GUEST POST: How Golf Can Help Improve Your Confidence

Golf and Confidence

Golf is the perfect sport for learning focus, strategic thinking, and precision. But that’s not all. Here’s how golf can improve your confidence as well.

Golf is a unique sport. It’s relaxed, it’s played in stunning natural surroundings, and it offers some specific opportunities to help you improve mentally, emotionally, and physically. Not many sports offer all that!

Here’s how golf can improve your confidence… While improving a whole lot of other things at the same time.

It Strengthens The Mind

Most sports have a mental aspect to them. But the requirements of golf present an exceptional opportunity to truly strengthen your mental power.

Golf is a strategic game. You need to consider the weather, the angle of the wind, the terrain in relation to where your golf ball lands, and your own form. You’re constantly calculating the best way to get the ball to the hole and deal with the hazards and elements around you.

Not only that, but you can’t do any of that without focus. If you get distracted by the view (and some golf courses have spectacular ones!), your thoughts or stresses, or your golfing partners, you can lose a shot all too easily.

Every time you’re on the golf course is a chance to build your mental strength. Stay focused. Be calculating. Act accordingly. And you’ll see your game change and your confidence skyrocket.

It Helps You Control Your Emotions

Mental strength isn’t the only thing golf gives you. It’s rare to see a golfer throw his club like tennis players throw their rackets, so what keeps them so cool, calm, and collected?

The golf course is a great place to cultivate emotional control. Hit a bad shot? If you don’t deal with your own frustration and annoyance, it’s only going to lead to many more bad shots. On the other hand, if you rise above your feelings and stay focused, it’s easy to redeem that one bad shot.

In the same vein, gloating when you hit a good shot sets you up for failure just as much as frustration and annoyance with poor shots. Get too complacent, and you’re likely to hit snags in your game as well.

Finding the happy medium isn’t easy, but the more you play, the better you’ll get, especially if you consciously work on your emotional control as you play.

It Helps You To Get Fit

Physical fitness has a lot to do with confidence. Being fit takes the strain off of your body, makes you feel better physically, and has a great mental boost as well (look good, feel good!)

Did you know that you can walk up to (or more than) 10,000 steps in a single 18-hole round of golf? That’s your full daily step count in 3 to 4 hours!

Aside from that, you can burn between 800 and 1,000 calories, which can be very meaningful to those who are counting calories in order to lose a bit of weight .

Not to mention that your golf swing works the chest, shoulders, upper back, arms, abs, and glutes. Play often, pair it with a healthy diet, and you can expect to see physical changes!

It Relieves Stress

Stress can be a confidence-killer, no matter what you’re doing. Golf, however, is a natural stress reliever. Getting out on the course helps the stresses to melt away, allowing you to think with a clearer mind and formulate plans for the coming days.

Confidence needs a clear mind. When your mind is cluttered with stress, it’s hard to feel like you have the skills to get stuff done, whether it’s on the golf course, in the office, at home, or anywhere else.

Letting it fly on the golf course can lower stress for various reasons. One, you’re breathing fresh air and getting sunshine on your skin. Two, you’re getting physical exercise. And three, you’re working on multiple skills at once, improving all the time in at least one of them.

Victorious Moments Are Common

One of the greatest things about golf is that if you play with friends, every player on the course will have at least a few victorious moments during a round.

While there will be a winner at the end, nobody really loses. Your buddy may win the round, but you could have knocked a spectacular drive on hole 7 that wowed everyone. You may come out victorious, but your friend could have landed a 100-foot putt that shocked everyone.

On the other hand, even the winner probably had a couple of terrible shots, and almost everyone loses a ball at least once a round. One great or bad shot doesn’t dictate how the rest of your round is going to go, but every small victory has a confidence-boosting effect.

It’s Healthy Competition

Healthy competition can be a great catalyst for improvement as you strive to be better than your friends or clubmates. It’s important that the competition is friendly because this is where confidence is most easily built.

There’s a reason kids learn best through play! When they’re having fun, things stick. The same is true for adults, though. So playing a round of golf with friends that has a touch of a competitive nature to it can be the best way to learn and practice.

If you hit a great shot, your friends are likely to cheer with you, even if you’re competing against them. And when you go astray, they’ll be reassuring, which can be just as great for keeping your confidence up.

Conclusion

Are you starting to see how golf can help improve your confidence? The truth is, learning almost any sport can give you a confidence boost, but we particularly like golf for its many benefits .

Playing golf regularly is the key to boosting your confidence (and taking advantage of all the other improvements that come with it). Every time you set foot on the driving range, putting green, or full course, you’re not just relieving stress or having a good time.

It’s a chance to actively improve your own confidence, learn how to focus, strengthen your mind, and have fun at the same time!

About the Author

Jordan Fuller is a retired golfer and businessman. These days, he mentors young golfers and keeps working on his game when he has the chance. When he’s not on the course, he writes for his golf website, Golf Influence .

#golf sport confidence

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Image Credit » https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-holding-a-golf-club-6256832/

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