Can You Handle It?
Pressure. It’s the silent killer of our best day on the disc golf course. All the preparation and practice in the world can be crushed by the mounting tension placed on us by a tough opponent, a close tournament round, or the self induced stress of trying to beat our personal best score on our home course.
Many top pros have made the observation that what separates the winners and the losers of major tournaments is the ability to handle stress. All of them have a very similar level of skill. It’s what they do with it under pressure that determines how they score.
That’s all well and good, but how exactly do we learn to deal with pressure out on the course? It’s not like there is a field work drill designed to deal with competition related stress. What are those of us not named McBeth supposed to do? One possible answer lies on the basketball court.