In life, I would say that I am mentally strong. I have been through a lot in my lifetime (I did enough sharing last post, don’t need to dive into anything else) and have always come out on the other side intact.
On the course, I can’t say the same thing. I don’t mentally recover from a bad shot or a bad outcome, the opposite happens. It snowballs in a bad way, one bad shot turns into two, two bad holes turn into three. And then I start looking for the beer cart because I might as well drink and have a good time because my score is going into the toilet.
“You know what the happiest animal in the world is? It's a goldfish. It's got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish.”
Ted Lasso is right yet again. (Rebecca banging a younger employee is completely problematic and totally glossed over, but that’s for another time.) However, I am an elephant, I never forget. That might have been a fat joke about me as well, but whatever.
Also, when I apply pressure to myself and play “tense” I make way more mistakes and hit crappier shots than I do when I am loose. When I go out and truly don’t care I play my best. I’ve tried to fake it and try to pretend I don’t care, which is way easier to do in romantic relationships than on the golf course.
Finally, when I am playing loose and don’t care I can’t look at the scorecard. As soon as I look at the scorecard when playing well and know where I am at expectations begin to creep in and I begin to apply pressure to myself. This then turns into me playing tense, which leads to me making a mistake, which then snowballs into multiple mistakes.
So, without having the Men In Black mind eraser thing, this is something I need to overcome.
Should the audience expect less presses?