A Way to Rebound After a Bad Shot

Today marks the beginning of Mental Mondays which is a weekly blog that is devoted entirely to mental techniques to improve sports performance. This blog will have a heavy emphasis on developing mental skills for the game of golf but the techniques can easily be applied to other sports as well. The mental techniques I will describe are very straight forward, simple, and often times common sense. These methods are not rocket science or a magical secret formula they simply need to be applied. When you do you will find the simple things creating profound differences.

With 3 top ten finishes including a win at the 2010 Honda Classic, Camilo Villegas has certainly hit the ground running so far in 2010. Villegas is a very exciting player to watch. He plays with a fearless attitude and certainly goes after the ball on every swing. I especially liked watching him yesterday as he caught fire and birdied holes 8,9,and 10. With a commanding lead at this point and playing incredible, Villegas hit a bad tee shot on 11 which started a chain reaction of back to back boogies on holes 11 and 12 as well as a third boogie on 15.

While this was unfolding, Jack Nicklaus was in the commentator’s booth giving his insight. Johnny Miller asked Nicklaus about his experience dealing with situations similar to what Villegas was going through; trying to rebound and get back to hitting good shots. Nicklaus responded back by saying, “The difference between winning and losing is being able to regroup.” His answer was so simple yet so profound that I had to write it down to share with you. Even though the idea of regrouping or recollecting yourself after a bad shot or a bad hole is such common sense and something that you have probably heard many times, it isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially after ripping a drive into the trees or blowing an easy putt. So if having the ability to regroup is so important to shooting a low round or winning a tournament how exactly do you achieve such an elusive feat?

One way to get you thinking and feeling positive again after a poor shot is to follow the Golden Bear’s advice combined with a simple yet effective Neuro-Linguistic Programming (or NLP) technique called Pattern Interruption.

In NLP, a pattern interruption is any action that is outside your normal behavior during that moment that will temporarily disrupt the flow of negative thoughts or patterns of behavior. Pattern interruptions include; clapping your hands, pumping your fists, putting a big ridiculous smile on your face, laughing out loud, changing your breathing to deep diaphragmatic breathing, pulling on your ears while making a goofy sound, putting your club into your bag three times, or any other behavior that is outside your normal mode of doing things when things take a turn for the worst. Asking yourself positive questions to change your focus is also a powerful way to interrupt patterns. Questions like, “what do I love about golfing?” “What do I love about this day?” “What was funny about that last shot?” These types of questions force your mind to think about something else, thus interrupting the old pattern.

NLP teaches us that human beings run off patterns of behavior based on a cause versus effect relationship with the outside world. Tony Robbins uses a jukebox metaphor to explain this point. He says that the world gives us an experience, such as a negative event, and our minds search the jukebox and play the record that is most congruent with your past experiences. So if the situation makes you angry than your mind plays an angry record, or if it is a pleasant situation your mind plays one of your happy records. Robbins expands this metaphor to explain how pattern interrupts work. He said what would happen if while an angry record was playing you took a knife and scratched the record? What would happen if you kept scratching the record again and again? The answer is the record would get so scratched up that it would be impossible to play. Pattern interruptions work in the same way with our habitual thoughts and behaviors.

To further explain pattern interruptions let’s use a real life example. Have you ever been in the situation where you are completely absorbed in a conversation and then someone butts into the conversation and asks a random, off the topic question such as “where is the bathroom?” After the person leaves and you try to resume your conversation, you find it very hard to do so or remember what you were talking about even though you were deeply absorbed a moment ago. If, not have you ever found yourself saying, “I just lost my train of thought,” “where were we?”, or “what were we talking about?”, then you have experienced a pattern interruption. I think everyone has had similar experiences at one time or another and can relate to this example. What I am getting at here is pattern interruptions have the ability to help you quickly refocus your mind, and like the previous example sometimes break the pattern so much that you can’t even remember what you were thinking or talking about.

So how does all of this apply to golf? Let’s imagine that a golfer is teeing it up and has to hit over water. They step up, hit a poor shot, and the ball sinks to the bottom of the lake. What is likely to occur? Typically, this poor result would cause most golfers to search through their jukebox, find a congruent record, and release the patterns of behavior and thought that correspond with this negative experience. If this golfer doesn’t actively take control of the situation then what is most likely to occur is an expansion of negative thoughts, self-doubt, low confidence all of which will result in more poor shots and missed opportunities. When a bad shot happens it is important to know that it’s not the end of the world but it your attitude and mindset gets out of control it definitely is the end of a good round.

In this situation rather than dwelling on negative thoughts or the bad shot, take active control of your mind and emotions by using any pattern interruption that works for you. The ones that work best for me are pumping my fist (which is a power gesture of mine), deliberate deep breathing (calms the nerves and body, as well as changes mental focus), or asking myself positive questions (What do I love about golfing is my favorite question). Take the time to find out what things truly can disrupt your patterns. Sometimes a simple behavior like changing your breathing will work while other times it might have to be more a dramatic behavior like clapping your hands three times while saying YES, YES, YES! Once you successfully interrupt your pattern it is important to know that you have a short window of time to begin filling your mind with positive new ideas. If the old patterns return, do another pattern interruption, and again saturate your mind with things that make you think and feel like a winner.

At this point you might be wondering what you should do after interrupting your pattern. So I will close this blog by returning to the advice given by Jack Nicklaus at yesterdays Honda Classic. After making the statement that winning and losing is determined by a person’s ability to regroup after a poor hole, he went on to say exactly what he did to achieve this goal and win so many tournaments. He said the first thing he would do is focus on his breathing and start taking deep breaths. What he did was actually interrupt his pattern, which should always be the first step (Deep breathing interrupts a pattern because when a person is stressed, anxious, angry, etc their breathing is typically short, fast, and shallow. By deliberately taking in a long deep breath or by deep breathing for several minutes you effectively break patterns that effect your performance). Next, he said he would reassess the situation. He is indirectly doing another NLP technique which will be discussed at a future time called reframing. Nicklaus said he would say to himself and I’m paraphrasing here, “It was only one hole, I am still in the lead focus on what needs to be done to win this tournament.” Reframing or reassessing as Nicklaus called it is a great way to get your mind moving in a new and positive direction. Nicklaus said after he reassessed the situation, he would give himself positive affirmations in order to get back to simply playing golf and having fun again. In my opinion, this is again a pattern interruption indirectly used by Nicklaus on the golf course. By using affirmations and by reminding himself to have fun, it breaks the flow of negative thoughts and gets the mind finding positives things to focus on. The final thing Nicklaus said he would do is go back to basics on the next shot, release the idea of killing the ball, and just hit a solid shot to get the confidence started again.

So to quickly recap:
Step 1: Interrupt the Pattern
Step 2: Reframe or Reassess the Situation
Step 3: Positive Affirmations or Ask Positive Questions
Step 4: Go Back to Basics and Hit a Solid Shot

As for Villegas, I’m not sure what he was doing to regroup yesterday but it certainly was effective for he finished the tournament with a birdie on 18 and most importantly a 5 stroke victory. I want to congratulate Camillo Villegas on his 3rd PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic. I was certainly impressed with his ability to regroup, his mental toughness, and his ability to seal the deal after adversity. If you start to utilize pattern interruptions during your round then you too will be on the road to developing the mental toughness like the pros. Until next week, happy golfing!