How mentally tough are you as a golfer? Take our new Members-Only test and find out! Mental toughness is the ability to stay in the Zone and perform consistently at your highest level. Most believe that mental toughness is something that happens only by chance after lots of grueling physical practice. The best know differently, and now you too can benefit from the same information that elite level golfers use to evaluate and improve their golf games.
Before your can determine how to replicate your best performances, you must first understand what you did leading up to and during a round. To help you out with that, we’ve created our Post-Round Mental Toughness Assessment for Golfers.
The first portion of the assessment focuses on your physical performance during the round that day. Identifying when you’ve made errors at particularly critical moments during a round gives you information about what you were thinking and feeling while performing. Think back to some of your own rounds, especially ones where money or pride were on the line. Were you ever really nervous at the beginning of a round because you were thinking about how you needed to impress your client? Or what about at the end of a round when you and your opponent were neck and neck and you just needed to hang on for one more hole? We typically see that most golfers tend to make errors at the beginning or end of a round, as this is the time when our thoughts and emotions can be most out of control due to nervousness, fear, or frustration.
The next portion of the assessment addresses solely the mental side of your performance that day. Reflecting on how calm, confident, motivated and focused you felt while playing are good indicators of how well you actually physically performed. Most athletes who experience the Zone describe themselves as feeling calm, confident, focused and motivated, and if you think back to some of your best rounds, you’re likely to realize you were feeling a few of those too. One thing’s for sure, if your ratings are high or low for these areas, your rating of your round performance is likely to be similar. Determining how resilient you were during a round, and comparing that specific round to others in the past will also give you insight into your ability to recover from mistakes and maintain mental toughness in the face of adversity.
So What Does Your Mental Toughness Score Mean?
Don’t worry, the assessment tells you that too! The scoring is broken down into three simple categories to determine exactly where you are with your golf mental toughness. Understanding where you’re at isn’t enough to change your golf performance though, so we’ve gone one step further and given you the resources to take action to improve your mental toughness. Let’s face it, mental toughness is just like putting; it can always be better!
About the Authors
Sarah Frey earned her masters degree in Kinesiology & Sports Psychology from the University of North Texas and is a Certified Mental Trainer®. Dr. Bob Neff is the founder of Mental Training, Inc. and has provided mental training services for athletes, performers, and business executives since 1990. His athlete clients include world champions, and Olympic Gold Medalists. Dr. Bob is on the United States Olympic Committee sport psychology registry. Both Dr. Bob and Sarah are among 25 MTI Mental Trainers® who provide 1 on 1 mental training in the Dallas area and worldwide through video conferencing.
