Underdog Golf Blog

The easiest way to get better at anything in life is to examine past patterns, whether they be your own or that of history and learn from them. This is why in golf so many players keep track of specific results throughout their rounds.

I myself keep track of fairways hit in regulation (tee shot), greens hit in regulation (with at least two strokes left before par) and total putts. May golfers even go to the extent of keeping track of up and downs, sand saves, distances with each club out of every lie and so forth. I’m still have so much to learn and my swing is still evolving at such a changing rate that I only focus on the first three mentioned.

There’s an old saying, “Practice what you preach”, that I think has finally registered with this wonderful game of golf and myself. One of the things I did this past week was go back through and read all my previous posts and I started to notice that one key factor that I hadn’t mastered was playing one shot at a time.

If I had to sum up this weekend’s efforts into one line, it would have to be, “Big gulps huh?…Welp, see ya later.”

Man, talk about a doozey. Had you asked me Friday after the practice range what I thought I’d be shooting come Saturday and Sunday, I would have told you 89 with ease. I was hitting every one of my irons great and my driver even better. I had developed a mishit on about 10% of my wedge shots but thought I had solved it.

Expectations… they can improve or ruin an outlook on just about any situation; whether it is a movie, a first date, a raise… or a round of golf. By setting high expectations we run the risk of turning a positive situation into a negative one if it doesn’t meet these imaginary benchmarks, even if the overall outcome is relatively good.

Take going to a movie for instance. I learned years ago that if I want to enjoy a movie no matter how good or bad it was according to everyone else, I had to go into with no expectations what so ever. This has allowed me to become one of Brendan Fraser’s biggest fans and enjoy a plethora of other movies I wouldn’t have, had I gone into it expecting greatness (even though I think Brendan Fraser is great).

How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich:

1) Get peanut butter, jelly and bread.
2) Slather peanut butter on one piece of bread
3) Slather jelly on another piece of bread
4) Put two pieces of bread together
5) Nom, nom, nom, nom

How not to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich:

1) Get peanut butter, jelly and bread
2) Smash all items together as hard and fast as possible and throw them to the right or left of you, or any other direction but straight
3) Get angry and scream about how you are the worst peanut butter and jelly sandwich maker that has ever lived
4) Get more ingredients and do the exact same thing and expect different results

One of the best things about getting away for a week is getting out of the daily routine. Forgetting about work, stress, daily anxieties that might have crept up on us, and just chillin out max and relaxin all cool. This is perfect for resetting our minds and bodies and getting the much needed time off that in turn will lead to better efficiency in whatever we are putting our minds to in the long term when we return from this break from reality.

For me obviously, this includes my golf training. I felt like I was getting very frustrated and putting a lot of unneeded pressure on myself. So taking a week off in Costa Rica was exactly what I needed. Coming back to the states, I felt relaxed, rejuvenated and ready to take on the world. Then came my alarm at 5am on Monday morning. My first pre-sunrise work out in over a week. My first 7am putting practice. My first day back to work, and so on.

Have you ever read a book and literally every two or three pages your saying to yourself, “man, I do that all the time”, or “sheesh, this guy hit it spot on”. Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game was one of those books for me.

One of the things I wanted to achieve while on vacation this week was finally get around to reading Zen Golf and once I started reading it I was instantly hooked. I finished it in three days reading as much as I could when I had some down time (I have it on my computer so I wasn’t able to read it out on the beach).
First things first, no matter what level you are at in your golf game, I recommend you go get this book and read it ASAP. I’m going to try and keep this short as Maria is staring at me right now with the “get off your computer, we’re on vacation” look, so needless to say, my writing time is limited.

Every now and then in my life I get to a point where I feel like everything is moving too fast. It feels as
though I’m not in control of things. I wouldn’t go as far as to say “spinning out of control”, but I feel like
this phrase paints a picture of what I mean the best.

In all reality, the things that cause these feelings are very miniscule and have simply thrown me out of
my natural rhythm. I’ll typically have too many things on my plate and feel like I have to rush through
them all at once. Most of the time when I try and do 10 things in the time it takes to do 3 some of these
things get compromised, or “half assed” if you will. I’ve learned to take a step back when I get to this
point and slow everything down. Figure out what is most important at that exact moment, prioritize my
thought process and get myself back into my natural life rhythm.

In one of my favorite books, The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo wrote, “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” Just typing this quote gives me chills. I couldn’t agree more with this statement.

In my case, I am lucky to have rediscovered golf at a time where I needed a focus point in life. I am lucky enough to have a friend like Tim Brand that is willing to sacrifice his own time in helping become a better golfer. I’m lucky to have a girlfriend like Maria, who is able to put up with me and my lofty dreams and be supportive when I go after them, even if it takes up a lot of time we would otherwise be spending together. And, I’m lucky to have moved to Southern California six years ago, where the golf season is 365 days a year. All of these things I believe are the universe conspiring to help me achieve this goal I have. Even if the pieces were put into play over the course of years prior, and had I not had every success and failure in my life to this point, I’d probably not be where I am today.

One thing I’ve really been trying hard to focus on is focusing.  What I mean by this is with each shot I step up to, whether it is a tee shot, approach shot or putt, or whether it is at the practice tee, practice green or during a round of golf, I try to completely clear my mind of anything that could distract me from the particular shot in front of me.