Practicing For Pressure
Most people stay in their comfort zone. Improvement comes when we’re in the “Ugly Zone”. – Dr. Dave Alred
On the golf course and in tournaments:
- Every shot counts and has a consequence
- Every shot is a unique challenge
- There are several minutes between shots for possible “thinking” time
- Your heart rate is higher
Although most golfers know this to be true, they spend little time practicing in a way that will help them to adapt to these changing (external and internal) conditions. Instead, they stay in their comfort zone by over-practicing the technical and getting into “range rhythm”. This improves the quality of their shots at the time but doesn’t lead to improvement in the skills necessary to perform better on the course. They don’t like being in the “Ugly Zone”, and hence they spend little time doing more effective practice which might show them up or expose them to failure.
Although the golf course is the best place to practice (after all, that’s where we play the game), most of us have more frequent access to driving ranges and practice facilities. For this reason, it’s important to find ways to make it challenging and exciting and simulate what we experience on the golf course.
I should clarify that I’m not implying that a golfer shouldn’t practice their technique – of course we need to work on technical skill development. But if you are to become a player who performs well under pressure, you’ll need to allocate time in every practice session to develop your performance skills and train in “the Ugly Zone”.
Performance Practice or Training Ugly, trains you to:
- Develop a “no limits” mindset
- Adapt quickly to challenges (instead of repetitions of the same shot)
- Think clearly in difficult situations
- Be more comfortable being uncomfortable
- Develop a clear, transferable process
- Deal with nerves and higher arousal levels
Performance Drills
I have plenty of performance practice drills and ways to create a competitive environment in the Golf State of Mind Practice book.
Performance drills are about pushing yourself to beat previous personal bests and feel the pressure that it brings with it. It’s called “The Ugly Zone”, because it doesn’t feel good to be there. But at the margins of your current (or perceived) ability level is the only place that you are going to be able to figure out how to push forward to the next level of better.
Performance drills are enhanced by stat tracking in your rounds and scorekeeping in your practice sessions, so you know precisely the areas of the game you need to improve, and how much time to allocate. A simple example is a player that is looking to improve proximity to the hole from around the greens (this would be deemed an efficient use of time after looking at their stats). They might pick 10 locations of various difficulty (i.e., lie, carry, distance from the hole, etc.) and see how many shots they can get within 10 ft of the hole (hitting one ball only from each location). Every time they go to practice, they would do this drill (from the same locations each time) and aim to beat their best score. If their personal best is 6 out of 10, the “Ugly Zone” as Dr. Alred calls it, would start at 4 or 5.
As Dr. Dave Alred says, “It’s at the margin that you’re always trying to improve. If a player is able to do 10 of something, we’re looking to get 11 or 12. The philosophy of a no limits mentality is that you are always trying to get better than your previous self”.
Possible failure, frustration and being uncomfortable are all a part of the Ugly Zone. A player must learn to stay in the fight and develop/learn mental strategies to keep their confidence and self-esteem intact and withstand the fear of failure (just like they have to when under pressure on the course). Performance Practice is a great way to practice for pressure and give us insight into the best process to focus on when we are playing, so we can access our best technical skills when it matters most.
By doing the drills and performing better at them in practice, you’ll increase your confidence and your ability to be able to execute in this area on the course.
Using Imagination
Another component you can add to your performance practice, is using your imagination to further simulate the pressure of the real thing.
Before you go to your session, think about different situations on the course which change your internal state and be ready to use them in practice (you can write them down, ready to recall in the session). Ask yourself:
- What situations make you feel uncomfortable and will likely raise your arousal level?
- What situations will you be in if you are to achieve your goals?
- What shots will you face in your next round?
- What situations would likely cause negative thinking patterns?
Create vivid representations of them in your mind i.e., who you are playing with, the tournament, the golf course, the colors, the weather, etc.
Examples are:
- Your tee shot on the 1st hole of a tournament
- Your tee shot on the 2nd hole after a double bogey start
- Being under par at the turn and having a chance to shoot your best score
- Your tee shot on the 18th with a one-shot lead
- Having to get up and down from around the green to force a play-off or win a tournament
- Making a 2-putt from 30ft to win the tournament
- A 5-foot putt to win
For each shot:
- Go through your full Pre Shot Routine
- Practice your Post Shot Routine and how you will respond to different outcomes
- Considering your heart rate could be 120 bpm or more during a tournament or in a “big moment”, run on the spot to get it there before hitting the shot. If you have a heart rate monitor on your watch, you can get it to the desired heart rate before playing each shot.
- Take 1-2 minutes break in between shots to simulate the golf course and to make sure you don’t get into a rhythm of hitting shots (one of the pitfalls of normal driving range practice that leads to an “illusion of competence”). You could use the time in between to do some meditation or to practice being alone with your thoughts (don’t get your phone out to occupy the time).
By doing more Performance Practice, you’ll discover more about the effectiveness of your current “performance process” in controlling your internal state and preparing for shots, and you can experiment with the tools covered in modules 3 and 4 to improve it.
Keep Expanding Your Comfort Zone
If you are constantly stepping into unfamiliar situations in your life, it means you are growing at a rapid pace. If you are constantly seeking a comfort zone, you are stagnant. Only when you lose the fear of suffering – that no matter what happens, “this is how you will be”, can you explore your life in full depth and dimension”. – Sadhguru
Learning how to push through fear and discomfort comes with experience. If the size of fear is proportional to the size of what we perceive we could lose, then it makes sense to gradually increase the amount we have at stake and learn how to successfully manage the thoughts, feelings and discomfort that come at each level.
E.g., If you have a fear of public speaking that you want to overcome, you wouldn’t do it by speaking in front of a thousand people – that would be too overwhelming. Instead, you would gradually expand your comfort zone or “graduate pressure” by speaking in front of smaller groups and working your way up to larger ones. At each level, you can learn how to deal with the mental and physical changes that occur when fear is present, and you become more comfortable with it. As you learn how to navigate each situation, your fear begins to diminish, and your confidence increases. It’s the same thing in golf – each level of the game comes with its own set of mental challenges to overcome. E.g., it would be a lot more difficult to manage the thoughts and feelings that come with leading a Major Championship if you’ve never played in one before. Jack Nicklaus said that it took him a lot of second place finishes to learn how to win.
By expanding your comfort zone each time, what you perceive as threatening changes. The amygdala, which is the part of the brain that controls the fear response in humans, desensitizes, so what might have triggered fear in the past, no longer does. In the documentary “Free Solo” about the free solo rock climber Alex Honnold, we learn that after risking his life daily, his ability to feel fear had diminished to almost zero. Neuroscientists were shocked to learn from an MRI scan of his brain that his amygdala had shrunk to the smallest they had ever seen.
Obviously you are not risking your life by playing golf, but by putting yourself in situations that make you feel uncomfortable, and approaching it with the right mindset, your fear response will reduce to more manageable and performance enhancing levels.
“Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable.” ~ David Goggins
It’s important to appreciate that any situation which makes you feel uncomfortable, helps you grow. We can’t build mental toughness, or the mental skills needed to become the best we can, by sitting on the couch. We need to be continually tested and learn how to quiet the ego and be our best performing selves in the big moments.
My goal for this module, as the title implies, is for you to become a pressure seeker, so you learn more about yourself and what’s needed to succeed. With a Growth Mindset and the tools in this module, I hope that you will now see pressure situations as a win-win. There is never any losing. Pressure is an opportunity to learn how to channel focus and get into flow and find out what you can do to perform even better.
One of most fulfilling things about this game is the feeling you get from overcoming challenges and reaching new levels of better and that always involve pressure. By persevering, learning and growing you will increase your skill at managing it, and you’ll soon discover that there are no limits to how good you can become.