Here is an amazing Thailand golf statistic. My best five out of my last 20 Thailand golf scores were all when I shot over well my handicap on the front nine and stopped counting on the back nice. How can this be?

Here is what I found out.

Normally I track my score hole by hole, but have recently found this to be a recipe for disaster. I determined this to be the case by analyzing my scores and watching my golfing mate. 

At Thai Country Club last month my mate, a 2 handicapper, was not playing well. He got more and more discouraged as the day went on saying things like he wondered why even he came to the golf course that day and blaming his poor shot making on his regular caddie of all people. Needless to say by days end his score mounted to well over 80. I realized he set a specific target score for himself and he got more and more discouraged once he passed that target. Lesson #1.

Then, on another day the same friend and I were playing as a four ball with 2 Japanese golfers at Lakewood Country Club, a very easy Bangkok golf course. My mate was playing well and on track to hit his target score, but blew up and got really upset after one bad putt. This turned his good round into a bad one and it took the fun out of playing golf for everyone around us, the Japanese golfers and all 4 caddies included.  Needless to say, I was really embarrassed to be this guy’s friend and would have even preferred he go his own way on that occasion. Lesson #2.

After my own score analysis and learning from my friends bad temper, I now use the following method to help keep my round together especially near the end. Lesson #3.

I never set any targets for myself and I forget about my tracking my total score during the round; recording only the score from each hole on the scorecard, and don’t tally my final score until the round is over.

Forgetting about the score provides several benefits, including staying in the present. When I stay in the present, I forget about past shots and future shots. I also forget about everything but making the shot at hand. This is always when my best shots come. Try thinking about this for your own game!

Forgetting about the score also allows me to have fun and try new shots to improve my game, rather than trying to achieve a specific score. Instead of doing things that take me out of my rhythm or are beyond my capabilities, I can focus on playing golf, my swing tempo, and on slowing down (my main problem is too fast of a swing), rather than driving the ball out-of-bounds. In other words, forgetting about my total score encourages me to stay within myself and really enjoy my round and playing golf in Thailand.

I can still keep track of things during my game. I can track how many fairways and greens in regulation I hit. I can also track of how many putts I have taken and how many and how many saves I manage. Tracking information like this is a good way to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of each round and pinpoint things I need to work on to get to the next level of proficiency.

Try forgetting about your score the next time you are golfing in Thailand and let me know how it works out. I guarantee, at least you will have a more enjoyable round, and that is the whole point of why we golf in the first place, right?

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