For many years of my golf life, I was the worst type of person to be around on the golf course. The angry, miserable golfer who was constantly in woe-is-me mode after every shot. My good friend Will, who probably played the most golf with me during that era, would blurt out “Negative Nancy” every time I whined. He fried me, as the kids say.
Perhaps my proudest golf accomplishment was finding a way out of this headspace, something I consciously made an effort to do at some point within the past 10 years and have never looked back. Not only has it made me a better person to play with, I 100 percent believe that it has made me a better golfer.
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Having been through it, though, I understand how difficult it can be to not be mentally and emotionally crippled during a bad round. And being mentally and emotionally crippled can often turn bad rounds into catastrophic ones. The type of rounds that make you consider hanging a ‘For Sale’ sign on your golf bag and placing it in front of your house.
As one reader posed in an e-mail to me last week, what do you say to a friend who is going through a round like that? In this case, we’re talking OB balls on every tee shot. Shanks, chunks, skulls. Picking up on every hole. Sulking in the cart. Killing the vibe.
One thing I can tell you that does not help is calling this friend a Negative Nancy. While my friend Will was always correct in that assessment, it often made things worse for me. I’d fight back and say things like, “What is there to be positive about?” or, “Yeah, that shot sucked, do you want me to be happy about it?” He meant well. He was trying to get me to drop the self-loathing act. He was just going about it wrong.
Do you say nothing at all? Let the silence be deafening? That doesn’t help much, either. Speaking from experience, that only exacerbates the mental malaise, because not only are you playing horribly and ruining the vibe, you now know that everyone else in the group is aware of it and walking on eggshells around you. Nobody is talking to you or even looking at you like you’re a baseball pitcher throwing a perfect game, only your version of the perfect game is double par max on every hole.
Do you give unsolicited swing tips? Stuff meant to be practised on the range, not meant to be inputted on the fly for an already fragile player? Hard no.
The best course of action, in my opinion, is to throw your arm around your mate and remind them that literally every golfer, whether they are off scratch or a 25-handicapper, has been here before. We’ve all been in the hole and we’ve all crawled our way out. Nothing is getting fixed today, and you certainly aren’t shooting your career low tomorrow. But this is a sick, twisted sport. It punishes you severely when you are at your peak and it rewards you greatly when you are at your lowest. One travesty of a round where you lost so many balls you had to put the pink Precept in play on the last few holes will not define you. Hell, throw the analytics card at them. “Don’t worry, mate, you’re going to regress to the mean!”
If all that fails, make sure this is the day you stay for a beer or six after the round. The ensuing therapy session and potential ’emergency’ nine holes may be just what the doctor ordered.
