Drive for DOH!

‘Drive for Show and Putt for Dough’ is a famous saying in the golf world, but how do you get off the first tee with your esteem in tact when playing in a society?

I can get a little anxious prior to my first tee shot of the day, even though I know I’m a relatively capable golfer. Relative in terms of my handicap at least, which I know I can play-to comfortably if I don’t let certain things cloud my mind.

Start as you’re mean, then go on (no that’s not a typo)

Not that mean!

Making a positive start to your round of golf is paramount. Going about your business of attaining consistency can only be achieved if you have consistency of mind, body and soul.

Don’t worry, there are no spiritual or religious allegories about to spring into my writing, the term is purely a metaphor for aiming your game at a complete game, rather than a sporadic and sometimes peak-and-trough one.

Now, I can’t confess to totally practising  what I preach here on this particular subject. Peculiarly, I would consider myself as an insecure first tee man. I get all jangly and sweaty palmed every single time I step onto the first tee, even when I play a social round.

Perhaps you experience the same problem? It’s bizarre because I’m quite a confident person in everything else that I do. But that first tee just gets me every time. I can multiply that by nine if I happen to be up first to hit too. (nine just seemed like a good number, and besides, I hate tens – especially on my card.)

Put yourself somewhere else

Always a good turn out on our society days LOL

This is something I’ve been trying more and more just lately. It’s something that I’ve read about from lots of sources over the years but had never actually tried the approach myself.

It is important to have a psychological place in the mind that you can lock yourself away in once in a while, it’s that place you go to sometimes when you catch yourself day-dreaming. Perhaps for you that’s a number of different places, for me its just one or two.

I try to pick a mental place, a memory of when I did something that was quite good, something others noticed and commented on. It’s that thing you remember you did once when you are feeling tense or maybe even at a low ebb, and when you think of it you peak up a bit and stick your chest out, and in your mind you say to yourself “I did that”.

Sweep out the dust in your new place

When you’re in that place, hold it. Keep it front and centre in your mind and ignore everyone else around you until you’ve swept the dust out of your new place, metaphorically – in the mind. I’m using that phrase as a metaphor for playing a shot you’ve made a million times, because mentally you approached it as calmly as you would when sweeping out dust with a broom.

I don’t remember any instance where sweeping dust out of my house in real life stuck in my head. Perhaps because the task went ok every time and the dust never ended up out of bounds.

I’m sure there are better similes to make, but that is mine.

Routine Routine Routine

As I delve into this series of posts, we’ll be digging into the basic approach of the first tee shot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m only coming at this from my own perspective, I’m not a golf pro, nor a practising psychologist (never mind even a qualified one) or anything even remotely scented like one.

No, unfortunately I’m just going to give my own insight as usual, and if it strums your guitar then great, if not I hope you like the article for other reasons.

The basics, my basics, consist of pre-round preparation, which is really just getting myself into the frame of mind to play, it’s that start of the focus for the round ahead, the trigger that says start preparing right about now.

I like to warm up I make myself warm up, although this is something that I’m not quite fully in tune with yet, but I am getting much better at it and it is making a difference.

I think about my place, that place we talked about earlier, I don’t go there yet but its a reminder that I need to catch the bus there soon.

Have I done all the things I normally do before I play? mental check-sheet: cleaned my clubs, cleaned my shoes, tucked my t-shirt in from left to right, hanging the right side? (mmm.. maybe I’m getting a bit too obsessive.. note to self)

Have I got a drink, a chocolate bar, a spare glove, am I in the mood for a new ball or an old fister?, in other words the routine is more encompassing than just the few twitches and side glances you make before you hit.

In the next post I will hopefully show a brilliant example of a pre-hit routine by our one and only Captain Mr. Phil Mai (you won’t get your breath at this routine). I will need to take some video first, I will try and get this for the next post in this series. When you see it you’ll think it’s a gag, but it isn’t, it is his pre-hit routine on every tee, and sometimes for a warm up too.

Stepping up to the plate

Stepping onto the tee should be carried out like Cary Grant entering a cocktail party, not like a lemming who’s three back from the front of the queue on base jump day. When you’re in your place you can do this, well I can at least, because that’s my good-distraction from what is about to occur.

We’ll go into this more later in the series.

If you got this far then you’re either mad (hopefully just as in nuts) or possibly just a little intrigued as to what is going to come later? Watch out for the sequel to this post coming soon..

If you want to share your tee nerves, go right ahead and comment, we won’t laugh – we promise, I mean come on – I’ve just bared my arse big style.

Images courtesy of: World Gurning Championships, Augusta National.