How often have you played a round where you felt completely exhausted by the time you finished? Or felt scattered and unable to get focused on what’s important in the moment? Have you ever scrambled all day to stay in contention and had absolutely no ability to think clearly or focus by your last few holes? Conversely, have you ever played a round where you played well and felt like you could easily go another 18 or more?

One of the biggest challenges I face in working with athletes and coaches on mental skills is how they manage their energy and focus while playing and their lack of awareness on how this impacts performance. There’s a lot of time and space between shots and naturally this is going to be spent thinking. It is not uncommon for an athlete to spend their entire round ruminating on their performance…how they are playing, what just happened, what they should have done, how much better they’ve played before, what they need to do next, and so on. 

 

Most of us recognize that this constant reflection on our game or over thinking doesn’t help us play our best. Yet, what should we do instead? How can we avoid this tendency? This can be tricky as we don’t have the external stimulus of an opponent’s actions to draw our attention and focus like we do in most other sports. Instead, we hit our ball, watch it, walk to it, and hit it again and in between those actions there is a lot of room for mental time travel and critical self-talk over 18 holes of golf.

 

What’s the problem with this kind of thinking? It burns a huge amount of energy and rarely, if ever, leads to better play.  To be more accurate, the problem is less about the act of thinking and more about the impact of the what, when, and where of our thinking. Thinking about the wrong things at the wrong times significantly interferes with performance AND consumes our mental, emotional and physical energy. We are not going to stop thinking, but we can get a lot better at directing and focusing on the right things at the right times so we can play our best. 

 

A key to mastering this focus and energy management is understanding a framework we’ve developed at One Iota called the 3 Zones of Performance™ that will help you dial in your attention when you need it, and relax when you don’t, in order to play your best possible golf.  

 

Understanding the 3 Zones of Performance™ 

To illustrate this we’re going to look at a couple of sports that most people are familiar with, soccer and hockey. Imagine the goalie in either sport, in both cases that goalie plays the entire match or game. 

 

There are high intensity moments where the ball or puck is in front of their goal and they need to have incredible focus, be fully active, track the play, stop and prevent shots, and stay physically and mentally sharp,  aware, and in control. The action is intense and requires the goalie’s full focus and effort in order to prevent the opponent from scoring, they are essentially in a state of high alert the entire time. During this type of the action the goalie is burning an extremely high amount of mental, emotional and physical energy. We call this Zone 1.

 

Then there are moments where the play is in midfield of the pitch or the neutral zone of the rink. Here the goalie is still focused but at a far lower level of intensity. They are tracking the play and seeing how things develop but their energy burn is lower. They are still in a semi ready state so they can activate quickly if the ball or puck comes into their zone, but much less so than when they are directly defending attacks in front of their goal.  The energy burn here is still relatively high, but less so than when the play is directly in front of them. We call this Zone 2.

 

And last we have the lowest intensity moments for the goalie when the play is in the opponent’s zone. In this case the goalie can relax a bit, they are not fully tuned out but their level of concentration, focus and energy expenditure is very low. They can recuperate, grab some water or stretch and bring their activation level down compared to the level they were at when the ball or puck was in their zone. They have plenty of time to prepare if the play starts to come back toward the middle of the pitch or neutral zone and into their end of the field or rink. The energy burn in this case is mentally, emotionally and physically very low for the goalie. We call this Zone 3.

 

What if the goalie had to play the entire game in Zone 1 with the ball or puck in their end, directly in front of their own goal?  In soccer that would be 90 minutes of intense focus and effort, in hockey that would be 60 minutes straight of acrobatic movement, wearing heavy equipment and being in a highly activated mental state.  It’s not hard to imagine the energy burn would be so intense that this goalie would be physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted by the end of the game.  

 

Now imagine that goalie is you, and instead of playing soccer or hockey you are playing golf. Every second you are on course you are on full alert, thinking about your game – your last shot or next shot – and burning huge amounts of energy. For many of you, this is exactly how you currently approach your entire round of golf and it is interfering with your ability to play to your potential.  

 

Applying the 3 Zones to Golf 

One of the ways golf is unique is the amount of time between shots while playing or competing. Think about how much time you are out on course in a round versus how much time is actually spent performing the skill of hitting or putting a ball. In a 4-5 hour round you may only have 25-30 minutes of actually addressing the ball and hitting shots. Golf has more time between action for thinking than any other sport around, learning how to use this time effectively and move in and of the 3 Zones of Performance™ will help you to play your best. 

 

From a golf perspective the 3 Zones should look as follows:

Zone 1: Performing the Skill (Execution – Hitting Your Shot)

• Highest level of focus / intensity

• Highest level of energy burn 

• Mind & body are present, focused on executing the skill and the moment of contact

• Ideally on autopilot while performing the skill (mind is quiet, thinking is minimal)

• Takes place from stepping into the shot to completing the swing or to follow-through

• Roughly 5% of your time on course 

 

Zone 2: Entering and Exiting the Shot (Pre and Post Shot Preparation)

• High level of focus / intensity

• Moderate to High level of energy burn (heavy thinking / analysis phase) 

• Mind moves between future & past (learn from past, prepare for future re: executing great shots) 

• Takes place immediately before your shot and immediately after your shot (roughly 30-60 seconds before and after each shot) 

  • Includes your pre & post shot routines 

  • Leading into the shot you are thinking and imagining the future by gathering information (your lie, distance from the pin, other conditions)  so you can make a decision on the best option and commit to a shot

  • Exiting the shot you are reliving the past so you can gather valuable information (your commitment to the last shot, your execution, the result) to help you learn and improve for the future

• Roughly 15-20% of your time on course

 

Zone 3: The Space Between Shots (Recovery)

• Low level of focus / intensity 

• Low level of energy burn (walking between shots, thinking is not about your own game and performance)

• Mind & body are present but not focused on your performance 

  • Positive thoughts ideally away from golf and your performance

  • Attending to positive distractions such as the scenery, talking with playing partners or a caddy, humming or thinking of a song, or engaging in a physical distraction like a fidget spinner or paying attention to your walking or breathing pattern   

• Roughly 75-80% of time on course 

 

Hopefully this initial look gives you a better understanding of what each of the zones should look like when you are out on course and how they can be applied to improve your game.  Check back for part 2 next week to learn more specific ways to apply the 3 Zones of Performance™ including sample drills from the One Iota app.  

 

Part II can be found here: The 3 Zones of Performance™ Expanded