Pressure golf´s two trekking poles

My trekking friends almost always use a couple of poles when they are on a hike and the slopes get steeper and the going gets tough.

And which are the supporting poles for the golfer when pressure hits ?

In my opinion, golfers supporting poles are also two, and they are key if we want to successfully survive pressure situations, and maintain a high performance level on the golf course.

The first pole is the easy one, but to use it well, requires great discipline.

It is none other than rigorous and conservative planning of all shots in a round of golf. Or, superb golf course management as some people call it.

This pole is absolutely essential for two reasons:

The first is obvious because if we do a good job of planning our shots well, almost for sure we will shoot lower scores.

The second reason for planning well, isn´t as obvious, but is absolutely essential, and it has to do with what happens to our minds.

If we make a planning error and, as a result, hit a bad shot (example: we hit a shot out of bounds), we run a big risk of frustration, and/or anger, at our dumb mistake.

Inevitably we tend to dwell on the mistake and our next few shots are probably hit without the necessary body/mind synchronization, for great golf under pressure. This is because the frustration/anger took us out of playing with our unconscious mind and pushed us into our inefficient conscious mode.

This explains why we see so many "chokes" at golf´s top tournaments that start with one simple planning error.

It´s, in my opinion, what happened to Rory McIlroy on the 10th tee of the final day of the 2011 Masters, when inexplicably he "forced" a driver way left, when a normal three wood would have got the job done, just fine. And, as we have seen many times, once the planning error is incurred in, the golfer seems incapable of regaining the form he had displayed just prior to his mistake. 

The second pole is the Mental Method that all golfers must use in order to face pressure situations with success.

As we have discussed many times, a Mental Method is a set of techniques and behaviors that allow the golfer to successfully face pressure situations on the golf course. A comprehensive Mental Method starts with certain recommended behaviors well before we get to the golf course, and before start of play, and serves as a road map to how we should face low, medium or high pressure situations on the course.

A well implemented Mental Method keeps us playing with our right brain (unconscious, subconscious, automatic or intuitive mind), from the moment we finish planning a shot, until we start planning our next one.

This is also essential since it´s our powerful unconscious mind that allows us to be in the present moment, and duly synchronized in body and mind, for great shot making.

Furthermore, it´s our unconscious mind that controls our body movements, our perception of depth and proper target awareness.

This is why I really like this analogy of the two trekking poles for pressure golf.