Emotional regulation is the latest term used to describe a person’s ability to manage and respond to an emotional experience. People use a variety of strategies, many of which are unconscious, in their attempt to cope with difficult situations throughout the typical day.
Because performance experts have found that emotions are the most misunderstood and arguably the most important factor in championship sports, emotional regulation is thought the be the “new frontier” in the mental realm of professional golf.
Unlike fast-moving team sports, like football, basketball and soccer, the game of golf is such that we are alone with our thoughts most of the time, left to ruminate over a multitude of things that occur and things we did. Often the emotional consequences can be negative.
It may be stupid mistakes, terrible, bad luck or having an off day. Failure to recognize and understand what is going on internally with our own emotions, coupled with failure to respond to problem emotions in real time, can drag your golf game performance down and down.
Almost all professional golfers on tour have a sport psychologist on their team. Recreational golfers don’t. My role today, as it has been for the last 20 years with this column, is to help you out mentally.
Dr. Deborah Graham is a golf psychologist and co-author of the classic book “The 8 Traits of Champion Golfers.” On her website – www.golfpsych.com – Dr. Graham writes about working with PGA Tour legend Dave Stockton while he was on the regular Tour, where he won 10 times, and then on the PGA Tour Champions, where he won 14 times.
When he was an active tour player Stockton was regarded as one of the best putters ever. He had written several putting books and coached other tour players as well.
As Graham began working with Stockton it became evident that his competitiveness, passion and perfectionism were creeping into his play. They agreed on a new personal plan. He would give himself no more than two seconds to release frustration, then he would quickly take his thoughts to something he could control, namely his mental routine, rather than the past failed shot he had no control over.
He became the self-proclaimed “King of the two-second rule.” And it led to more and more tour wins. Maybe it will take a few more than two seconds, but not many, to release your emotions and quickly calm yourself down, which allows you more control over when and how your emotions appear in your game, but it requires some personal discipline.
Sometimes quirky and bothersome emotions are nothing but fleeting feelings that are not worth worrying about.
Author Steve Magness writes in his 2022 bestselling book “Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness”: “If we can develop the ability to discern what sensations and emotions are telling us, it not only weakens their connection to the cascade of negative thoughts or actions, but it also allows us to interpret them more accurately and to understand that some feelings are meaningless – false alarms triggered by an overactive inner self. Something to let float away, that reminds us that a feeling is nothing more than a piece of information. The better we understand the signals coming from our body, the better decisions we can make.”
Dave Stockton was wise as he dispensed with troubling emotions in a few seconds.
Most golf performance coaches agree that junior golfers tend to struggle with controlling their somewhat volatile evolving emotions. They often overestimate their actual level of talent, and then react badly when they mess up, or even sulk and brood. I overheard one coach explain to a young player, “Son you’re not good enough yet to get that mad.”
