Fear of failure is one of the biggest emotions that people have on the golf course. 

Given that golf is a game of failures, this can be a paralyzing emotion on the course that can make the golf experience. Not so fun. 

A couple of things to know about failure. Fear of failure and golf really don’t mix. Golf is a game of misses and mistakes. 

It is not, IF you are going to miss a shot is about how good your miss is. 

The other thing is that you define failure. If I polled all of my clients and I asked them to define failure, their answers would all be different. One may say hitting a wedge outside of 12 feet and another would say making anything over a double and another one might say shooting over 80. 

So your first step is define what failure is for you. 

There is no failing in golf. 

It either worked or you learned something. 

It is not a failure until you decided as a failure.  

You shot 80 and you deemed that, that was a failure. 

You can decide if you feel like crap and beat yourself up, or you can decide on what you learned from shooting 80. 

And that you can take that to the next round. 

You’re a human who makes mistakes. The more you can have your own back and find some grace and compassion for your humanness, the more you will enjoy the game and the better that you apply. 

Fearing failure is what keeps us stuck and slows our progress.