game of golf or evolving with the game of golf relative to skills and graduate from the mental game. There is no graduation, there's only practice. So if golf feels hard again, it doesn't mean you're broken. It doesn't mean you've lost it. It doesn't mean you've gone backwards. It simply means you're being invited back into the practice of golf. Working on the mental part of golf and just even managing your mind and self-leadership requires consistent practice and a lot of awareness, self-awareness. Because by default, your brain is negative. So it will revert back to negativity, scanning for things that you're doing wrong and ways that you're screwing up, and so happy to beat yourself up, your brain. We're working against a natural negative bias in our brain. So it requires practice. And some days we don't do it. And when we don't do it and we don't do it over a course of time, then all these old habits will creep back in. So this week or this month or the next time that golf gets hard, don't ask what's wrong? Why have I lost it? I feel like I've gone backwards. Ask, what am I being invited to practice once again? All right, my friends. Surrender to the fact that golf is a practice, just like so many other things in life. And if you want to know how many shots your mental game is costing you out on the golf course, go to quiz.mymentalcaddy.com and take a two minute assessment. Have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye