You're Chasing the Wrong Type of Confidence
Golfers are chasing the wrong kind of confidence, and it's making them miserable.
Most golfers think confidence is feeling convinced they can pull off the shot they see in their head. Smooth tempo, ball flight just as imainged, perfect landing spot, couldn't be better. That's the picture. Confidence, to most golfers, means believing they can reproduce that picture in real life time after time.
The problem is obvious once you say it out loud: you don't fully control whether you reproduce the picture. Golf doesn't work that way. So if your confidence is tied to producing a specific outcome, the one you see in your mind, your confidence is only as good as your last shot. Play well, you feel great. Play poorly, you feel like you lost something. That's not confidence. That's a chase.
And if your confidence depends on your outcome, the outcome is now controlling you. You've handed it the wheel. Every shot becomes your master, dictating how you're allowed to feel. The game should never have that much control over us.
There's a different kind of confidence, one that's not built on the outcome at all, but on your ability to handle whatever the game throws at you.. I call it confidence in process instead of confidence in outcome, and it's the version that actually holds up when a round goes sideways.
The Tell
I hear it in conversations every week. Confidence is always one of the first things golfers want to talk about. Playing well, confidence is sky high, and they're loving it! Playing poorly, confidence is low, and they're concerned they'll never get it back.
Talk about a roller coaster. And if you're reading this, and you're a golfer I bet you know this feeling. It's exhausting, tiring, and never seems to go away. You're tossed back and forth between thinking you can make it happen, and feeling like there's not a snow ball's chance in hell. This is problem number 1.
Problem number 2, the bigger problem, is that confidence is essential to performing well on the course. I think we can all agree on that. But if your source of confidence isn't an outcome. What can it be? Answer, your process.This type of confidence is far more resilient, and far more useful. Here’s how you can tap into it.
Two Kinds of Confidence
There are two different ways golfers can look at confidence.
Confidence in Outcome: This is believing you can produce a specific result. This one is fragile, because a huge chunk of it is out of your hands. Wind, lies, nerves, mud ball. You can make a great swing and still get a bad result. Confidence can't survive such unpredictability.
Confidence in Process: This is different. It's believing you can handle whatever the game gives you by sticking to your routine. Hit it in the trees? Fine, go find it, figure out the play, and follow your routine just like you do every other time. Three-putt the first hole? Okay, let's manage the next one better and repeat our routine. This isn't about predicting the result. It's about trusting your ability to respond to it by leaning on a controllable system.
Confidence in your ability to handle the moment, and bounce back is what actually holds up under pressure.
The Idea Behind It
Over 25 years ago, two of Sport Psychology OG researchers Kingston and Hardy (1997) trained competitive golfers using two different approaches. One group set process goals, meaning they focused on the specific things they could control during a shot or a round. The other group trained with performance goals, meaning they focused on hitting specific results and stats, not on how they got there.
The process goal group came out ahead on almost everything that matters under pressure. Their anxiety dropped. Their self-efficacy, which is basically their belief in their own ability, went up. And their concentration held up better than the performance-goal group's did. The performance-goal group barely moved on those same measures.
Nothing about the shot outcomes changed between groups going in. What changed was where their attention was pointed. Point attention at results, and you get more anxiety and shakier belief in yourself. Point attention at process, and both get better.
Here's how you can take the right type of confidence out on the course with you.
Upgrading Your Confidence
Two shifts. That's it.
#1 Pre-shot: Stop requiring a perfect result before you're allowed to feel good. You don't need to know the outcome ahead of time. You need to trust that whatever the outcome is, you can deal with it. Intentional self-talk can be an excellent way to remind ourselves of this. "I can handle what ever the game gives me, so swing free and let it rip!"
#2 Post-round: Start collecting proof. After every round, write down one or two moments where you were resilient. Not moments where you hit the perfect shot. Moments where something went sideways and you handled it. Bad lie and you found a smart play. Rough start and you settled in. Missed short putt and you didn't let it bleed into the next hole.
That list becomes your evidence. Your brain doesn't rewrite the definition of confidence just because you tell it to. It needs physical reinforcements
Final Thoughts
Stick with your process, manage your pace, trust your routine. That's the stuff you actually control on the course. Build your confidence there, and you won’t need an outcome to hand you permission to feel good about your game.
Building your confidence on an outcome is a never ending chase. Confidence in process is the one thing golf can never take away.
