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they grip the club. Of course, the tighter they grip the club, the more difficult it becomes for the hands to properly follow their path on the downswing. Consequently, even when they are mechanically in all the right positions in the golf swing, the tension in their hands and forearms often kills their timing. This prevents them from releasing the club properly, influencing both distance and direction of their golf shots.

    Confidence Drill: Feel the Pressure

    As we’ve seen, the physiologic effects of fear have specific influences on the golf swing. One of the most prominent is that fear alters grip pressure. Because the body’s natural fear response causes the blood vessels to constrict, blood is pushed out of the hands. That in turn causes a golfer to grip the club tighter in order to feel the same thing.
    But a tighter grip makes it difficult to make a smooth swing with a complete backswing and a full release and follow-through. What you have to learn is to sense when your grip is getting too tight and learn to dial it down.
    Try to set up a scale where 1 is the softest hands possible, almost as if you were holding a fragile piece of jewelry or a soap bubble on a stick. Make 10 the tightest you could imagine, equal to the grip pressure you’d feel if you were hanging on to the still rings like a gymnast. Experiment with what a swing with a grip pressure of 1 feels like. Be prepared to let the club fly out of your hands, but trust me, it won’t. Your grip pressure naturally tightens as you approach impact. You should be pleasantly surprised by how much more rhythmic and flowing your swing is at 1 or 2. Most golfers do not know what swings feel like when their grip pressure is too loose. You’ll probably find out that what you thought would be way too loose isn’t that loose at all.
    Do the same with a 10 and see if you sense a difference in your swing. See how easy it is or isn’t to hit a big sweeping hook with your hands strangling the grip. Odds are it won’t be easy.
    Now, starting at 1 on your scale, slowly begin increasing the grip pressure. Ideally, your grip pressure should be between 3 and 5, but under pressure you can easily find it sliding closer to 7, 8, or 9. Knowing what a 1 or a 2 feels like will help you find that ideal low-medium pressure that you need to make the most effective swings. Eventually, you should learn what Tiger Woods learned when he said, “No doubt about it: Light is right.”

    Problem 2: “Quick” at the Top

    Physiologically, fear can make us get “quick” at the top. As with overly tight grip pressure, most of us know this feeling, too. Here, the downswing starts before the club is properly set at the top, so the body begins moving into the shot while the arms are still going back. Why does this happen? Well, tighter muscles and a racing mind are okay if you’re trying to execute a relatively one-dimensional task like outracing a saber-toothed tiger before you become his dinner. Tight muscles and a racing mind are not such a good combination if you’re trying to execute a relatively unnatural act like hitting a small ball with a small piece of metal and making it go into a small hole far away. Fear can make us want to do things quicker; a properly executed golf swing is controlled, and sometimes that means slower.

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    words of a champion: payne stewart,
1999 u.s. open

    The late Payne Stewart’s final victory was unquestionably his most emotional, and in many ways it was his most complete as a supreme champion. Stewart began the final day of the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst’s venerable No. 2 course leading by a shot, and in damp, chilly conditions, refused to buckle under the pressure. He holed out with an iron will, completing the round with only 24 putts, and coming down the stretch, he holed a 25-foot putt at 16, a nervy three-footer for birdie at 17 to retake the lead, and an epic fifteen-footer for par to win his second U.S. Open title. Stewart’s assessment