Are you prepared to play badly?

I used to be captain of the “I take golf too seriously” team.

Would stand on the first tee and wanted to play so badly that I wasn’t much fun to be around. And never played that well either.

When I gave myself permission to make mistakes and be human, some interesting things happened,

– I relaxed and was able to swing more naturally.
– I opened up and made conversation with others.
– I saw the game more clearly (had a better vision of what I needed to do).
– Burned less energy.
– Started to enjoy the challenge of whacking the ball and was less obsessed about HOW to hit it.
– Had way better awareness (Feelings and emotions).
– Found greater satisfaction in what I was doing.
– My practice form followed me to the golf course (how much do you worry when you’re on the practice tee?)

And the really strange thing about easing up and not stressing about the odd bad shot was I made less mistakes. And with a clear mind I realised that most of the time the poor shot was never that bad anyway.

It takes courage to play without worry. It’s also an impossibly difficult game when you’ve got the issues of the world on your shoulders.

So you’ve got a choice. Beat yourself up and stay on the serious pills or lighten up and let the game flow.

None of these are shortcuts, but one requires far less effort and comes with surprising (and nice) side effects.