One of the myths surrounding the mental game of golf is that great players are unemotional on the golf course.  The truth is that the great players are far from unemotional.  Great players learn how to play the game within the parameters of their natural personality tendencies.  Some great players show a lot of emotion, while others feel a lot of emotion and don’t show it outwardly.   

The point is not to concern oneself about being “too emotional”, the point is to make sure that what is particularly emotionalized are the positive incidents in a round.  Far too many players allow themselves to get very frustrated or angry if something happens that they don’t like, while not really giving much attention or energy to those things that happen that are OK or good.

Over the course of a round of golf, most competitive golfers hit a handful of shots that are not very good, a handful of shots that are great, and a whole LOT of shots that are OK or acceptable.  The “bad” and “good” shots get a lot of emotional energy.  The challenge is to give emotional attachment to those shots that are “OK” and/or acceptable so that over the course of the round, the emotions that are primarily emphasized are positive and encouraging and motivating.

In your next several rounds of golf, see how much of your emotional energy you would consider positive and how much you would consider negative.  Make an effort to increase the number of shots that you emotionalize in a positive way, and get the benefits of an internal environment that is a lot more optimistic and accepting- which has the potential to lead to even better and more enjoyable rounds of golf.