Defeating Old Man Par

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While we’re on the subject of the mental game, I encountered an interesting bit of information.

I hate bringing up things where I can’t cite a specific source, but I saw this recently, I think on Playing Lessons from the Pros on The Golf Channel.

The problem lies in the fact that for too many people, par is an impenetrable barrier. We look at par as the standard to be judged against. Like par is the goal, and anything better is gravy. When we look at things like that, we will tend to make sure (maybe subconsciously) that our outcome meets that expectation.

For Tour players, that’s the kind of thing that will end a career because except for the U.S. Open and sometimes The Masters, shooting par at the end of the day is not going to be good enough.

This idea got me thinking about myself, and I realized that I’m guilty of this kind of thinking. I plan my actions and judge my outcomes against par. For instance, if I make a fairway, I think, “OK, I’m in a good position for a par”. If my approach to a green is a little off and I have a lower percentage putt (say over 15 feet), I think, “well, I’m in a decent position to two-putt for my par”.

I think this is just a bad way to look at things. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t lay up, or take our medicine when we get in trouble, or be satisfied with a good lag putt, or be happy with a par (when warranted). But in general, we should be devising a plan for each shot that puts us in the best possible (realistic) position to score, committing to it, and executing it. Then we can hold ourselves accountable for each and every shot, as opposed to an overall score. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a bad par. And there’s nothing wrong with expecting a birdie on a particular hole.

When I hit a nice drive into a fairway, that doesn’t do anything for my next shot. Yes, it put me in a better position for my next shot, but that’s not what I mean. When I get to the ball and plan my next shot, it doesn’t matter how I got there. The only thing that should matter is the shot I’m about to hit. I should be worried about making that shot the best that it can possibly be, not gearing it toward an overall score.

If I’m hitting a wedge from 50 yards, my plan should be to get close enough to make the first putt. That’s the whole purpose of the finesse wedge game. If I start to think, “All I need to do is get on the green and two-putt for par” then I’ve basically conceded defeat because my brain is going to find a way to make that happen. And if I fail to execute on that plan, then I’m looking at bogey. That means that my expectation should be for a birdie, not for a par. Otherwise I must not be confident that I’ll execute on my plan and once that happens, chances are that I won’t.

Along the lines of all this, I saw Craig Stadler (maybe it was he who talked about the stuff above) on Playing Lessons recently and he remarked that he sees guys start to go low sometimes, say 5-under, then for some reason, they start to play conservative trying to hang on to it. That’s when it starts to slip away. His feeling is that you need to stick with what got you there in the first place, not shrink up and go into a defensive mode.

Par is just a number. If you’re fixated on it, then you’re going to do what you can to shoot it, even if you can really do better. That’s all right if you’re normally shooting 100, but if you want to mix in some birdies, then you have to make sure you’re not creating a par-barrier for yourself. I’m guilty as charged. Forget about par and hit each shot like it was a game in and of itself. It’s one thing to expect a birdie and not succeed and have to live with par, but it’s entirely something else to view par as a fall back right off the bat, because more often than not, you will have eliminated any chance for birdie by guiding your play toward getting that par.

This is a change that I’m going to make in my own philosophy. To have a shot of going low during a round, we must be able to break through the par barrier and not look back.