Decided to sign up for my club championship this weekend, and it’s my first time playing in a “real” competition outside of my Tuesday night league. Any advice for a first timer?
My goal is just to go out and still have fun, my handicap is still probably a little lower than my current play so I don’t have high expectations but also want to try and put up a decent showing.
Best advice, relax and enjoy it. You’ll feel self-imposed pressure, that’s normal. Play your game, shrug off bad shots and bad holes, be a good playing partner. Rules will matter a bit more than for a casual round, remember to ask if you aren’t sure about a rule, that is NOT asking for advice. Good luck!
Yes just enjoy yourself. I finally started playing in club tournaments 5-6 years ago and wish I’d done it sooner. I thought they might be too “serious” for me, but that hasn’t been the case. I really enjoy playing the different formats and have met a lot of great people. Our club championship is coming up and although I’ve never done that well in it I’m looking forward to it.
Don’t do any drastic changes to your normal routine and don’t get caught up trying to post a number. Tournaments are a totally different feeling(nerves/pressure/etc), so just accept it. It may make you play better, or maybe worse. If you feel your routine speeding up beyond normal, take some deep breaths to slow down. Have fun.
Stay within yourself. You know your game. Play it. Don’t pay too much attention to what others are doing. Let a bad swing only be one bad swing. Don’t snowball negativity. Shake it off. Recover.
Have fun. Your people will still love you whether you shoot 63 or 103.
Go get it!
Well I got a bit of a blow up round out of the way tonight. Didn’t hit it horrible just in some bad spots that killed my score with 4 doubles. Did play the par 5s in -1 though with a hard earned 2 putt on the first one and buried a 8 footer for birdie on the second.
Thanks for all of the advice! Despite tonight’s round I’m still looking forward to it! Just gonna try and keep it even keeled and have some fun
Remember, nobody but you cares what you shot. People will just glance over the scores and will forget about everyone but themselves in about 10 seconds. If you have an especially good or bad score, they may remember for 15 seconds but that’s it.
I had my Club Championships end June, 2 rounds over the weekend. I was playing off 20. Spoiler alert; I won with -5 nett over the weekend. This was by far the biggest step up in golf success in my life. It was preceded my months of work, a few key moments where I got lucky during the rounds and a solid plan. Also my playing partners on round 2 were out of the running and chose to help me by keeping me calm. I can’t overstate how much that helped me. I was mentally all over the place on the back 9, knowing I was in top spot. The negative thoughts (don’t f—- this up!) came on like a barrage from 12 through 17 and I could easily have thrown it away. Walking up the 18th was fun knowing I’d done it.
(I also got a round in at a different course on the Friday, the day before the comp. I’m not sure I broke 100. The ‘beauty’ of golf. Lol. )
My recommendation; have a plan and commit to it come rain or shine. But also enjoy the experience, take in the sights and sounds and be grateful.
The planning;
I had a Zoom call with my coach on the Tuesday before. He asked my plan. I said I planned just to enjoy it and had no expectations, only to try to commit to my process. This is what I’ve done before and always shot +10-20 nett.
My coach recommended setting performance and outcome goals on top of my process goals. We discussed and agreed some stuff. Then he asked me to write it up and send it over so we could refer to it post comp. Really he was surreptitiously getting me to take accountability for my own plan and performance. I printed my plan and stuck it to my trolley. I plotted my course strategy in a printed yardage book I got from DECADE foundations via @ScottFawcettDECADE. I referred to this on every hole. (I’m not good enough for DECADE targets yet. My goal is keeping it in play. )
After round 1 my coach asked me to reflect that evening on how I did against my plan. I did that and didn’t change anything for round 2 on the Sunday. Again this was my coach making me hold myself to account.
I’ll post my plan if anyone is interested.