When I first started playing golf, my mind was so crowded with instructions it almost hurt. Keep your head down. Don’t sway. Relax your grip. Turn your shoulders. Don’t forget to breathe. Every shot felt like I was trying to remember a 10-step dance routine and it would have been thumbs down for execution.
Over time, like many golfers, I simplified. One or two key thoughts were enough to get me through a round. But then came the inevitable dip in form when everything seems to unravel. And that’s when the real battle began, not just with my swing, but with my mind.
Mid-backswing, a thought would shout at me. This grip feels wrong. The club’s too high. Something’s off. A little jolt of negativity that instantly stole my commitment. I’d decelerate through the ball, steer the clubface, or worse, pull up and top it. And every golfer knows hesitation mid-swing is not a place where magic happens.
Other times, it was the opposite. My mind would go completely blank. One moment I was taking the club back, the next the ball was skidding across the turf. It was like I’d spaced out for three seconds. And in both cases, the noise and the silence, the result was the same: inconsistency, frustration, and that sinking feeling of another wasted shot.
After all I’ve said it won’t surprise you that I’m a chronic overthinker. On and off the course, my brain rarely switches off. So, I decided to give myself a different kind of challenge. Instead of chasing perfection, I would focus back in on one simple swing thought, a thought I could return to no matter what.
This time, my mantra was: “Stay in the shot.” Not “swing plane” or “release” or “keep your head down.” Just: stay committed, stay present, hit through the ball.
It sounds simple, but for me it was revolutionary.
Hesitation never makes a golf shot better. You can second-guess at setup. You can rehearse on the range. But once you’ve pulled the trigger, half-heartednessness nearly always kills the shot. Commitment, even to a less-than-perfect swing, produces a better result than trying to rescue something halfway through.
So I tested it out. I played a full round with just that one swing thought. In the beginning, it worked beautifully. My shots weren’t perfect, I’m a 27 handicapper, after all, but they were solid, more consistent, and, most importantly, they felt freer.
By the middle of the round, my focus wavered. As any higher handicapper will tell you, hitting that many shots can grind you down. I lost concentration, drifted back into old habits, and the results dipped. But towards the end, I remembered my mantra again. Stay in the shot. And the results were striking: more confident swings, surprising outcomes, and the satisfaction of knowing I’d committed fully, regardless of where the ball landed.
It reminded me of driving a car. If you hesitate mid-manoeuvre, you’re in trouble. But if you trust the decision you’ve already made, you usually come out just fine. Golf is the same. The hesitation is worse than the mistake.
Golf really is played between the ears. Not only with technical knowledge, but in our ability to clear the mental clutter and come back to something simple. For me, it’s “stay in the shot.” For you, it might be “smooth tempo” or “commit to the target.”
What matters is not what the thought is, but that you have one, and only one. Now I know I’m not the first or best person to say this. But, when I started I heard it and thought how? So I want to say that despite my skepticism it’s great advice.
Because golf, like life, doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards resilience. And when you can quiet the noise and stick with your shot, even the ones that you feel mid-way doubt with, you’ll be surprised how often the outcome is better than you feared.
