How do you stop...

[Sandpiper3]

choking? I literally have been playing great tournament golf all year, except 1-3 holes each round. Perfect examples are my last two rounds. Both rounds led my group for the majority of the round, first 12 holes last weekend, and first 15 today. Then last weekend i made an 11, then a few more pars, then an 8....

Today in an even more important tourney (BC amateur Q), im +2 through 15 holes and in great shape, everything down the middle, just narrowly missed a lot of greens, but putting was great. Then I absolutely EFF the 16th up with a triple, with a 4 putt... Played the last 4 holes at +5 to miss the cut by 1 stroke....

How ironic that the best part of my game today was the part to let me down, even with that 4 putt triple I had 26 putts... Poetic Justice i guess...

[gwlee7]

It's just a shot. It's not a "if I do 'X' then 'Y' will happen". It's just a shot.

You sound like me in that you sometimes get too results oriented rather than process oriented. Just make the shot at hand. No matter what shot it is, you've done it a thousand times successfully already.

For example, I try to approach every putt as it being "just a putt". It's not a putt for eagle, birdie, par, bogey, double, or triple. It's just a putt.

When you've played an entire round this way, you'll be amazed at how well you've played and how stress free it was.

[Eracer]

Good advice GW. The answer lies in the meaning YOU assign to the shot. If it's a three-foot putt on the first hole of a scramble, most of us will not even think about, and we'll make it 95% of the time. But if that same three-footer is for a big tournament win? Most people miss it half the time. Same putt, right?

How do you turn off the inner voice that screams at you in those pressure situations? Jack Nicklaus said that he tried to take himself away from the moment until the moment arrived. In other words, as he was waiting for his turn to play, his mind would wander (not too far) off to some other topic: the way the wind was blowing, the shape of a cloud - anything to get his mind away from the upcoming shot. Then, when it was time to play, he would focus by going through his routine, only hitting the shot when he felt totally "in the moment".

[Sandpiper3]

I felt great all day long, dont get me wrong, but it's like literally ONE shot per round that will give me one big number I cant really recover from, like the rest of the round ill be fine again, but just like ONE shot that will bring my score from say a 70 to a 76...

[gwlee7]

It's really funny how "one" shot can define a round isn't it? Unfortunately, that one shot often is a bad one that lets the air out of your tires. I can have difficulty shaking them off myself and today was a good example.

I was playing decently enough and then made a bad chip on the 12th hole that left me a long, downhill par putt that I roled up short. Rather than marking and regrouping I tried to brush in the bogey and yanked it across the hole for a double. Still, I had the opportunity to pull myself back together by heeding my own advice of just letting a shot be a shot. However, I fumed my way around the rest of the back with two more doubles and a couple of bogeys to go 39 - 45 for a smooth 84. I have to just chalk this up to not keeping the mental side in check and go on to play "smarter" next time.

[flomarilius]

Piper I've always considered you a good player and I think I want to give a little bit of insight here. How reliable are your mechanics? I mean truly when it comes down to it can you truly close out something with shaky mechanics? Let's say your playing hole 16 a Par 4 close to about 4something. You hit a beautiful drive that puts your in a short iron range. Now you dont hit it very close with your short iron so your a bit upset. Your on the top parts of the leaderboard and really you almost assured yourself a birth in the next stage. Walk up to the green, take your read, get your line, look back at the ball, take a deep breath, putt. Put it inside 5-6 feet take the par and walk away.

I've been through this many times just on worse scenarios. Ill give myself a little bit of slack because fatigue kicks in alot in junior tournaments because I am not the slimmest of guys (6'2" 270). But if it makes you feel any better I was leading a tournament by about 4-5 strokes and the rest of the field and third place was like 12 or 13 back. I hit a 20 on a par 5. MY final hole I hit a 20.

[Sandpiper3]

I duno man, my mechanics are reliable, and I really have absolutely no beef with a par, perfect example was on the 9th hole, everyone in the group in front of me was within 15 ft, and so were the other two players in my group. Also perfect 9i yardage and i expected to stiff it also, blocked it to about 25 ft, two putted for a par. No biggie, a par is better than a bogie, and both the other players in my group missed their putts.

No pics on the scorecard

Its just like one big number will screw the round, im not actually following the 8 with more big numbers, i just have that one terrible hole, then the rest of the round is normal, like sat, i was +4 for the day, nothing terrible, but nothing special, but because of one hole, i ended up with an 80 and a MC...

[Sandpiper3]

Ill give examples of my whole bad part of my round, one ball in the water on a long par 3, ended up wit double, but i came back hitting a 270 yard 3w over the corner on a short par 4 to have a wedge in, lipped out for bird, then after my 7, i smoked my next tee shot straight down the middle about 295 and stuck a wedge to 4 feet, but lipped out again.

After a bad number im coming back, its just that if i could at last go one round without a big number i could start breaking par in tournaments... I just cant seem to get past it yet:s...

[flomarilius]

hey man atleast ur hitting 275 with a 3. Im getting that with the SQ m8. Now if I could only get my 7 iron to go about 170 I would be happy =D