Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game

care about anything, so why care?
    Of course, we are not so adept at hiding that fear from ourselves. Ultimately, it stands guard, waiting to consume us. That is why I say that a golfer’s greatest enemy is not the difficult course or the challenging tournament or the tense situation. No, the golfer’s greatest enemy is fear. Every golfer’s supreme challenge is to find a way to overcome this basic emotion that, even in the smallest doses, can undermine the soundest mechanical skills.
    The successful golfers play fearless golf. It’s not that they don’t experience fear, because as we’ve said, fear is natural, inherent in the human condition. Seeing that natural condition and overcoming it through a practical approach to success is the hallmark of fearless golf. As Tiger Woods has offered, fear may be real, but it is no match for the committed, confident golfer. He says, “I refuse to give in to fear, real or imagined, or to be afraid—either consciously or subconsciously—of anything or anyone.” It is not enough to know about fear. We must also know how to successfully combat it. There are key psychological principles and factors that enable golfers to overpower their fear so that they can think clearly and effectively and play their best.
    Just as you now drive your car fearlessly, so too can you learn to drive, chip, and putt your ball fearlessly. The method for getting there is just as simple. It is about preparation, mental, physical, and emotional. It is understanding the way to approach the game and working to make it uniformly fearless. Ultimately, it is about focus and paying attention to the things that are crucial to success and ignoring those that serve no constructive purpose. For example, it is not unusual to be nervous over an opening tee shot. But thinking about being nervous is a deterrent to success. It does not move you forward toward your goal of making a successful swing. It is “fearful golf” when what success demands is “fearless golf.”
    Maybe driving a car is a simpler activity than making a golf swing. Of course, a mistake with a car might kill you; a mistake in golf probably won’t. We learned to drive with increasing skill every time we got behind the wheel of a vehicle, and along the way, we learned to drive with confidence. That same freedom from fear can inhabit our golf, too. On the following pages, I hope you will learn a little bit of what I have learned over the years in talking with and offering counsel to some of the best golfers in the world. They have taught me much about fear and how to meet it face-to-face. What I have found is that fear in golf is a controllable force. You have to learn to control it or it will find a way to control you at the game’s most important moments.
    Fear may always exist somewhere in every situation in golf. The challenge is to not let it overwhelm our every move and every thought. Fear is the enemy; confidence is the conquering hero.

J ack Nicklaus once wrote that “fear of any kind is the number one enemy of all golfers, regardless of ball-striking and shot-making capabilities. [Fear] happened to me before my early success enabled me to control my fear.”
    Nicklaus knew fear can take hold of even the most skilled golfers, leaving them not only unable to function to the best of their physical abilities but also dumbstruck by the basic mental mechanics of the game. Nicklaus knew the power of fear from personal experience. It was the 1960 U.S. Open that taught the young Nicklaus the power of fear and the power of focus. He finished second in the U.S. Open that year, a championship many observers believed he might have won. Even Nicklaus admitted he had a chance, until fear got in the way. Leading the tournament by a shot late in the final round, Nicklaus found himself distracted by the moment. On the sixteenth hole, he struck a short birdie putt too boldly after thinking how hard it would be for others to catch him with a two-shot lead. But it got worse for the young champion. Staring at a short par putt with his fellow competitor Ben Hogan standing by, Nicklaus noticed a poorly repaired pitch mark in the line of his putt. He wasn’t sure he could repair it under the rules, though he in fact could. In his book
My Most Memorable Shots in the Majors
, Nicklaus wrote:

    Excited, anxious and under as much pressure as I’ve ever known, I can’t focus my mind clearly on whether the rules allow me to repair the ball mark. Also,