#11. The Space Between: Expectation vs. Reality on the Golf Course
Episode Summary:
In this episode of The Scratch Golfers Mindset Podcast, Paul Salter explores the gap between your expectations and reality on the golf course and how this gap leads to frustration, self-doubt, and poor performance.
By learning to set realistic expectations based on your current skill level, practice consistency, and external factors, you can shrink this gap and play to your potential. Paul also shares actionable strategies to help you adjust your mindset, shift your goals, and enjoy the game more by celebrating small wins along your golf journey.
P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how mindset coaching and hypnotherapy can help you get unstuck from the proverbial bunker of poor performance on the course and in your business, click here to schedule a coaching discovery call with me.
Key Quotes:
- “It’s the space between expectation and reality that is responsible for you remaining stuck in a downward spiral of negative self-talk.”
- “Golf is not a game of perfect.”
- “Your false expectations are keeping you stuck in a state of anger, frustration, and envy.”
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Time Stamps:
- 00:00 Introduction and Newsletter Announcement
- 01:29 Golf as a Mirror of Life
- 04:54 Personal Golf Experience and Setting Expectations
- 08:25 The Gap Between Expectations and Reality
- 14:14 Consistency in Practice and Play
- 21:48 Narrowing the Gap: Staying Motivated and Focused
- 22:40 Conclusion and Call to Action
Transcript:
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (00:03.202)
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. I am your host, Paul Salter, and I am excited to dive into today’s topic. But before I do, have you subscribed to the More Pars Than Bogies newsletter? Because I’m getting a ton of great feedback on the instrumental role this weekly newsletter is playing in helping double digit golfers
get out of their own way to shoot more pars than bogeys. Every Friday morning at around 6 .30 Eastern, expect a detailed action pact. And I mean literally with tangible strategies you can take away and apply to your very next round to help you make both the mindset shifts and emotional resilience cultivating behavior changes to get out of your own way, to overcome the mental and emotional hazards of your mind.
so that you can shoot lower scores and have more fun. And if you’re interested in subscribing and catching up on the last handful of issues of the More Pars Than Bogies newsletter, the link is right below in the show notes. Now, I’m gonna kick off today’s episode not how I originally planned. One of the themes that I hope to make abundantly clear as the show goes on and the episodes accumulate is that
Golf, the game of golf is a beautiful mirror of life. The same skills of discipline, commitment, presence, hard work, resilience, a growth mindset, emotional regulation, management and intelligence. All of these skills.
are necessary to achieve your potential and reach the, you know, the echelon of becoming the best version of yourself away from the course in every aspect of life. They’re also the same skills that are necessary to cultivate to be the best golfer possible. And I had an opportunity to put my emotional intelligence into practice this morning as I recorded a wonderful episode. In fact,
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (02:19.65)
I recorded this episode about four hours ago only to learn the software I use, which is literally designed to capture audio for podcast purposes, captured no audio. And as you can imagine, there was a part of me that felt like throwing my laptop, felt like sending a nasty
support message or five to the platform and software I use and I noticed a strong heat and a little bit of tension begin to permeate in my body a little bit of sweat percolating on the surface of my skin. Unfortunately, I was able to quickly find my breath, slow down and reframe the situation to see that the second edition
of this episode would likely be that much better. I got to iron out the kinks, spew a few rough drafts, see what worked well, flowed smoothly, and what didn’t. But I share this as a reminder that everything we talk about on the podcast or within the more pars than bogeys newsletter is applicable to every domain of life. Again, golf is a beautiful mirror.
to all of the skills and the progress you’re making as you strive to be the best version of yourself, the best husband, the best wife, partner, neighbor, parent, brother, sister.
And our duty, your duty while you are here is to grow and go and to achieve your full potential. I consider it an incredibly powerful win -win situation when you take what it is I share in the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast and in the More Pars Than Bogies newsletter and you benefit in your work, in your marriage, in your parenting, and on the golf course.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (04:23.97)
I’d like to challenge you that as you continue consuming my content on all things mindset and emotional intelligence and getting out of your way to overcome self -sabotage and unlock your potential, begin to notice and appreciate how many domains of life you can take the nuggets and tidbits you pick up and apply to reach your full potential. And with that said, before we dive into the meat and potatoes here today, I need to begin
by sharing some sad news. I was home last, or I guess two weeks ago now in Maryland, getting to catch up with family and friends, brought my girlfriend home for the first time, had a wonderful vacation and had the opportunity after almost three -ish weeks of no golf whatsoever, completely atypical travel schedule in the month of May and most of June, I got to join my younger brother for a round of nine holes. And I’m sad to say that for perhaps the first official time in his life,
He beat me. And it’s very somber, saddening news to have to admit humbly that I lost to my little brother in a game of golf, but he beat me fair and square. And I’m not happy about it. I’m really not happy about it yet.
I also had such a wonderful experience getting away from family, catching up. We don’t live in the same state, so we only get to see each other a few times a year and spending, you know, those three hours or so warming up on the golf course, just catching up, laughing, connecting, bonding, pushing one another. Because the truth was after six holes, we were all knotted up. And I will say there were so many wonderful positives in my golf game.
that I’ll extract and highlight in a different atmosphere later down the road that I was very proud of after not being able to play for three weeks. Yet after six holes, I decided to find out of bounds twice in one hole and I took those damn penalty strokes and they ended up proving to be quite costly to say the least. Fortunately, the theme, the intention,
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (06:27.906)
was fun and enjoyment, quality time and connection with my younger brother and each of those boxes or goals, if you will, were checked and achieved. But there will be revenge. There will be extra work.
put in to make sure that something of that nature never happens again. And speaking of my golf game, I am finally, you know, removed from six weeks of a typical chaotic travel, no travel plan for it. It looks like at least the next two, if not three to four months, which means more golf is on the horizon. Since I’ve been back.
I’ve gotten a lesson and another round of nine in I’ve got rounds of 18 booked the next couple Fridays I have never played or not never I have not played a round of 18 holes in 15 maybe going on 16 years so I’m looking forward to the added mental and physical challenge that brings I will tell you I walked nine holes about a week ago as of recording this carrying my clubs and I have a couple extra clubs in my bag I probably have 17 clubs in my bag to be frank
And that was a humbling experience. I mean, I consider myself to be in great shape, physically fit, strong, incredible endurance and cardiovascular shape. But I found myself on a few occasions, you know, standing over my ball and me like, shit, I need a minute to catch my breath. And I plan to do an entire episode dedicated to this unique round of nine holes that was intended to be walked and played by myself and the learning lessons I extracted about myself.
and where I’m at in my journey by playing a round of golf by myself, shying away from joining a group yet inevitably joining another pair to form a threesome and making good friends and having a wonderful experience along the way. And that’s for a different episode. Today, we’re digging in now to tackle the space between expectation and reality on the golf course. And again, the nudge.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (08:25.794)
Everything we discussed today can be distilled and applied to every domain of your life. And on that note, expectation. I’m going to operate with the assumption, which I know assumptions are dangerous, that each time you step on the golf course, you expect to play your best. And of course you expect to shoot more pars than bogeys or maybe in my case, more bogeys than double bogeys. Expecting to play your best.
is the goal. Yet the big obstacle that you are likely running into is that there is a massive gap or space between expectations and reality. And it’s the space between expectations and reality that invites in the voice, the feeling and experience of fear, frustration, doubt, envy, insecurity, regret.
shame, negativity, a fixed mindset, and dare I even say a victim mindset. It’s the space between expectation and reality that is responsible for you remaining stuck in a downward spiral of negative self -talk, feeling as if you will never improve and are stuck in this proverbial bunker of poor performance. So it’s worth having a conversation and further exploring why this gap
exists between expectation and reality. And the first note that I think is incredibly important is that although it’s an assumption that every time you show up on the golf course, you expect to play your best, your best looks different month to month, week to week, and day to day. As I’ve shared previously, you cannot separate the human being away from the course with
the human being, the golfer on the course. I don’t care how strong of a compartmentalization skillset you possess, you are still going to carry either the emotional baggage, the mental stress, the lack of sleep, inadequate hydration and poor nutrition that you partake in away from the course, onto the course.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (10:48.61)
That is just the way and the nature of the game and life. So your best looks different every single day. Therefore, if your expectation expectation is to play your best, your expectations going to differ a little bit every day. And to give you an arbitrary example, let’s say you have a newborn and you got all of three hours of sleep last night. Your tea time is at seven fourteen in the morning. And again,
probably less than three hours of sleep, not to mention it was interrupted in a poor quality. Is your best gonna look a little different in the morning compared to playing a 10, 14 a tea time after a night of seven and a half hours of solid sleep? Yeah, I absolutely think it is. So one of the biggest mistakes we run into is we have a misaligned or an incongruent expectation.
with where you are at today. And that’s problematic because again, it is this expectation gap, expectation rather, let me rephrase that, this gap in expectation and reality that gets you into trouble. You feel like you always are coming up short, have so far to go when it comes to achieving your goal. You invite in feelings of defeat, you invite in feelings of I’m not.
good enough, I’ll never achieve X, Y, and Z, you get stuck speaking in these negative absolutes that derail the beliefs you have about yourself and the behaviors you exhibit on the course, therefore you shoot higher scores with an inconsistent swing. So how do we weather that? Well, before I get a little tangible and tactical here, I think it’s worth mentioning too.
Scottie Scheffler aside, and actually literally this example still applies to Scottie Scheffler, go take a look at the statistics PGA professionals are putting up. And yes, they’re playing some of the most challenging golf courses in the world. I get that. But aside, look at how many fairways they are hitting. Look at how many greens and regulation they’re hitting. Look how often they are three putting.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (13:00.866)
These numbers are not as close to perfect as you may think. I believe on the Sunday when Bryson Deschambault won the latest major, he hit 54 % of fairways. His greens in regulation, I don’t think was much better. And I share this to help reframe and reiterate, golf is not a game of perfect. Perfection is not required.
Yet for some reason, and I think that reason is attributed to how intoxicating it feels when you hit the sweet spot and you see that perfect trajectory and ball flight and the shot go exactly where you want. How intoxicating it is. It feels like we should be able to replicate it swing after swing. That’s just simply not how it works. There are so many mental.
emotional and physical variables, both expected and unexpected, accounted for and unaccounted for that influence your swing, your shot and your ability to score. The expectation needs to be tempered here. We have to keep that in mind. Again, I’m arguing the case for beginning to lower your expectation and I’ll keep building upon that. Now,
When it comes to setting the appropriate expectation, one of the easiest ways to help you do that, there’s actually two. Number one is having a pattern of consistency in both your practice and play schedule. And what I mean by that is having some semblance of a goal, if you are someone who truly desires to maximize your potential in the golf course, there needs to be a routine in terms of a number of times you are.
completing a practice or a play session throughout the week. So for me, for instance, as we turn to the month of July, one lesson or practice session and one round of at least nine holes every week will become my goal. Your consistency in executing both your practice and your play rounds allows you to have a real time accurate.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (15:04.066)
a finger on the pulse of where your game’s at. So you know based on your practice performance, based on how your last few scoring rounds have gone, you’re able to set a realistic expectation for the upcoming round. One of the mistakes I see so many people make is they’re inconsistent with their practice and their play schedule. Maybe travel, vacation, or something else comes up and there’s a gap.
that creates this inconsistency. Yet, even though it’s been two, maybe three weeks since their last round, they still expect to shoot their usual 85 to 88. But they’re a little rusty. There is a little bit of fine tuning and kinks that need to be worked out in those first few holes. And when they go in with the expectation to shoot their normal 85 to 88, frustration ensues, anger.
ensues after every poor decision or mistake that is made or poor shot that occurs after they knock off some of the rust for not having played in a couple of weeks. So number one, consistency in your routine gives you the most up -to -date feel on the pulse of where your game is at, which helps you to set your expectation. Number two, you need to be mindful of some of your off -the -course metrics that influence
the version of a golfer that shows up for your next round. You need to be mindful of your stress management, your sleep quantity and quality, your nutrition intake, your physical exercise away from the course. And I am someone who loves numbers to give me tangible black and white information to help me assess where I am at. So again, using an arbitrary yet relatable example, if I have the goal of
getting three resistance training workouts in per week and walking 10 ,000 steps per day, and I am either crushing it or completely missing it, each of those is gonna have an impact on my ability to play my best golf. If I have missed my workouts the last couple of weeks, I shouldn’t have the same expectation to play in that 85 to 88 range. Similarly, if my sleep has been shit,
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (17:13.922)
my nutrition’s been inconsistent, or work and family life is driving me absolute bananas, all of this is going to merge and bleed into my ability to play my best golf. Therefore, my best version of golf as I carry some of this emotional, physical, and mental stress into my game is going to look different. I have to adjust. And maybe I take the focus off of scoring altogether.
And instead I put the focus on one particular area of my game, whether that be putting, whether that be getting up and down greens and regulation or fair ways hit. Now, when it comes to scoring, I think one of the mistakes we make given that it’s so widely known par is 72 and oftentimes 70 or 71. Our goal is par.
Every hole, the goal is par. Remember, it’s not even necessarily a goal as much as an expectation. It’s expected that on this hole that is 454 yards with the dog leg right, it should take you four shots from tee box to getting the ball in the hole.
For the vast majority of us, this is just not a likely and realistic expectation more often than not. And depending where you are in your journey, what your handicap and experience is, it is going to benefit you to instead of aiming to play par golf, playing bogey, or even double bogey golf. Because what happens if you are currently a double bogey golfer? Speaking for myself.
And you still set the expectation to score par on every single hole. How often do you think I’m making par? I can tell you in my last two rounds, my last three rounds, I think I have two pars. Not that many. So therefore I am keeping myself stuck in a place of defeat, feeling like a failure, feeling like nothing’s working, feeling like I’m never going to achieve my goal. The needle’s not moving in the right direction.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (19:25.506)
How do you think these collective emotions influence my desire to practice, my level of enjoyment I extract from the game if I continue to keep my expectation and target set on shooting par? Yes, that’s the long -term goal, but I need to chunk down my goal. If I flip the script and reframe the situation and expect to shoot double bogey every hole, well, based on where I’m at in my journey,
I’m accumulating a lot more double bogeys than I am pars right now, which means in essence, in this particular chapter of my career, I’m winning.
I’m achieving my goal. I’m reaching expectation reality and expectation in my life right now with this simple change in perspective are fairly close. The expectation is just out of reach, which means there’s a challenge present that challenge creates motivation and collectively this challenge helps to tunnel vision my focus to play to the best of my ability to meet my goal.
And guess what? I’m rewarded quite often. All of my good behaviors are reinforced as I achieve this goal of double bogey quite often. As I continue to accumulate consistency, maybe I re, what’s the word I’m looking for? I upgrade this expectation to now I am confident based on my consistency in play, having a real time pulse on where my skill level is at, I change my expectation to shoot.
Bogey, now I am a bogey golfer and that is the expectation. I’m consistently breaking 100. This is my new goal. What I am doing is shrinking the gap between expectation and reality. I’m leveraging my pattern and consistency of practice and play with what other external variables that might influence how I show up on the golf course to set a realistic expectation.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (21:18.242)
for this particular playing round or practice round that is again, just outside of where I think I can play today. And that challenge, that innate desire flame is stoked to play my absolute best so I can satisfy this expectation. And it is this challenge that keeps me sharp, focused and attentive on playing my best golf. And I get to sit back, observe what goes well and to reap the rewards and celebrate the results every step of the way.
So I leave you with this key takeaway. Do not make the mistake of setting your expectations in stone. Do not be so rigid that whether you’ve gotten three hours of sleep or 12 hours of sleep, you’ve played consistently for six months or you haven’t touched your club in six weeks that you’re going to shoot the same score you always do. That is a recipe for disaster that is going to make the experience miserable as you’re rooted and stuck in a pattern of frustration.
anger, envy, shame, and poor performance. And that is not why you picked up the club in the first place. You were here to have fun, to shoot low scores, and of course, shoot more pars than bogeys. Well, thank you so much for listening to yet another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. If you continue to listen and you found these episodes valuable,
Please, I ask leave a genuine rating and review. I’ve had several people reach out to me or begin following me on social media. When I had the opportunity to connect with them, they told me they found the podcast either randomly scrolling through Apple podcasts or via word of mouth. It helps me better help you if you get this information out there by leaving a rating or review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or sharing it with a fellow golfer, which as I’ve been traveling the last six weeks,
Everybody I know is golfing. I’ve had so many small talk conversations with fellow golfers and restaurants markets in the airports I know that you will benefit and he or she who you share this with will also benefit and of course again a reminder every Friday more pars than bogeys newsletter comes out I’d love to be able to deliver that to your inbox every Friday You can subscribe and catch up on the latest editions by clicking the link in the show notes below
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (23:35.842)
With that said, have a phenomenal round ahead. Enjoy your day and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
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PAUL SALTER
Paul Salter - known as The Golf Hypnotherapist - is a High-Performance Mindset Coach who leverages hypnosis and powerful subconscious reprogramming techniques to help golfers of all ages and skill levels overcome the mental hazards of their minds so they shoot lower scores and play to their potential.