
Nobody that plays the game is immune to one bad shot. Nobody that plays the game is immune to a series of bad shots, or a bad hole or two. Certainly not a 20-something handicap, or a 12 or a single-digit or even a world-class, top-ranked professional. What do we do when things start to go bad during a round? How do we preserve a round and keep it from being far worse than it has to be?
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1. Stay Calm
I've been there...many, many times, when things are just going off the rails and no matter what I do, it doesn't seem as though I can ever get things back on track. A big part of this happening has to do with the expectations I have for what a "Good Round" looks like for me or what a "Good Shot" looks like. If I don’t pull that "Good Shot" off, then my brain almost always goes into panic mode. Sometimes I can calm down and gather myself and other times, especially after a series of bad shots, it's tougher. When in panic mode, I get tense, start to hurry things up and my normal flow gets knocked off. Learning how to stay calm, mentally, will help the physical manifestations of this from taking over.