No . . . it's not a day old Krispy Kreme !
It's actually a condition caused by golfers on every green in the world and has been titled the “Lumpy Donut”. It occurs with the first group of golfers in the morning and is there the remainder of the day.
Similarly, in the morning of our lives, and for the duration, it can be big or little things that get in the way of our reaching our goals and aspirations,
Think about this; a normal foursome will put about 500 footprints on the grass around the hole; it takes two hours for a footprint to bounce back to its standing length.
In that amount of time however, thousand more footprints have been added to this green, similar to the influence of those around you as you journey thru life.
This has caused the grass and the soil to be squished, flattened and stomped on nearly everywhere on the green. The only place not affected by this phenomenon is directly around the cup.
Golfers seldom step within a foot of the cup, what this creates is a two foot area around the cup where the grass has not been touched, in this area the grass is a little higher than the rest of the grass on the green.
This is what creates the “Lumpy Donut” or a raised circle of grass with the cup in the middle!
When a ball rolls toward the hole and slows down to drop, it suddenly comes upon this ramp in the grass, which tends to make it roll off and to the side
.
No matter how strong your putt is, the “Lumpy Donut” can throw it off, maybe not by much, but by enough to make you miss your putt. How many of these “donuts” have gotten in the way of your finishing a particular life goal ?
The way to deal with this is to strike your ball with enough speed that if it rolled directly over the hole, and didn’t fall in, it would stop 17 inches on the other side of the hole.
This is the perfect way to deal with the lumpy donut, enough speed to get the ball up the ramp, but slow enough to allow it to fall into the cup.
Similarly, with your life goals, keep your momentum and focus to see your efforts score !
Start Believing in Your Life Game and Yourself
If you know how to play golf, and go out on the course with the mindset that you will win. This is confidence . . . confidence in your ability to do what you already know how to do.
On the other side of the coin, there is arrogance, which can get you in trouble. As with anything in life, once you get arrogant you will ultimately loose.
Confidence in your golf game can even intimidate other golfers; simply because they know that confidence along with the skills to back it up are winning combinations.
Confidence in your life game plan along with education have the same relationship.
Like any other skill, confidence can be learned, practiced, developed and built, and without it, you seldom win at anything in life. Having all the golf moves down, knowing how to putt like a pro, and understanding the greens won’t help if you don’t believe that you can win.
People seldom recognize that you can have a crisis in confidence just like in any other area of your life. Confidence does not come naturally nor will it stay with you if you don’t work on it.
As with anything else confidence becomes a habit after it is practiced often enough. Confidence is a set of thoughts, beliefs and ideas that we develop in any area of our lives.
With the confident golfer, they concentrate on success rather than failure. Their thoughts center around thoughts like “I can” and “I will” rather than “I can’t” or “I won’t”.
The confident golfer would think along the lines of “I will make the ball roll smoothly with the correct speed directly in line with the hole”. The confident and intelligent golfer thinks along the lines of execution not outcome.
Confident people don’t hope for success, they expect and plan for it, and when it happens they accept it as the predictable result of their long and demanding training and routine
On the other side of the coin, there is arrogance, which can get you in trouble. As with anything in life, once you get arrogant you will ultimately loose.
Confidence in your golf game can even intimidate other golfers; simply because they know that confidence along with the skills to back it up are winning combinations.
Confidence in your life game plan along with education have the same relationship.
Like any other skill, confidence can be learned, practiced, developed and built, and without it, you seldom win at anything in life. Having all the golf moves down, knowing how to putt like a pro, and understanding the greens won’t help if you don’t believe that you can win.
People seldom recognize that you can have a crisis in confidence just like in any other area of your life. Confidence does not come naturally nor will it stay with you if you don’t work on it.
As with anything else confidence becomes a habit after it is practiced often enough. Confidence is a set of thoughts, beliefs and ideas that we develop in any area of our lives.
With the confident golfer, they concentrate on success rather than failure. Their thoughts center around thoughts like “I can” and “I will” rather than “I can’t” or “I won’t”.
The confident golfer would think along the lines of “I will make the ball roll smoothly with the correct speed directly in line with the hole”. The confident and intelligent golfer thinks along the lines of execution not outcome.
Confident people don’t hope for success, they expect and plan for it, and when it happens they accept it as the predictable result of their long and demanding training and routine
Living And Golfing Under Pressure
The skills we learn in life to deal with stressful situations apply equally well on the golf course.
As the pressure of playing a competitive round of golf continues to mount, the beginner feels it more than a professional, though they sometimes do, whether they admit or not.
As the pressure mounts for a golfer, they become more and more anxious, and often visualize their chance to win going out the window.
As in life, it is necessary to learn techniques that allow you to put the past behind you and stay in the moment of the current shot.
There are certain techniques to help avoid choking and slumping, which are two of the key problems in golf, and in life.
A good player will develop his own techniques to help him break out of a slump if he finds himself in one.
As a golfer you must realize that getting into a slump is as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow . . . it happens to all of us sometime in our career.
Learning to ride out the slumps in your game, and living, will go a long way towards elevating your game, thus creating consistency day after day.
The first thing to learn is to dismiss bad breaks, and continue with your game, and life, regardless of the situation we find ourselves in (for instance, wanting desperately to beat the showoff is one of those situations).
Practice letting them go and moving on to the rest of the hole or the next round or the next chapter in your life.
Learn to desensitize yourself to mistakes and adversities that you have little or no control over.
Even though it is harder to learn desensitization, it has a lot more potential as it allows us to reduce pressure rather than allowing it to build.
Learning to focus on the positive aspects of your game, as in life, will move you closer to a win.
As the pressure of playing a competitive round of golf continues to mount, the beginner feels it more than a professional, though they sometimes do, whether they admit or not.
As the pressure mounts for a golfer, they become more and more anxious, and often visualize their chance to win going out the window.
As in life, it is necessary to learn techniques that allow you to put the past behind you and stay in the moment of the current shot.
There are certain techniques to help avoid choking and slumping, which are two of the key problems in golf, and in life.
A good player will develop his own techniques to help him break out of a slump if he finds himself in one.
As a golfer you must realize that getting into a slump is as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow . . . it happens to all of us sometime in our career.
Learning to ride out the slumps in your game, and living, will go a long way towards elevating your game, thus creating consistency day after day.
The first thing to learn is to dismiss bad breaks, and continue with your game, and life, regardless of the situation we find ourselves in (for instance, wanting desperately to beat the showoff is one of those situations).
Practice letting them go and moving on to the rest of the hole or the next round or the next chapter in your life.
Learn to desensitize yourself to mistakes and adversities that you have little or no control over.
Even though it is harder to learn desensitization, it has a lot more potential as it allows us to reduce pressure rather than allowing it to build.
Learning to focus on the positive aspects of your game, as in life, will move you closer to a win.
Golf, Life, And The Challenge Of Controlling Your Mental Game
The Challenge of Controlling Your Mental Game
Changing your feelings about the way you feel regarding a particular shot, can actually allow you to succeed. That may sound a little confusing, but for instance, say you’ve been playing a poor game up to the 9th hole. You realize that your attitude has become very negative, and you recognize that if you don’t change your attitude, you won’t get any better.
You begin to pretend that you are doing well, and believe that you will continue to do well until the end of the game. Confidence in your ability goes a long way in the game of pretend, and is imperative for its success.
While we can make the distinction between anxiety and anger, our nervous system can’t tell the difference. While both are powerful emotional reactions and trigger physiological arousal which trigger our negative responses (such as “fight or flight”), they are two very different emotions. Both of these are identified by very different thought processes and produce significantly different behaviors.
Anxiety may cause a person to become quiet, withdrawn or even to leave, at its worst it can cause a person to freeze up (stage fright is a sign of anxiety) and be unable to continue with what they are doing.
Anger produces more evident reactions and behaviors, both mentally and physically. Some people react to anger in the same way as they react to anxiety, holding their anger in often getting headaches and other problems in their physical health.
Remember that you must control obsessive and perfectionist behaviors when you play golf. You are not perfect and must remember this in order to play good golf. A perfectionist may struggle with the many bad shots (which are to be expected) while the obsessive golfer may not be able to put the one bad shot out of his mind, dwelling on it to the detriment of his entire game.
Changing your feelings about the way you feel regarding a particular shot, can actually allow you to succeed. That may sound a little confusing, but for instance, say you’ve been playing a poor game up to the 9th hole. You realize that your attitude has become very negative, and you recognize that if you don’t change your attitude, you won’t get any better.
You begin to pretend that you are doing well, and believe that you will continue to do well until the end of the game. Confidence in your ability goes a long way in the game of pretend, and is imperative for its success.
While we can make the distinction between anxiety and anger, our nervous system can’t tell the difference. While both are powerful emotional reactions and trigger physiological arousal which trigger our negative responses (such as “fight or flight”), they are two very different emotions. Both of these are identified by very different thought processes and produce significantly different behaviors.
Anxiety may cause a person to become quiet, withdrawn or even to leave, at its worst it can cause a person to freeze up (stage fright is a sign of anxiety) and be unable to continue with what they are doing.
Anger produces more evident reactions and behaviors, both mentally and physically. Some people react to anger in the same way as they react to anxiety, holding their anger in often getting headaches and other problems in their physical health.
Remember that you must control obsessive and perfectionist behaviors when you play golf. You are not perfect and must remember this in order to play good golf. A perfectionist may struggle with the many bad shots (which are to be expected) while the obsessive golfer may not be able to put the one bad shot out of his mind, dwelling on it to the detriment of his entire game.
As In Life, Some Routine In Golf Is Good And Necessary
People seldom realize how many things in their lives have become routine, from getting out of bed in the morning until you retire to bed at night, there are many routines you perform.
A routine is simply a series of motions that you do so often that it becomes second nature; in other words, you don't even realize that you do it that way every time.
As with other things in life, there is a need to develop a routine for your golf game. Some golfers will start by standing behind the ball, aligning it with the hole, and then choosing their plan of flight for the shot.
After settling in over the ball you may wiggle a few times to get yourself comfortable, and then take a deep breath and swing.
This is routine for you, and you should always follow your routine each time you prepare to take a shot.
You won't always follow it exactly, but it will be close enough that both you and other golfers will recognize it as your pre-shot routine.
What a routine does is get you mentally and physically ready to take your best possible swing on the ball.
It prepares your mind to get ready to swing as it shuts down all other distractions, you focus on the conditions and the shot, using all the motions you have spent hours on the driving range developing.
There is no particular pre-stroke routine that works for all golfers; as a matter of fact you will find your own which allows you to get ready to take your shot.
It should involve a couple of glances at the hole, along with a trigger that allows your mind to go into auto-pilot before taking your swing.
It could involve any number of things, a slight forward movement of the hands, a swing of the hips to settle in more comfortably or a final glance at the hole.
When you find yours, always use the same pre-shot routine.
A routine is simply a series of motions that you do so often that it becomes second nature; in other words, you don't even realize that you do it that way every time.
As with other things in life, there is a need to develop a routine for your golf game. Some golfers will start by standing behind the ball, aligning it with the hole, and then choosing their plan of flight for the shot.
After settling in over the ball you may wiggle a few times to get yourself comfortable, and then take a deep breath and swing.
This is routine for you, and you should always follow your routine each time you prepare to take a shot.
You won't always follow it exactly, but it will be close enough that both you and other golfers will recognize it as your pre-shot routine.
What a routine does is get you mentally and physically ready to take your best possible swing on the ball.
It prepares your mind to get ready to swing as it shuts down all other distractions, you focus on the conditions and the shot, using all the motions you have spent hours on the driving range developing.
There is no particular pre-stroke routine that works for all golfers; as a matter of fact you will find your own which allows you to get ready to take your shot.
It should involve a couple of glances at the hole, along with a trigger that allows your mind to go into auto-pilot before taking your swing.
It could involve any number of things, a slight forward movement of the hands, a swing of the hips to settle in more comfortably or a final glance at the hole.
When you find yours, always use the same pre-shot routine.
Life Lessons In Golf
Like life, winning at golf is a mental challenge; you should never be down on yourself for a loss, anymore than you should get arrogant with a few successes.
Golf can help you learn to deal with disappointment in other areas of your life. Don’t allow yourself to stop enjoying the game, if you start to find yourself in this situation. Figure out what is wrong and correct it immediately.
Once the enjoyment of the game is lost, it is difficult to continue play.
It is important in golf as well as in life, to step back and re-evaluate your
game. Some will video their game and watch it to evaluate the changes they need to make.
Evaluating your game means to see how well what you are doing is getting you to the goals that you have set for yourself. You must set up well thought out attainable goals along with a specific means of reaching those goals.
To evaluate your game you will need to review how you play. This involves taking a good look at your previous games and deciding if you have succeeded in meeting the goal(s) you set.
If you have met that goal compensate yourself for a job well done, and review the next goal. If you haven’t yet met that goal you will need to evaluate it and determine if it is reachable, and if not, re-set it to a more realistic level.
Finding out the reason it was not successful can and will go a long way in evaluating your game.
Once you have found the reason for the inability to meet the goal you have set, and re-established it, you can once again begin to play and hopefully compensate yourself again as you reach one goal after another.
If you are willing to combine hard work with reachable goals with a strong mental game, you will be a winner at life as well as golf.
Golf can help you learn to deal with disappointment in other areas of your life. Don’t allow yourself to stop enjoying the game, if you start to find yourself in this situation. Figure out what is wrong and correct it immediately.
Once the enjoyment of the game is lost, it is difficult to continue play.
It is important in golf as well as in life, to step back and re-evaluate your
game. Some will video their game and watch it to evaluate the changes they need to make.
Evaluating your game means to see how well what you are doing is getting you to the goals that you have set for yourself. You must set up well thought out attainable goals along with a specific means of reaching those goals.
To evaluate your game you will need to review how you play. This involves taking a good look at your previous games and deciding if you have succeeded in meeting the goal(s) you set.
If you have met that goal compensate yourself for a job well done, and review the next goal. If you haven’t yet met that goal you will need to evaluate it and determine if it is reachable, and if not, re-set it to a more realistic level.
Finding out the reason it was not successful can and will go a long way in evaluating your game.
Once you have found the reason for the inability to meet the goal you have set, and re-established it, you can once again begin to play and hopefully compensate yourself again as you reach one goal after another.
If you are willing to combine hard work with reachable goals with a strong mental game, you will be a winner at life as well as golf.
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