All golfers, at one time or another, experience stretches in play where their minds are cluttered. Scattered minds negatively affect one’s confidence and, in turn, lead to inconsistent results and poor play. Great athletes in any sport often perform their best when they’re “in the zone” or focusing on nothing but the task at hand.

At each’s best, their innate ability and superior athletic instinct shine through in a seemingly effortless display of outstanding skill/talent. When Steph Curry rises up for a three-point shot, he’s not thinking of tucking his right elbow in or positioning the Ball perfectly in his hands before he releases it.

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He simply catches the ball, looks at the basket, and lets it fly. In golf, hitting a stationary ball comes with a golf Swing that can be tweaked constantly in order to achieve the result you envision. However, experienced golfers can sometimes be bogged down by so much information they’ve acquired over the years that they lose sight of the goal they are trying to accomplish.

Simply put, a golfer’s job is to hit their intended target with each and every shot they hit. Information or thoughts related to grip, posture, alignment, takeaway, and numerous other factors are often so debilitating that they prevent a golfer from letting their athletic instinct take over. I know I’ve fallen victim to thinking about too many mechanical thoughts while standing over the ball, and as a result, I have effectively stripped myself of “being an athlete” or trusting my instincts.

If you’re struggling with too many Swing Thoughts, I’m willing to bet there’s a lot of static motion in your setup position. Rather than staring at the ball without adding those extra waggles, try moving your eyes back and forth between the ball and your target. You’ll find yourself reacting more to your intended target rather than trying to do X, Y, and Z with your setup and/or golf swing.

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You can also try playing the “GO” game. When you’re over the ball, count to yourself “1,2,3,” shortly followed by “GO,” which should immediately start your swing. Whatever the method, you must find a way to get out of your own way when you encounter those tough spells where too many swing thoughts are swirling around your head. For me, hitting a couple chips/pitches without looking at the ball reminds me to feel fluid and long with my swing.

In each’s effort to rewire or fix their mind, you have to embrace an unspecified amount of uncomfortable feelings before you can find what does evoke comfort. Rather than addressing the physical component of your swing, try changing your pre-shot routine in order to shift your focus from making a swing to hitting a golf shot.

There’s a clip of Kevin Na several years ago at the Players Championship standing over the ball for an extremely long time before he backs off the ball and says to himself, “C’mon Kevin, pull the trigger!” Early in his career, Na suffered from a classic case of “paralysis through analysis.” Our performance level is impacted negatively when we become so bogged down by information that we’re unable to perform the task at hand in a timely fashion.

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Such was the case with Na, who was unable to start his golf swing due to the innumerable thoughts running through his head. Ian Baker-Finch, winner of the 1991 British Open, famously fell victim to the aforementioned and was unable to salvage his career after his game had reached such great heights. Strangely enough, paralysis through analysis tends to affect experienced, better players more often compared to mere novices or beginners.

Over my years of teaching and through my own experiences, I’ve found that in order to break this cycle, there are a few techniques that can be employed to rid yourself of these paralyzing swing thoughts. First and foremost, as Jack Nicklaus says, you have to learn how to “go to the movies.”

Instead of focusing on the swing itself, focus on visualizing what you want your ball to do while it is airborne. Picture the trajectory, the shot shape, and where you want your ball to come to rest. The more we focus on where we want the golf ball to go, the better chance we have of hitting it there.

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Golfers are overwhelmed with information these days on Trackman and other data insight tools. While many of these tools are very valuable, they shouldn’t be over-relied upon in order to improve your game. Furthermore, players sometimes lose sight of what they’re ultimately trying to achieve when they’re “chasing numbers” on a screen. Trackman users become obsessed with chasing distance at the cost of consistency and find their “trackman swings” producing higher scores on the golf course.

Several golfers tend to focus on what they don’t want to do as opposed to what they want to have happen or their intention. Playing golf in a world where people are more critical of themselves and extremely afraid of failure has contributed to this negative self-talk or negative reinforcement. We can become more consistent by choosing to focus on our intention rather than what we are trying to avoid.

For example, when we’re hitting a tee shot, it’s best to focus on the center of the fairway and not the water right of the fairway or the trees to the left of it. Goal-oriented thinking increases the probability that we will hit the shot we envisioned, and consequently, we will shoot better scores.

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A general rule of thumb when it comes to improving our mechanics or technique is to make major swing changes during the winter months. When we play competitively, we want to know where our swing stands prior to arriving on the first tee in order to improve our odds of achieving satisfactory results.

It’s very difficult to play well when you have six or seven different swing thoughts running through your head during your pre-shot routine and over the golf ball. It’s best to limit these swing thoughts to one or two when we’re on the golf course while leaving the rest of our focus geared toward our intention.

Simplify your thought process and engage in positive self-talk. At the end of the day, we can only give one hundred percent effort or try our very hardest. The rest is out of our control.

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