An encouraging response

Apologies for not "blogging out" my reaction to my collapse over my final two holes from my previous round. As you know, it was my intention to do so but a couple of things prevented me. Firstly, as is so often the case, life just got in the way. I had a friend staying with us while he did an off-shore course, and I used the opportunity to talk about golf with a real live person late into the night, rather than telling all on here. Work also played a part as I had to work nights for a period. But most importantly, I realised what had gone wrong and it's something I've mentioned on here a number of times. In the heat of the moment I lost it, and paid the price on my scorecard. With time and a bit of distance I realised that what had happened was no more or less than a timely reminder to stay on the path.

So what was wrong? Simple really, and you may well have already anticipated what I'm going to say. As the scores kept going onto the card I became aware that there was a potentially low score looming, and I just lost my process focus becoming instead infatuated with results. In short, I abandoned the mental focus that got me into to that position. As a few disappointing shots got strung together, so I got more and more concerned that the result would be other than I wished. That viewpoint led to me playing "catch-up", which is always a dangerous game. You know what I mean. It was precisely that "catch-up" mindset that led me wandering into the sticky rough to the right of the 17th fairway where I had near-shanked my drive with a 4 hybrid rather than the eminently more sensible 9 iron, and then taking 3 shots to get out of that rough. It's almost always a bad sign when you go to hit a shot with the same club you tried to hit on the previous shot without it even having been near your bag.

I then tried to hit a fade with my driver off the 18th tee (although I know the theory of shot shaping, and can hit a draw almost to demand, lack of range time means I'm not yet fully confident playing fades. I mean, what was I thinking? Oh, that's right, I wasn't) which led to a slice that fell out of the ugly tree and hit nearly every branch on the way down. Not only was it out of bounds, but it bounced into the club carpark. Still, can't have been having that bad a day as I managed to avoid my (and indeed anyone else's) car window.

I'm a wee bit embarrassed by the post I made just after that round as it's usually my nature to deal publicly with the little bumps along life's road with a rueful smile and some humour rather than being quite so honest about how I'm feeling, but that post is an accurate representation of how I felt at the time. I got an awful lot of positive feedback from my excitement and joy when the feeling of process focus finally clicked, so I wanted to be honest and share how I was a wee bit bruised by the collapse.

Time and a bit of distance led me to reaffirm what I already knew at the time of the last post. Bruised or not, the positives from that round far outweighed the moments of madness over the last couple of holes. I'd started well, played my shots, coped with a wee wobble before the turn, played well after the turn and although things hadn't gone as I'd liked at the end, that was due to a problem I'd already worked out how to solve rearing it's head again because my head got turned by the possibility of my record low score- not a bad problem to have, after all. If I'm going to learn to score, this is a vital part of the process. And as I've said, it's a loss of focus, not a new problem.

I got the start of the week off before my nights, and that was great as it afforded me the opportunity to get back out on the course and put my reasoning to the test. Although my club has a tee-time sheet for the Saturday medal, Wednesdays are more ad-hoc. I met up with a couple of guys I didn't know at the club and we headed out. The resultant round was far from perfect - I had a 3 putt from 4 feet on the 16th- but had some incredible high points, including the best putt I've ever hit on the 3 rd, a 30-foot plus putt which scrambled an unlikely par after I'd had to play my second shot from the rough on the far side of the 4th tee.

Most important though was my attitude, which improved significantly. The 3-putt from 4 feet on the 16th was part of a "wobbly" period - my drives which are normally a strength were very shaky, and I was unconfident over the ball. In the context of what had happened on my previous round, I knew how I reacted to this was vitally important. I'd resolved before the round that my goal was to hang onto my process focus. The only way I'd see myself as having failed in any way was if I failed to maintain that focus. I'm pleased to report that after having a 50% process focus on my shots at the 13th, I managed to be process focused for 21 of the 26 remaining strokes. I played the last 2 holes in 8 strokes fewer than I had not 4 days before. My overall process score was 83, giving me a P-focus score of 87%, by far and away my best yet.

My final score? 91, which I might have let annoy me as I could easily have scored 2 or more strokes lower (I had 36 putts, 4 above my usual), but fortunately my pre-round resolve to only make success predicated on maintaining process focus means that I don't fall into that trap. I had the lowest net score in division 2, scored my lowest competitive score and I'm frankly jiggered if I'm going to allow myself to see that as anything other than a success. I managed to get my handicap index cut by 0.8, meaning that my new handicap is 24.1 - 24 was my goal at the start of the season.

I've now attained most of my SMART goals (specific (or stretching), measurable, achievable & time-limited) for this year. I'm going to enjoy the remainder of the season with one or two new short-term goals, and look forward to making new ones around the turn of the year. I'm certain that these goals have helped give me focus and purpose, and I look forward to stretching myself even more next year. I urge you to set yourself goals, with a broad spectrum (not just narrowing down on score or competitive goals) and see what you can attain. In keeping with my on course attitude, I'm keeping my goals largely process focused, which is why breaking 90 isn't featured on my list of goals.

I'd love to hear your goals, and what you've found whilst striving toward them. Please leave comments below, or look me up @The_Golf_Geek on that Twitter thingy.