Why I Stopped Trying To Stay Focused For 18 Holes

For a long time, I thought playing good golf meant staying completely focused for the entire round. If I was trying to shoot a good score, especially in competition, I felt like I needed to be locked in from the first tee until I signed the scorecard.

Eventually, I realized that wasn’t helping me nearly as much as I thought it was.

Trying to stay intensely focused for four (or more) hours is exhausting and research on attention backs that up. There isn’t one universally accepted number for how long a person can stay focused but studies on sustained attention consistently show that concentration tends to decline when people are asked to stay engaged with the same task for long periods.

Golf obviously isn’t a laboratory attention test but I think there is something useful here for golfers. You don’t need to stay locked in for four hours. You need to be locked in when it’s time to make a decision and hit a golf shot.

That distinction changed the way I played and I’m hoping it will help you.

I gave myself permission to stop thinking about golf

When I played competitively, I eventually started using a simple rule. Once I got within about 15 yards of my golf ball, it was time to focus.

At that point, I was thinking about the lie, wind, target, club selection and the shot I wanted to hit. I went through my routine, committed to the shot and hit it.

Before I got to that 15-yard area, I didn’t feel like I had to stay in golf mode. I could talk to the people I was playing with (if I wanted to), look around, think about something else or just walk.

There was nothing special about 15 yards. It was simply a trigger that helped me separate the time when I needed to concentrate from the much larger amount of time when I didn’t.

In one study I read, people performing a repetitive attention task for about 50 minutes did a better job maintaining performance when they were occasionally forced to briefly disengage from the task. Other research has found that even short periods of genuine rest can help people re-engage with sustained-attention tasks.

To me, this means that you can stop asking your brain to play golf when there isn’t a golf shot in front of you.

The shot you already hit is one of the biggest distractions

You missed a four-footer on the last green. Your approach on No. 8 came up short even though you thought you hit the right club. You made a double because of one bad decision and now you’re walking to the next tee trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

There is a time to think about those things. It’s just not while you’re still trying to post a score.

The same is true with getting too far ahead of yourself. I’ve seen plenty of golfers start doing the math when they realize they have a chance to shoot a personal best. My 12-year-old son does this all the time. He gets a few good holes going and then starts thinking about what he “could shoot.”

“If I par the last four, I shoot my best score ever.”

“If I can just avoid a double coming in …”

It’s almost impossible not to have those thoughts but you don’t have to keep entertaining them. The score isn’t the problem you’re trying to solve when you’re standing over a 165-yard approach shot. That shot is.

Your ability to focus isn’t only mental

If your concentration falls apart late in a round, it may not be because you’re mentally weak or because you need a better pre-shot routine.

You may just be tired. Dehydration has been associated in some studies with poorer attention, working memory and reaction time, and it can also increase feelings of fatigue and make tasks feel harder.

Physical and mental fatigue can start feeding into each other as well.

Try creating your own on and off switch

If you’re playing golf purely for fun and couldn’t care less whether you shoot 82 or 92, you may not feel like you need any of this. That’s fair. But if you’re trying to lower your handicap or shoot a personal best, I think it’s worth experimenting with.

Pick a point where your golf brain turns on. Maybe it’s 10 yards from the ball. Maybe it’s when you put your glove on. Maybe it’s when you pull out the rangefinder.

From that point until the shot is finished, be present. Look at the lie, conditions, target and club. Make your decision and commit to it.

Then let it go.

Talk to your playing partners. Look around. Drink some water. Think about something else. If the last shot bothered you, make a mental note to deal with it after the round instead of carrying it with you for the next three holes. Write it down if you need to so you remember what to work on.

I used to think good golf required me to concentrate for 18 holes. What I eventually learned was that I didn’t need four hours of concentration. I needed short periods of really good concentration at the right times.

For me, learning how to switch off was just as important as learning how to switch back on.