Just a follow-up. I managed to get through the entire round without getting anywhere near water. I did however struggle putting and missed all my birdie opportunities. Thanks to 35 putts and no birdies, I came in with an 80.

I have a tournament today and will work on getting my putting touch back -- using my artful eyes (see today's post).

Hmmm - interesting stuff.

I had a number of fears, irrational in many (well all actually) cases, in the run up to my big round.

The problem is because golf is a non-reactive game we have a huge amount of time to dwell on the issue. We have too much time to turn one bad shot over water into "I always hit it into the water here".

There are a variety of techniques that are very effective with this. One is the process of EFT (which I'll finally get out in an ebook soon) which helps to remove any negative emotional intensity to a problem area such as first tee nerves, water, out of bounds etc.

Another way is to simply try and "erase" the image from your mind. Picture your ball going in the water as it happened and then change the whole scene. Play it back very fast, with silly music, loud colours and keep changing the movie so that it becomes a daft thing. You gradually remove the memory or at least the memory of it being a bad thing so that when you next stand up and play over water you don't have the fear.

Of course blogging about these issues actually only makes them worse (or more intense) so it's something to be wary of. I have consciously decided not to record anywhere any time I play a bad round.

John Richardson www.scratchtoscratch.com

Thanks for your suggestions John! I especially want to consider your comment about not blogging bad rounds, perhaps imbedding the experience deeper! However, I find that I learn most from my bad rounds or failures. If I can more effectively attach the lesson I learned or the obstacle I overcame with the experience, I wonder if that might be of more benefit than "erasing" it altogether? Regardless, I definitley haven't figured out exactly what it is that happened that day on 18. If I can determine what I need to learn from it, I think I'll make another serious breakthrough and get into the low 70's more consistently.

Valid comments.

You're right about finding the root of the problem but when it gets beyond that the erasing technique is very useful.

The blogging thing is great but it can just manage to help you dwell a fraction too much on the negative stuff in my view. My whole ethos now is to only focus (a al Nicklaus) on the good rounds and live in a state of denial about the bad ones ;)