Go for a Solid ACE |
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| by Jeff Troesch |
 Players regularly contact me expressing
frustration about a wide assortment of things
with their game. Among them are:
inconsistency in their swing, not being able
to take their practice shots onto the course,
an array of putting difficulties, dealing
with slow players, how wind or cold hampers
their play. There is one thing that is
common to all of these scenarios, as well as
the hundreds of others not mentioned here.
That common thread is that none of these
things are completely within the player’s
control. Even for the professional and elite
amateurs with whom I work there is an
irrational notion that the harder one works
and/or the more knowledge one gains about
this game should somehow translate into
having control over this game. When
confronted directly with this, anyone who
plays this game would admit they don’t have
control over it. Yet, time and time again,
people allow themselves to get caught up and
distracted by the nuances of this game over
which they don’t have complete
control.
One way I recommend that players focus
on those few things over which they do have
control is by remembering the acronym ACE.
Attitude, concentration, and effort (ACE) are
the only things over which we have control in
golf (and in life!). On the scorecard, I
have the player give him or herself a score
in each of these categories on a hole-by-hole
basis. On a 1-10 scale, with ten being the
highest, I want players to attend to and work
on these three factors as they play casual or
competitive rounds of golf. What we see is a
tremendous correlation between high ACE
scores and lower stroke scores. The more we
focus on that over which we have control, the
less frustration, anxiety, worry and anger we
will have on the course. This regularly
translates into lower scores and a higher
level of enjoyment of the game. Obviously,
simply attending to the ACE variables is not
going to overcome a poor swing, the fact that
the players in the group in front of you are
slow, or the fact that the wind is blowing 30
mph. What reminding ourselves of ACE does
do, however, is put us in the proper mind set
to do all that we can to play the best that
we can in that moment, whatever the
conditions, and leave the rest for others to
worry about!
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