Confidence

Confidence – a Cause or Effect?

A Peek into the Golfer’s Psychological Conundrum

Once, during one of my music lessons, I turned to my teacher and said “I think I need more confidence to play this piece better.” Without looking up, he shot back, “I think you need to play this piece better to have more confidence.”

Who was right?

Not to sound like a Swiss ambassador, but, both of us. I was referring to my confidence as a musician. He meant the confidence in this specific piece. Which now, circuitously enough, brings us to golf.

One of the hallmarks of all great golfers, and elite athletes as a whole, is confidence. The confidence to trust their swing under pressure. Pull off a high risk/reward shot. Or get up and down out of a wet bunker.

For the moment, let’s put aside the things that could interfere with confidence, such as anxiety and lack of mental toughness (we’ll get to this later on), and focus strictly gaining confidence. Here is the strict definition:

Confidence: The Belief in Yourself and Your Ability to Succeed

Okay. That sounds reasonable. But what does that really mean and where does this belief come from?

First, let’s talk about where it should not come from. And we’ll call this the “top down” source. This is where you talk (or psych) yourself into the overall mindset of “I can’t fail.” The flaw here, of course, is that you might not possess the skill yet to justify that belief in a given circumstance.

The truth is, confidence is not something appears then just vanishes into thin air. It must come from something.

This is where the “bottom up” idea comes into play.

Let’s say, for example, you’ve been practicing chip shots every day for a month. Your technique is now rock solid.

No more skulls. The chip “feels” good to your hands. You’re aware of the subtle pressure shifts in your feet. You’ve gotten really good at the “distance drills.” You’ve made it fun by competing with your friends in the “circle game” (1’-3’-5’) where there’s lots of break. You now can visualize the path ball takes once it hits the green. In your non-betting rounds, you’ve discovered that if your approach shot is within 5 feet of the green, the majority of time you’ll get up and down for par, with an occasional birdie thrown in. In other words, you have a sound and justifiable reason to feel sure about an outcome.

Now, when you play your $5 Nassau, you can genuinely have confidence in your chip shots. Unless anxiety takes over, of course. But the fact is, the more proven success you’ve had with a certain shot, the less anxiety plays a part. And like I said, we’ll get into techniques on reducing general anxiety a bit later.

To summarize the “Bottom Up” approach in our example. You gained confidence because:

•  You had a clear understanding of the technical requirements of the chip shot.
•  You gained the ability to create a positive mental imagery of the shot
•  Your hands have a great “feel” in the shot
•  You distance control is good
•  You may have even gotten (and deserve) compliments on your chipping

You’ve built your confidence from the bottom up. But there’s another vitally important aspect to confidence when you’re looking to improve your game.

That is, you have to have confidence in your ability to learn and improve. And isn’t this act of “getting better” a huge part of why we’re attracted to golf (and a big reason we feel frustrated when things don’t go well). Golf, in a way, mirrors the experiences of life itself. It’s a microcosm that takes place in 4 hours and spans 4 miles. And one thing is certain. There’s always room to get better. Ben Hogan once said that in the roughly 70 shots he took per round, only one of them worked out as he had planned.

By the way, this confidence in the capacity to learn highlights another important aspect of elite athletes, a positive mind set. After all, it’s never really about where you are, but where you’re headed. And a continual path of improvement leads to a very positive outlook. The question is, how can we gain confidence in our ability to progress? What skills do we need to ensure continual progress? Please click on the links below.

1. The ability to identify physical limitations, and the knowledge how to properly correct them
2. The awareness of technical deficiencies, and the ability to master them
3. The ability to tap into your brain’s bona fide “learning pathways”
4. Knowledge of the proven techniques of practice
5. Clearing out of all psychological factors that interfere with progress

Okay. This may look and sound overwhelming on paper, but in practice it’s all very do-able. If you have the desire, discipline and determination, of course. A friend of mine, who’s very successful in business, once said to me, in a Yogi Berra sort of way, “if you want to do something different, you have to do something different.” That means letting go of many of the ways you’re currently doing things. It can be psychologically challenging for some. But in the end, it pays huge dividends. Go forth, with confidence!