Every round you play will be made up of good and bad shots, and it is your job to ride out the roller coaster while remaining as focused and positive as possible. There has never been a ‘perfect’ round of golf played in the history of the game, and that mythical perfect round isn’t going to happen anytime soon, either.

Golf is a hard game, and you are bound to make mistakes along the way during any given round. However, in order to avoid having your emotions and frustrations lead to a string of bad holes, you do need to find a way to ‘reset’ when you step onto each tee box. It is hard to see each hole as a new challenge, since you are always thinking about how your score is going to add up at the end of the day. Without a doubt, this is one of the toughest mental tips to actually put into action in your game. Most of the time, you will be best-served by a conservative game plan that leaves you ball safely in play. You can play aggressive from time to time, but you need to pick spots where the penalty for missing is not going to be too severe. The average golfer is tempted by trying to pull off an amazing shot too frequently, and those attempts often lead to penalty strokes being added to the card. Sure, you aren’t going to hit very many incredible shots this way, but you are going to stay away from penalties and you are going to keep your score on track. For example, if you aren’t sure you can carry a water hazard that is guarding the front of a green, you can play away from that hazard in order to keep your ball on the grass (and out of the water). To do so, you are going to want to make conservative choices more often than not. This skill is often called course management, and it is one of the keys to posting good scores.Ī big part of your course management approach should be a commitment to keeping penalty strokes off of your scorecard. As the golfer, it is your job to pick the right combination of club and target line to leave your ball in a good spot for the next shot. There are probably at least a couple of different clubs you can pick from, and there are certainly a variety of target lines available as well. With each shot that you face during a round of golf, you have a number of possibilities in front of you. This first tip probably seems like an obvious point, but most golfers throw this line of thinking out the window when making decisions on the course.

#1 – Avoiding Penalty Shots is Priority #1 To change that pattern, consider putting the following list of mental game tips to use. Unfortunately, the failure to work on the mental game is a big part of the reason why most amateur golfers never really make much improvement over time. If you are like most amateur golfers, you likely spend plenty of time trying to improve on the physical side of your game – yet you rarely, if ever, think about how you are going to improve from a mental standpoint. You need to have a solid swing and a good short game to play well, of course, but it is the mental game that usually separates the best golfers from the rest of the pack. There is a huge mental component to the game of golf as well, and many would argue that the mental challenges you face on the course are actually the biggest hurdle of all. Of course, as a golfer, you already know that there is more to this game than just the physical side of the equation. If the only challenges you faced on the golf course were physical in nature, this would still be a very difficult game to conquer. The physical demands of hitting good golf shots are significant, as you have to put the club face in a square position on the back of the ball even as the club head is moving as fast as 100 MPH or more. It is extremely difficult to hit long and straight golf shots, even if you are standing on the driving range with no pressure and nothing on the line. Golf is one of the hardest games in the world – on that point, there can be little debate.

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