You Can't Improve A Weakness You Refuse To Admit Exists... 5 Signs You're A Deluded Golfer

When you play golf, do you often find yourself landing well short of where you expected to be? After a good range session, do you assume you’ll hit the ball just as well and just as consistently out on the course? Do you turn up to lessons telling your pro what you think you should be working on, based on what you’ve seen on YouTube?

If you answered yes to any of these, you may well be a deluded golfer, and in my humble opinion, after more than 20 years of coaching, it’s one of the most damaging mindsets a player can have and one of the hardest to change.

The definition of delusion is: ‘A false belief or impression that is held despite clear evidence that it is not true or cannot be true’

Ultimately, the bigger the gap between a golfer’s delusions and reality, the more unhappy and dissatisfied they’ll become with their game. Here are some of the ways that mindset causes real damage.

Believe Consistency Is Easily Achievable

Consistency is hugely misunderstood in golf; a lot of golfers wrongfully assume it means hitting the ball straight and well every time when in reality pros understand that true consistency is simply a tighter range of misses.

If you are a casual golfer that plays a few times a month and huff and puff when missing greens, you need to give your head a wobble. Even PGA tour players hit an average of only 12 out of 18 greens in regulation per round, meaning they miss the green a third of the time. Here’s another smelling salt for you; when it comes to putting, inside of 10 feet, only 50% of putts are holed.

Poor Decision Making

If you think you can hit shots you occasionally pull off, rather than the ones you can reliably execute, you have got yourself a one-way ticket to: unrealistic lay-ups and carries, unnecessary hero shots, flag chasing, and playing way too little club, which ultimately results in a lot more golf shots.

The reason golfers end up here is because they treat their perfectly struck 7-iron as the standard rather than the outlier. They measure themselves by their best shots, not their averages.

Golf doesn’t care about your best, scores are built on averages, dispersions, tendencies and patterns. A golfer who thinks they hit their driver “about 230 straight down the middle” will step onto a hole expecting to do exactly that, even though their real carry might be 195 with a 40-yard left/right spread. That delusion influences so much out on the course and quickly snowballs the score.

Don’t Practice The Right Things

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve started working with golfers with handicaps in the 20s who tell me they don’t need to work on their short game as that’s what they are good at. Nope, nope, nope!

If you play off anything above a 5 handicap, I will say without question things are happening with your short game that need to be improved upon. Furthermore, do you know where those 5 handicappers will be spending most of their time, working on their short game! Because they know that is where you get the edge.

Your short game might be the best part of your game, but the work is never done. Essentially, delusion keeps you practising what feels good, not what needs fixing, and you can’t improve a weakness you refuse to admit exists.

Expecting Tour Level Results with an Amateur Level Of Work

‘Unrealistic expectations are premeditated resentments’ - Caroline Smith

When expectations are too high for the work you’ve done, frustration is inevitable. Every missed putt, every slice, every short drive becomes a personal failure rather than a normal part of the learning process.

It’s a recipe for resentment that is completely avoidable by not being deluded about your own skill level. Golf is ridiculously hard and to make changes and improve is also a very slow process, that requires patience and dedication.

The Biggest Cost Of Delusion

When golfers overestimate their skills, they fail to see the areas where improvement is possible and that’s exactly where real progress has comes from.

Accepting the reality of your current level opens doors to better coaching, because you can fully absorb instruction, focus your practice on what truly matters, make smarter decisions on the course, and, most importantly, achieve better results.

Be honest and accept your ability and limitations. Realistic golfers will beat deluded golfers every day of the week and they will have a lot more fun out on the course too.

As inscribed on the Temple of Apollo over 2,500 years ago - ‘Know thy self’

You don’t need more talent, you need more truth. Stop pretending you are playing for big stakes, embrace where you are at and enjoy the ups and downs of slowly making progress to where you want to go. Delusion might protect the ego, but it is honesty that protects the score.