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Dang Nguyen, 29, is a novice golfer in search of a better game. He’s receiving regular instruction from Jason Taylor, the Southern California PGA’s Golf Professional of the Year. We are monitoring his progress. Golf can drive you crazy. One day your swing feels great and you can do no wrong; the next it feels like you’ve never touched a club in your life. Anyone who has ever ripped shots on the range only to go on the course and hack it up knows the feeling. That’s what Nguyen went through last month. “I’ve hit some kind of mental wall,” said Nguyen, now in his 10th month of building himself from a novice player toward his year-end goal of shooting in the 80s. “On the range I can hit all the targets and feel real good. I get out on the golf course and I’m shanking it all over the place. I think I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself to perform. I’ve told my friends about my lessons and how hard I’ve been working on my game. I want to show them how far I’ve come.” Nguyen has taken at least a lesson a month during this experiment, and he has been diligent about practicing. He routinely hits balls twice a week and plays at least twice a month, but those numbers are down significantly from when he started. “When Dang started, he was real good about playing and practicing at the level we needed for him to reach his goal,” Taylor said. “He’s playing half as much golf now as he was when we started this experiment. It’s going to have an effect on his ability to reach his goal.” Nguyen said he feels especially tense when playing in tournaments with scramble formats. “If I get a shot in a scramble that is different than I’d normally play, I get tight and can’t hit the shot,” he said. “Maybe the lie is not what I’d like or I’m forced to hit a club I’m not comfortable with and I hit a bad shot. “On the other side, if we get in a place where my team already has a good shot in play and they are not relying on me, I hit a lot more good shots.” Taylor can sympathize with his student’s feelings. “My grandfather was an accomplished player and my dad had a bunch of trophies and I didn’t start playing until I was much older,” he said. “Obviously I had expectations that I had to overcome. Learning how to let go of those nerves and essentially being able to not care about the outcome can be difficult.” Taylor suggests a few techniques to overcome anxiety on the course. “You should check yourself,” he said. “Check your grip and your arms and ask yourself if they are full of tension. Check your breathing. Are you remembering to breathe? Are you walking too fast? Everything needs to slow down when you are feeling anxious.” Taylor also recommends a solid pre-shot routine to keep yourself from getting too worked up. “A solid and repeatable pre-shot routine can be a great separator between a player who is struggling and a player who is holding it together when they are not playing their best,” he said. “In the end, don’t be so hard on yourself. The only person who really cares about the outcome of your shot is you.” N Jason Taylor can be reached at Jurupa Hills Country Club at (951) 685-7214. |
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