Before, In and After the Moment
The Three Stages of Focus in Golf.
In my opinion, there are three types of focus, or thinking, needed to perform consistently and develop your golf game: before, in, and after “the moment.”
Before the Moment
The time during the off-season, before your round, between holes, or just before your shot—prior to your routine—is what I call “before the moment.”
This is the time to focus on your options, your goal, and what you’re capable of doing. Then you commit: you decide what you will do.
Each of these opportunities to focus may take a different amount of time and occur at a different stage, but they all contribute to the same goal: performing consistently and developing your game.
In the Moment
Trust your decision. No more thinking!
At this point, you must be automatic, rehearsed, and familiar with what you’ll do over the next 15 seconds. This is “recalling an over-learned skill.”*
It’s just like unlocking your car door. You can do that consistently because you learned it a long time ago, succeeded at it, and then stored it as a skill to call upon when needed.
You don’t second-guess yourself when writing your signature. You trust that you know how and simply write. To become consistent, you must learn to approach a golf shot the same way.
You can’t be learning something and performing it automatically at the same time. You have to have practiced it many times and succeeded enough to believe, “I have this shot.” This is when golf gets really fun!
The real key here is your routine. This is your protective “bubble.” It’s the time when you stop thinking ahead, talking to your friends, trying to remember your golf lesson, or adding extra moves. You get the idea.
The only thing you do when it’s time to take your shot is follow your routine. This won’t be hard if you practice it.
Hint: Your routine should last only about 10–14 seconds at most. If it’s longer, you’re thinking about too much or making unnecessary setup movements and adjustments.
After the Moment
Right after the shot, it’s critical to protect your attitude with nonjudgmental self-talk. Be productive—not destructive—in how you talk to yourself. You do have a choice, you know.
This is the time to learn from what you experienced and move on. That shot is done! Tell yourself you’ll think about it later and decide then how to improve or change what happened.
After the round, find time to sit down and recap your overall experience. Look for patterns you can improve, such as putts repeatedly coming up short or tee shots landing in the same bunker. You might need to choose a different shot, target line, or club.
Look for where you waste strokes.** You might take a lesson or ask me for help.
After the season, you might review your entire game again. Look for patterns, such as blocking your driver or choking on three-foot putts. Then seek out real answers, practice what you learn, and incorporate it into your routine so you can take it to the course.
Keep in mind: the lower your score gets, the harder it becomes to save strokes.
A Note on Over-learned Skills
* I think I learned the term “over-learned skill” from Subconscious Golf instruction I heard many years ago. Awesome stuff! I learned a great deal from that information and have used it extensively in my teaching. I highly recommend listening to it.
A Lesson in Saving Strokes
** Another idea I believe came from Subconscious Golf is that you can waste one shot on every hole and still make par. So, if you make a double bogey, you’ve wasted three shots.
Here’s how I experienced this:
Years ago, on a short par 4, I cold-topped my driver about 50 yards, dead left, under a very low bush. I started to beat myself up, but then I caught myself, stopped that thinking, and said, “Okay, how can I make par from here?”
This changed my attitude and turned the situation back into a challenge. It got my creative thinking going, and I began visualizing how it could be done.
I got on my knees and used a long iron to knock the ball out from under the bush and back into the fairway. At the time, I actually had an old Power Bilt 1-iron! I stayed focused, hit my next shot onto the green to about 12 feet, and made the putt.
To this day, that’s the best par of my life—not because of the shots themselves, but because I was about to give up and instead took control of my thinking. I didn’t let my emotions control me.
I’ve taught this lesson to countless students over the years.
—Ross