This morning, I left my dog out for an hour while I hit the gym. It’s not something I normally do, as she’s just over a year old and she has a destructive streak. We had just been on a walk, my daughter was upstairs and I was in a rush. I came home to a mess. My wife had 2 pairs of shoes still in the boxes with added teeth marks. A fresh box of cheez its had been tasted and found wanting. Chaos.
Then I got into the kitchen. I had recently purchased 3 jars of Sun Valley mustard (it’s delicious) and the three glass jars were sitting on my counter. Now there were 2, and some mustard on the floor. I frantically looked around for the jar and the lid, and didn’t find either. Panicked, I rushed my dog to the vet and spent $300 on X-rays. Not an ideal start to my morning.
I told my daughter this story when I picked her up from camp today. She immediately informed me she had broken the jar, mostly cleaned it up and had put the jar and lid in the trash. I was relieved but also frustrated. With her, with myself. Had I spent a little more time diagnosing the problem, I probably would have reached a different conclusion. In the panicked state of “did my dog just eat glass” I did what I thought was best and immediately took her to the vet.
Another minor tragedy happened last week. During my qualifier for match play at my club, I three putted 6 times. 6. The last one was from 70 feet, and really wasn’t bad. The other 5 were pretty terrible, and included an eagle putt from 8 feet that ended in par. Unlike the dog situation, I did not panic. I didn’t get down on myself, I simply looked back across the round and thought about why I had putted so poorly.
I wasn’t going to let one single data point send me into a frenzy. I realized some big mistakes I had made (mostly I had recently switched to Allegra for my allergies, and it messed with my fine motor control) and our greens were playing unusually fast for the season.
Ideally, I’d be able to fix this stuff on the course, but I am not there yet. I tried to adjust my speed control and ended up leaving a ton of putts short after blowing the first few past the hole. I’d like to believe I can develop the ability to adjust my putting mid round but right now it’s just not a skill set I possess.
After the round, I spent some time actually diagnosing my putting woes. After the first three putt, I had gotten really tentative and lost all confidence. Especially on downhill putts. My speed control was bad, and I simply wasn’t leaving myself easy 2nd putts. Standing over a 6 footer for a 2 putt is not a way to inspire confidence in your ability to putt. I basically put myself into a negative feedback loop and couldn’t get out.
I took this to the putting green, set up a ladder drill and got to work. After about 20 minutes, I had regained some much needed confidence in my putting stroke. I jumped into the Stack putting protocol, and had one of my best rounds of putting I’ve ever had. .54 SG vs a pro and 27 putts. For me a round of 30 putts would put me in the mid 70s consistently. My putting is fine, and one round of bad putting doesn’t have to define me.
My round was obviously bad in terms of strokes gained. The data was clear, my putting was bad (I didn’t need strokes gained for that one…) but it’s just one data point. One day of bad putting doesn’t make me a bad putter. Looking at my trends, I’m actually 1.1 strokes better in my last 20 rounds than I was in the previous 20 (including my most recent round). I am making forward progress with my putting, and one bad round doesn’t change that.
It’s easy in golf, and in life, to immediately react negatively to the information around us. With the dog, the mess she made in the living room convinced me she also ate the mustard (glass and all). With golf, one bad shot can have us sprinting to the range to “fix” a mistake we can’t fix. When you track stats, it’s easy to fixate on one data point and draw the wrong conclusions from that.
As I improve, I’m realizing that one of the best things I can do for my game is to not immediately react. Move on from a bad shot, not overreact to a bad round and simply focus on the bigger picture and make sure I’m making forward progress. On the other side of the equation, I need to realize that all gains are incremental and improvement takes time. I’ve improved by over a stroke with my putting, and I still have lots of work to do. It’s been said before, but 1% better each day is enough if you put in work every day.