Is trying too hard bad?

[Tour50]

I've posted in several threads that by not trying really hard to sink long putts my putts per round went way down. I more relaxed now and my three footers are in the 95% range. Here's a good article that touches on that very topic.

How Darren Clarke Quit Trying So Hard & Won The Open

http://www.golfdigestcanada.ca/news-and-tours/misc-news-and-tours/how-darren-clarke-quit-trying-so-hard-won-the-open/

Regards,
Dan

[TheSaxemachine]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

I get that. Sometimes when I know I've had a good front I melt down trying to do well on the back. And conversely, when I've had a bad front, I've done better not giving a **** on the back.

But with putting...if I don't try to make it, I probably won't - but if I do try to make it, sometimes I do.

[4wedges]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

I find when I try too hard to shhot a good score, I tend to lose it pretty easily and struggle to get it back. I need to relax and just play the game. The scorecwill take care of itself. That has been my biggest problem this year.

[Cowboy]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

I find a better mindset is to try and DO something rather than try NOT TO DO something.

[TENSNE1]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

“Trying is the first step to failure” - Homer Simpson

[ace in the hazard]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

[4wedges]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

Get out of your own way.

[landlord]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

You can't try to make a good score, but you can try to make a good shot.

Not even, come to think of it. The only thing you can try is to make a good swing.

[4wedges]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

Today at the Ariss Valley event, I had no expectations. I have been struggling this year and my hope was to play reasonably well. I was quite relaxed and enjoyed the day with TGNers. When I made a bad shot, I shrugged and carried on. Even after an ugly triple on 8 which I figured blew my score, I stayed calm and focused on the next shot. As a result, I birdied 9.
On the back I kept the same mindset, and played well. I would hit a bad shot, but recovered well, and made some great up and downs.
As a result I shot a 78, my lowest score by 6 this year!

I focused on playing golf, not shooting a good score.

[NickStarchuk]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

could we re-phrase and say that "grinding" too hard is bad?

Golfers don't need to think of Everything before and during a shot. They only need to add the right stuff at the right time but even in lessons, where I ask a player to try something out, they add what they think is necessary to the mix as well, and now 1 thought turns into 3.

[P25]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

could we re-phrase and say that "grinding" too hard is bad?

Golfers don't need to think of Everything before and during a shot. They only need to add the right stuff at the right time but even in lessons, where I ask a player to try something out, they add what they think is necessary to the mix as well, and now 1 thought turns into 3.

This thread had your name all over it, so I was waiting to see what you said.

So would you say that focusing on the shot at hand and not worrying about the score, the shot before, etc etc is what's important? I try not to even think about my score during the round. It's inevitably going to happen, but it doesn't help me.

[NickStarchuk]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

This thread had your name all over it, so I was waiting to see what you said.

So would you say that focusing on the shot at hand and not worrying about the score, the shot before, etc etc is what's important? I try not to even think about my score during the round. It's inevitably going to happen, but it doesn't help me.

Of course! the score is merely a result of each shot so the only thing that we can truly control is the process to each shot. I think a lot of people on this forum could say they've heard my ask Where you doing Math?

The highest achievement in any forum is a result of the number of positive processes that are driven toward the main common goal. If the idea is to shoot the lowest score, the process of each shot is crucial to this outcome.

I see most players using a preshot routine of some sort and I would say it fluctuates every 5-7 holes or less dependant on their score (doing math). What the majority of players don't do it continue to go deeper and build the layers of the process or the routine. For example, the shot is 165 from the middle of the fairway to a white pin designating the middle of the green. Most players choose a club and make a practice swing, few have a real intention for this. Some players visualize the flight, few do it for more than a couple seconds. Some players keep that visual until they hit their shot, few do it for 18 holes. That 165 shot itself has layers of what the ball will look like, where will it land, and how are you predicting the balls reaction and roll on the green. If you're going to visualize the shot, at least make it last until the ball drops in.

[mstram]

Re: Is trying too hard bad?

I've posted in several threads that by not trying really hard to sink long putts my putts per round went way down. I more relaxed now and my three footers are in the 95% range. Here's a good article that touches on that very topic.

How Darren Clarke Quit Trying So Hard & Won The Open

http://www.golfdigestcanada.ca/news-and-tours/misc-news-and-tours/how-darren-clarke-quit-trying-so-hard-won-the-open/

Regards,
Dan

Great article, I'd like to know who wrote it (and I sent a message to Golf Digest, asking who the author is ).

*** edit *
For some reason golfdigest.ca doesn't publish the authors, but the main / us. site does :

http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/british-open/2012-07/darren-clarke-bob-rotella

So it was indeed Bob Rotella who wrote it.

From googling "Darren Clark mental coach, it looks like it could either be Rotella or Karl Morris, though the ideas also sound exactly like what Tim Gallwey talks about in "The Inner Game of Golf"

“Darren, all I know is you were a helluva putter as a teenager. That means you already know how to putt. If you stopped pretending you don’t know how to putt, you’d stop trying to do it ‘correctly,’ and you’d just do it your way.”

You’ve got to get a little bit more of a Tom Watson attitude, where he just sees it and hits it and accepts it wherever it goes

Unfortunately Watson seems to have lost that ability (at least with his short putts).

You don’t need to spend every daylight hour here trying to find your game. It’s already inside you.”


This all sounds exactly like "The Inner Game of Golf " :

I stood up and asked Darren to take a golf ball and throw it to me. I held up my hand. He hit my hand. I said, “Good. Do it some more.” He tossed a few more to me as I moved forward and back. All of his tosses, of course, came right to my hand, softly enough that I caught them easily.

“You just looked at my hand, and you threw it,” I said. “Did you ever think of aiming the palm of your hand when you threw the ball to me?”

“No,” Darren said.

“Did you ever look at your hand to see if it was aimed correctly?”

“No.”

“Did you ever tell yourself how hard to throw it, or how far to take your arm back, or how to stand or where your weight was?”

As Gallwey writes, (paraprhased .. can't find my book) "we never TRY to do what is certain, what we are absolutely sure we can do).

E.g.. :

While we were sitting there talking, you drank that coffee one of the members got for you. It was amazing. You were looking at me, you were talking about golf, and yet you didn’t spill anything on your pants. How the hell did you know where your mouth was?”

Gallwey also writes about how our tension / anxiety, "try factor" increases relative to the perceived difficulty of a task, which only increases the mental and physical tension level, and paradoxically, REDUCES the probabilty of success.

Eg.

Imagine someone offered you $5.00 to hit a ball ANYWHERE in the limits of a 100 yard wide fairway, using any club, putter ... whatever, the ball didn't even need to get airborne. The only condition that the ball had to move at least 1 foot away from the starting position.

Ridiculously easy, right ?

Then imagine being offered $100.00 for 50 yard fairway, where you had to hit the ball 150 yards ..... $1,000 for a 20 yard fairway, where you had to hit it 200 yards .... etc.

Most of us, (all of us), can probably imagine how we are going to have to "try harder", "concentrate harder", whatever. It will almost never be the same the relaxed attitude as the "1 footer for $1.00".

Apparently from that article, Darren WAS able to maintain the "1 footer for a dollar" mentality in that round

Mike