#1 Why fear is golf's greatest hazard

Sam Snead once said:

"Of all the hazards, fear is the worst."

For the record, Sam Snead is a golfing G.O.A.T. winning 82 Professional Golf Association Tour events including seven majors over a six-decade career that began in the 1930s – tough times. So, if anyone knows what derails a game and destroys a scorecard, it's Sam.

The mental side of golf outweighs the physical. One day you can be in the zone. Then, next time your body's limitations are near-limitless. It's cruel how the mind is more treacherous than physics. And when fear creeps in, the effects are instant. You tense up, grip the club like you're strangling a chicken, lose focus and gain the grace of a toddler with a chainsaw.

Fear lurks around every dogleg*

Fear in golf is everywhere you look and the places you don't. There's fear of the unknown in the innocent question "how will I play today?". Although this is usually answered just after you didn't warm-up properly (again) and went into the trees. Then there are blind shots. Natural features – hills, dunes, trees and bushes (what's worse – gorse or heather?) – used by course designers to make you question your life choices.

Even minor visual reference points can play havoc with perspective. From there, doubt creeps in and before you know it, your fear is messing with your thought process, where you're pointing, your tempo and the end result. Scrambled.

Off course, of course

Fear while playing golf course isn't exactly a tragedy, but it can get emotional. It lurks around every corner, ready to deflect and deform whatever you do – or don't do – next.

Fear's part of business too. I'm diversifying outside of the niches of B2B technology, finance and legal – areas I know inside-out – which isn't exactly comfortable. It demands practice, listening and learning, plus a belief in the value of working on your business instead of constantly in your business. In golf terms, that's fixing your swing mechanics when it's simpler and easier to repeat the same mistakes.

Face your fear, fearlessly

Being fear-averse isn't viable. In evolutionary terms, fear serves us well. But why spend life trying to avoid what's always drawing you in. Fear will visit you at some point, somewhere. If you're lucky, at an entirely trivial moment on a golf course.

Though that can be excruciating when people are watching... the moment on a shared tee box with an audience of strangers silently judging you. Or when the group in front lets you through and you feel the pressure to both be quick and not shit which is the signature recipe for being anxious about absolutely bloody anything. Especially copywriting.

You ready? It's time to stare down your fears and ask politely but firmly:

1. Are your habits helping? Routines ground you in the present moment and help you deal with the inevitable yet still unexpected cock-ups. When all else fails, process.

2. Are you focused on what matters? In the heat of battle, clarity is selecting only the most important variables that affect the outcome. Wind direction and speed matter, but your mate mentioning your backswing looks "different today" does not.

3. Are you fully committed? We all make rubbish decisions now and then, but that's got to be better than indecision which usually ends badly. Conviction and self-belief are only theories until you take the plunge.

4. Are you at ease with making mistakes? Because mistakes are totally normal and highly repeatable. Let's fess up, humans are destined NOT to learn from the past. What counts is what you do next – the only bit on which you can exert some control.

5. Are you building confidence? It's not magic – confidence takes some nurturing. But if you accept that feeling fearful is somewhat inevitable, that's solid ground to build confidence. One shot at a time.

Thanks for getting this far into the first golf lesson. Hope you're enjoying the endless series of obtacles obscured by the occasional miracle. And in that tension is a lesson about facing fear in every walk of life. Even a walk spoiled by golf.

Golfer or not, what do you think, hope or dream about fear?

*a bend in a fairway and a 180-degree turn on stairs, dogleg is one of my favourite words

Image: Edvard Munch sees things like a golfer. As depicted in his epic painting "The Scream," the subject is gripped by the fear of a left-to-right dogleg with a narrow fairway, and a tiny elevated green with water to the left. Fear is as much about perception as reality, viewed from the clubhouse balcony.