What's The Score Coach?

I was watching my 8-year old son's travel baseball team play recently and got a great lesson from his coach that can transfer to your golf game. My son's team was locked in a tight battle in the championship game and the score was close. After the 3rd inning the boys asked what the score was. They weren't sure if they were winning or losing. (at the time they were down by a run) The coach said, "Don't worry about the score, just go up to bat and hit the ball!" Sure enough, they scored a couple of runs and took the lead. The next inning they held the other team scoreless and were pretty excited about the possibility of winning the championship, although they still weren't sure where they stood. Again, they asked the coach, "What's the score?". "Are we winning?" He repeated to them "I don't know what the score is, just go play ball like it's 0-0!" Unfortunately they ended up losing the game by a score of 8-7 but the boys played hard until the end.

This led me to thinking about a round of golf and how your expectations can get in the way of performance. How many times have you started off on a hot streak and begun to mentally predict your final score? Maybe you shoot a great score on the front 9, only to "blow up" on the back 9. My advice would be to play like it's "0-0" and play each shot with total focus on the present. After all, your clubs don't know how you stand relative to par, they only know what you want your next shot to be. The next time you play, concentrate on the shot at hand and play it to the best of your ability.