We were walking up the 18th fairway and my doubles partner was pissed. For me, playing in the Saturday morning league was an attempt to get out and play some disc golf with other people instead of my normal early morning solitary rounds. For him, it was a way to earn beer money for the weekend. In fact, he had planned his whole Saturday around starting it off with winning that beer money.
As he was griping and complaining, I asked him what he was so upset about.
In the last couple of newsletters, I’ve touched on motivation (if you don’t get the newsletter, you are missing out, subscribe below!). Last week’s Wisdom Wednesday post was about maintaining regular motivation. But try as we might, no one can keep themselves motivated all of the time. Even when you purposefully surround yourself with motivating things, you will still sometimes lose your spark and drive.
So what to do when that happens? How do we keep ourselves moving forward when all we want to do is stay in bed 10 more minutes? The answer to that is habits.
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.
We have to understand that it’s the trip itself that contains all the fun. It’s the daily struggle to get better. It’s the regular rounds with friends. It’s the awe of the occassional perfect throw. Those are the joys of our sport.
Almost every one of us wants to improve at disc golf. I don’t know of any disc golfer who is 100% happy with their current skill set. Even Paul McBeth, the highest rated disc golfer in the history of the game, works daily to improve his disc golf skills. He is constantly measuring his performance, … Read more
Stop watching the news… We live in a paranoid world. According to the news, everyone is out to get you. You need to watch your back and trust no one. Lock the doors and hide your children, the world is an unsafe place full of awful people who will take advantage of you if given … Read more
You guys rock. I mean that. I get some of the best emails and comments from the people that follow this blog. They share pictures, challenges, successes, and inspirational stories about their life and disc golf. I love getting those emails. The other day I got one from someone who had started playing disc golf … Read more
I’m never going to be a professional disc golfer. There, I said it. I wish it was different, but it’s not. Hang on a sec while I go cry for a bit. I’ll be right back… You see, I’m supremely unathletic. I played bench in little league. I scored 2 points all season for my … Read more
I like to play ball golf. I’m not sure where the idea started that you can’t play both disc and ball golf, but I don’t buy into that. I like disc golf a lot more, but I do enjoy getting out on a beautifully manicured golf course with friends and family that don’t play disc … Read more
Joe Montana knew a thing or two about confidence. You have to when you are face to face with charging 300 pound linebackers. It’s kind of important when bodily injury is a very possible result of your actions. That’s one thing about disc golf versus some other sports. No one is going to tackle us at … Read more