Stepping Away

spacecoyote

I'm killing myself these days. Playing in the medal today & 4 times I let myself get distracted by playing partners.but rather than step away from the ball & go through my routine again I just got out of my rhythm & hit poor shots. It was really punishing every time & was completely unnecessary.

Does anyone else have this problem? & how do you get around it. I was on a good run at the time. The biggest problem is that I end up dwelling on it for the rest of that hole once I've done it

evillive

my eyes occasionally water esp in windy weather and i used to refuse to step back, dry my eye with a tissue and address the ball again, just due to embarassment and laziness and invariably i would hit a poor shot

i finally got around to stepping away anytime i need to now, i'm not a slow golfer and it may only be twice in a round - i just tell myself 'fcuk it you paid your membership or green fees, play the game as you need' not that i am playing much better but am definitely much confident when i step back up again

PRAF

spacecoyote wrote: »

I'm killing myself these days. Playing in the medal today & 4 times I let myself get distracted by playing partners.but rather than step away from the ball & go through my routine again I just got out of my rhythm & hit poor shots. It was really punishing every time & was completely unnecessary.

Does anyone else have this problem? & how do you get around it. I was on a good run at the time. The biggest problem is that I end up dwelling on it for the rest of that hole once I've done it

Can I ask what is distracting you? I've no problem with stepping away if someone's phone has gone off or if someone has just shouted fore, etc. However, I find you are better off just concentrating on your own shot fully and ignoring the minor distractions.

spacecoyote

main distraction tends to be someone else. Like for instance, on the 7th on Saturday, after a run of 3 pars I was feeling confident (its a par 5 so I'm usually pretty confident stepping onto the tee box)

I had the honour, as I was standing over the ball I could hear one of my playing partners shuffling up late to the tee-box (he was wearing wet gear so I could hear his legs ruffling against each other) and then caught a view of him out of the corner of my eye walking to the back of the box. Rather than step away and get reset though I just waited over the ball for a couple of seconds longer than I normally would. Then boom, first hooked drive of the day into the trees and a lost ball.

That kinda thing, mainly around my playing partners distracting me momentarily

PRAF

Fair enough, I'd step away myself in that instance. I hope you reminded your playing partner about basic golf etiquette

"No Disturbance or Distraction
You should always show consideration for other players on the course and take care not to not disturb their play by moving, talking or making unnecessary noise."

MP62

PRAF wrote: »

Fair enough, I'd step away myself in that instance. I hope you reminded your playing partner about basic golf etiquette

"No Disturbance or Distraction
You should always show consideration for other players on the course and take care not to not disturb their play by moving, talking or making unnecessary noise."

That works both ways, what was to stop the OP been considerate and waiting untill all players in his group were on the tee?.

spacecoyote

Maybe thats a fair point. But I hadn't exactly left him for dust and headed up to hit. He was standing beside his bag about 5-6 yds from the tee box. He could have easily waited.

But to be honest I'm not that bothered with what he did. I'm only really annoyed at myself for 1) letting it distract me & 2) not stepping back and resetting

Alrite Chief

Would you step away if you heard a car pass or a bird tweeting? People get very caught up in other peoples noise and look to blame them for a bad shot. I wouldn't be bothered about wet gear shuffling unless it became obvious the person was blatantly doing it to distract others. Honest to god if you stepped away every time you heard a noise you would wind yourself up.

seanmc1980

you would be out all day if you stepped away from every noise that distracted you on the course, it will be much easier for you to learn to concentrate more and eventually lads doing a riverdance won't stop you from booming a drive down the middle.

irish bloke

Pretty sure Tigers Da used to make noises and deliberately try to put him off before and during his swing.

Training him to deal with these distractions from an early age I suppose.

Why dont you play a round or 2 on your own with an Ipod in your ears and see how you get on!!!:cool:

spacecoyote

Yeah I probably am a bit overly sensitive on it alright. I think it was more that I caught movement out of the corner of my eye than the noise part, but I do need to focus more on being able to avoid the distractions.

Might give the Ipod thing a try, cheers!

blue note

If I were you I wouldn't get into the habbit of stepping away. I know sometimes you'll hit a bad shot and feel like you'd have hit a better one if you had restarted (often true), but you could end up like Kevin Na. There will always be little annoyances, I'd only step back for something very distracting like a bag falling over as I'm about to hit, of the funniest I can remember - a Pheasant thought he was about to be struck as my friend swung back and spread it's wings and went beserk. My friend duffed the shot, but it was one of the funniest things I've seen.