How do you prevent a bad round from getting worse? An LPGA pro shares her strategy

Anyone who performs the sport is aware of that a round of golf is a marathon, not a dash, and taking part in properly requires endurance and psychological fortitude in spades.

While golfers can observe placing, chipping and hitting photographs on the vary, one a part of the sport that’s tough to domesticate is a participant’s personal threshold of resilience — that’s, how you react when issues aren’t going your manner. That requires some hard-won expertise. Most golfers have a story of a round going sideways, by no means to be recovered. But the extra you endure attempting circumstances on the course, the extra you can study how greatest to fight them, and hopefully, flip them round.

At the current LPGA Ford Championship in Gilbert, Ariz., I requested LPGA participant Lindy Duncan for her greatest recommendation on combating round-killing meltdowns.

“Slowing everything down. That would be step one,” Duncan mentioned. “Walking a little bit slower, just taking things a little bit slower. Because when you get off to a bad start, you start panicking and everything gets rushed.”

Once you regain your sense of rhythm and tempo, Duncan says it’s time to consider getting again to what’s snug.

“No. 2 would be just going back to a familiar swing thought that maybe you weren’t exactly paying attention to like, 100 percent. Just trying to go back to some simple feel and maybe exaggerate it,” she mentioned. “For me, if I’m getting quick at the top and I’m off to a bad start, then I’ll take some pre-swings where I just totally stop at the top. So I’m exaggerating a feel that I know is going to help my swing.”

Basically, take one thing you know works, Duncan says, and dive into the simplicity of that one thought to provide your self a strong focus. As it seems, Duncan mentioned she needed to put these methods into observe throughout some current tough days on the course.

“I got to such a low point, I was like, OK, good. I’m glad this is happening because this is where I need to figure out what to do. And that’s kind of what I did,” she mentioned. “I just went really simple and sort of just tried to start over a little bit, you know, as best as you can. It’s so much easier to say these things than to really do them, when you’re feeling certain ways and when you’re a little bit off and it’s just a tough day, things just magnify themselves. So you have to put it in perspective. That helps. To kind of be like, OK, this is what it is.”

Ultimately, Duncan appreciates the best way she’s been formed and sharpened by the adversity she’s confronted.

“I was glad that it was happening because I knew I was going to learn something,” she mentioned. “Things began to type of flip round for me and I used to be taking part in rather well all week. So I used to be like, this simply sucks and I’m gonna should determine it out. And that was it.

“You kind of get to those low spots and I really think that’s where you can learn the most,” she continued. “The more you embrace that cruddy feeling, the more you can pull something good out of it. That’s a belief that I’ve gained over the last couple of years.”

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She can out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily liable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular initiatives, comparable to GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview collection, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video type on GOLF.com.