Time to Change Your Thinking

You're not a tour pro so stop beating yourself up.

Tour players are good. No doubt about it. They play the game on a different level. But they are, for some weird psychological reason, the benchmark we subconsciously compare ourselves. We beat ourselves up over missed putts or shots we think aren’t good. There are handicaps in golf for a reason, after all.

A big part of the problem is TV.

If you watch enough golf on TV, you hear announcers express disappointment at a wedge shot which finishes 20 feet from the hole. Phrases like, “Not up to his standards,” or “that wasn’t very good from that distance,” are often uttered.

Or, how about when the player misses a 5-footer for birdie? The announcers will have you believe the player succumbed to the pressure because they never miss from that distance.

Or, one of my favorites, when a player who plays a draw hits a mid-iron in the middle of the green with a pin tucked right, “He tugged that a little.”

If you listen to the announcers, tour players should always hit wedges within a couple of feet, curve the ball both ways at will to hit mid-irons close and never miss any putt 5-feet and in.

And it affects how you think on the course.

This isn’t to say tour players aren’t good. They are. They’re the best golfers in the world. But we’ve been conditioned through TV to believe they never miss shorter putts, or every wedge shot not hit to 5-feet is less than good. Subconsciously, we start to believe even our own wedge shots not hit to 5-feet are poor shots even though we aren’t as good as tour pros!

While tour pros are good, they aren’t as good statistically as we might think, and we forget, when watching golf on the weekends, we are watching the five to ten players who are playing the best golf that particular week. We’re not seeing the players who missed the cut or are not on the leaderboard.

So, let’s take a look at some stats and see how good tour players really are versus how good we perceive them to be. You might be shocked.

Let’s start with putting. Everyone hates missing a short putt. Tour pros on average make 77% of their 5 footers. About 3 out of four. From 8-feet, the percentage drops to about 50%. Beyond 8-feet, the numbers start dropping dramatically. Why are you getting mad when you miss from five or eight feet or even ten feet? Tour pros miss from the same distances, so, it stands to reason, you will, too, and more often.

How about wedge play? Glad you asked. Let’s look at 100 yards out. From 100 yards, when hitting the green, tour pros average 15’6” from the hole. Perhaps even more striking is the percentage of times tour pros miss the green from 100 yards; 16.3%. Only 13% of shots by tour pros from 100 yards finish 6 feet or closer to the hole. Think about that for a minute. A tour pro is more likely to miss a green from 100 yards than hit it to 6 feet or closer. And you get upset when you hit it to 20 feet!

How about we look at 150 yards out. Proximity to the hole from 150 yards out averages to 25’3”. They miss the green about 25% of the time, and only 6% of their shots end up 6 feet or closer. Also take into consideration the average tour player is hitting a shorter iron into the green from 150 yards than you are. They may hit a 9-iron while you’re hitting a 7-iron. Why are you getting upset when you miss the green from this distance when tour pros miss the green 25% of the time with a shorter iron?

For the sake of comparison, let’s say tour pros on average hit 7-iron from 175 yards out. From 175 yards, tour pros will hit the green 66.7% of the time. Proximity to the hole averages to 31’11”. Only 4% of shots finish six feet or closer.

If you miss the green from 150 yards out with a 7-iron 40%-50% of the time, stop getting upset. Tour pros miss the green 33% of the time with their 7-iron.

We all want to play good golf. We all want to hit the pin seeking wedge or the laser like 7-iron all the time. We all want to make every 5-to-8-foot putt. We want to do these things because we want to be like tour pros, at least once in a while. We’ve been conditioned to believe they do these things all the time, and it’s an anomaly when they don’t. The reality is, while they can do these things on occasion, they don’t do them as often as we think, and they are the best golfers in the world. If a tour player can’t do them all the time, you can’t either. Stop beating yourself up over unrealistic expectations. Once you understand this, it becomes a game changer.

The next time you play, when you miss an 8-footer, remember tour pros miss them 50% of the time. When you hit a wedge to 20 feet, smile because it was a good shot. When you miss a green from 150-yards, accept it because it is normal, even for tour players, and not some swing flaw that needs immediate fixing. And above all else, enjoy the day and be grateful you get to play this fun and challenging game. Now, go golf!