I thought for this month’s column I would share an emailed question I received from a golfer and the subsequent answer I sent to him. I believe his question and my answer has relevance for many golfers!

Dear Jeff,
You don’t know me but I probably fall victim to most of your articles on the internet. I’ve read them ALL. My name is J.L. and I’m trying hard to take my game to the next level. I’ve made many sacrifices that you talked about in one of your articles.

My problem during my rounds is the BIG NUMBER. I can shoot the occasional 69 but my tournament scores have suffered from one-hole spills. Whether it is leaving it in the sand or not carrying a water hazard, I normally seem to BLOW UP, as my dad says.

I work on all aspects of my game constantly and am playing great golf but don’t know if it’s a mental thing or not. HELP! How do I avoid making the BIG NUMBER?

Dear J.L.
At the risk of not being helpful whatsoever, the honest answer to “How do I avoid making the big number (BN)” is…it depends. One thing that would be helpful to narrow down the answer is to discern if there is a pattern related to the BN. Does is come early in the round? Does it come late in the round? Is it on reachable par 5s? Is it on par 3s? Is it related to a certain type of hole? (Water on right? OB on left? Tight driving hole?, etc.). Is it when you are near the top of the leaderboard? Under par? After making a bogie/birdie on the previous hole? If you can discern a pattern, then there are course management things or mental strategies to address each of those types of situations.

If there is difficulty in figuring out a pattern, then the next best guess (in my experience) is that players do one of two things that contribute to the BN…

1) They try to do something “heroic” when in trouble (after they hit it in the trees they try to advance the ball toward the green with a knock down 4 iron cut around a giant oak!); or

2) they panic and rush when in trouble (leave your first bunker shot in the bunker and get embarrassed and panic and slash the next one out over the green into the hazard on the other side!).

Solutions? Obvious… for #1, TAKE YOUR MEDICINE. Be OK with making a conservative decision if in a difficult situation- even if it means a safe shot hit backwards. Bogie is typically a great number if in deep trouble. There is no shame in hitting a conservative safe shot.

For #2, make sure that you allow yourself the allotted time to calm your mind and body when in trouble so that your pre-shot is consistent…irrespective of whether you are hitting an approach after hitting the fairway in regulation or whether you’ve just made a drop after hitting it into the water, you want to be CONSISTENT in how you approach the next shot…

Hope this helps a little.
Good luck and keep working!

Jeff