Sport-Specific Contexts
You are playing two rounds of golf today.
One of them is on the course: the swings, the ball flights, the lies, the putts. The other one is in your head: the evaluation of the last shot, the anxiety about the next hole, the awareness of the leaderboard, the comparison to the player in the next fairway, the story you are telling yourself about what this round means.
The round in your head is the one that most often determines the score on the card.
Read this passage slowly.
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — think about such things.
Philippians 4:8 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Think about such things. Paul’s instruction is about the active management of mental attention — the deliberate direction of the mind toward what is true and excellent rather than allowing it to be captured by whatever arrives. That is exactly what the golf mental game requires: active direction of thought during the four-plus hours between actual swings.
The golfer has more time between shots than almost any competitor in any sport. Those intervals are the mental round. What happens in them determines whether the golfer arrives at the next shot with a composed and focused mind or a cluttered and anxious one. The player who spends the walk from the tee to the ball rehearsing the bad shot they just hit is arriving at the next shot already compromised. The one who acknowledges the shot, extracts the relevant information, releases the rest, and redirects attention to the next target arrives at the same ball with a fundamentally different mind.
The player who walks to the next shot rehearsing the bad one they just hit arrives already compromised. Acknowledge. Extract the information. Release. Redirect. That is the mental game.
What do you typically think about between shots? Is your mental routine between shots as deliberate as your pre-shot routine? If not, what is filling that space?
Most golfers have a pre-shot routine. Very few have an intentional between-shot routine. The gap is the growth edge.
Manage the round in your head. It determines the score on the card.
This devotional pairs well with a specific between-shot routine exercise. Consider having golfers identify and practice a specific mental reset protocol as the application.