First round of tourneys - mental game issues

[volfan]

A little background, was a "chucker" since way back in the mid 80s, quit in 92 played again some in the 98-02 range and then again in 04-05. Started back up in January this year to help rehab my achilles as it was ruptured Easter of 2011.

Decided I had a lot of flaws thanks to this site, the discraft videos and watching how erratic some of my throws were. I went back to the basics, throwing in a field, working on snap with the pec drill, eliminated my run-up and quit throwing discs I had neither the technique or the arm to throw. Scores started coming down and distance started improving. I now max out with a river/sidewinder/diamond at around the 380-400 mark. The guys I play with now tell me they have seen some good improvements which brings me to my issue.

I have been playing tournaments in this area since the ice bowls this year, including our monthly flights at our local club and 4 PDGAs this year. It seems as though I keep putting up HUGE numbers on my first round which means I am scrambling on the second round (and third or fourth). My first round scores on my last two PDGA tourneys were a ~770 and an ~830 round. Subsequent rounds at each tourney was for the ~770 a ~960 and after the ~830 I threw a ~920. I have had similar results in my local club's monthly tournaments. I am seeing some success here and there on casual rounds but can't wrap my head around why I am screwing up so bad on first rounds of tournaments. Any thoughts or tips? With this question, I do not think I am a 920-960 player but I am also not a 770-830 player. I am not expecting a miracle, just want to have better first rounds.

 

[foo_g]

Trying to do to much right out of the gates?
Stay within yourself and don't try to do too much or play overly aggressive.

 

[Countchunkula]

Play it safe for the first few holes until you are in a decent groove. Try to hit fairways instead of trying to park everything. I don't know what division you are playing, but par golf is good enough to cash in the lower ones.

 

[JoshEpoo]

If your scores fluctuate 10-20 strokes between rounds, your putting must be awfully inconsistent. There's hardly anyway it could be anything else. Posting a video of your throw for analysis would help for diagnosing mechanical issues.

 

[volfan]

If your scores fluctuate 10-20 strokes between rounds, your putting must be awfully inconsistent. There's hardly anyway it could be anything else. Posting a video of your throw for analysis would help for diagnosing mechanical issues.

Putting is not the cause of this issue. I could improve in the 20-25ft range but my main problems are mostly errant drives and approach shots that are off. I have been working very hard on putting the last 4 months. I regularly take chances I would not normally take so maybe I am playing too aggressively. I may have the rare 2 or 3-putt but mostly in first rounds I am seeing a lot of 5s where I am really only using 1 putt.

as for the throw, I will take a video this weekend.

 

[bholy08]

maybe you need to take more time before the round to get warmed up?

 

[bradharris]

It's a lot easier to relax and play within yourself once you've played your way out of contention. It sounds like you're putting too much pressure on yourself early. Focus on getting a good warm up to boost confidence and put your mind at ease before the start.

 

[Violets caddy]

You mention three understable flippy drivers, are you using them a lot in tourneys?
It's always going to take a hole or two to get dialed in, if you're throwing stuff that is not forgiving its probably going to hurt a lot in an early round.
I try to start off a tourney with a couple safety drives so to speak, something that is going to go where I want it no matter what.
So a teebird might be shorter than your diamond its also far more likely to not get you in trouble. It should still leave you with par opportunities while giving you time to work out the morning round jitters.

 

[Captain Bad]

Resurrecting an old thread here lest I get prerubed.

I've been having the same problem as the OP; I often perform poorly my first round (I'm ~920 rated and shot a 785 first round at a recent tournament :thmbdown, but turn it around and shoot closer to my rating the second (909 in the second round, meh).

I don't often feel nervous or jittery going into the tourney; at the tournament above I felt pretty good starting out. It's just that one mistake leads to another and it snowballs out of control.

Do you guys have any more advice on how to avoid these first round woes? Once you start shooting poorly, how do you stop the bleeding?

 

[Jay Dub]

When I have played my best in a tournament I noticed I was distracted from thinking about playing the tournament while driving to it.

Once I put in a CD and turned it up and it lasted until I got to the course. I was enjoying the music and not thinking about playing, looking back that helped me that day.

Another example is when I knew my then new girlfriend was going to show up and walk with me while I played the tournament. Thinking about her being there made me a bit nervous. What that did was take the edge off of being nervous about playing a tournament. I didn't think too much about my play that day because I was thinking about something else.


Neither example was planned, but looking back I do believe those distractions are what helped me play good those days. The day my new GF showed I won the tourney.


So what I would suggest is to try and distract yourself from over thinking about the tournament while traveling to it.

 

[Disc Fiend]

^That was a good way to impress the new lady

 

[Jay Dub]

^That was a good way to impress the new lady

lol Yup. But she only stayed for the first round.

 

[wake911]

I've been struggling with this as well. I'm not sure what it is. I've shot right about 55 points less on my 1st round than second in my 2 PDGA tourneys, but the same concept occurs on my non sanctioned (just tougher to show how much) Doesn't matter if it's 2 rounds on the same course, or 2 different courses.

I don't seem to have my killer instinct, and get over concerned with how others are doing. How they warm-up "Is my warmup good enough?" "Wow, that guy is a great putter, maybe i should practice putting more" "whoa, i've never seen that path to the basket, maybe i should throw some new routes on that hole too"

I know i seem to try to do too much the first few holes. The saying goes, "You can't win the tourney on the first 3 holes, but you sure can lose it"

 

[JC17393]

Resurrecting an old thread here lest I get prerubed.

I've been having the same problem as the OP; I often perform poorly my first round (I'm ~920 rated and shot a 785 first round at a recent tournament :thmbdown, but turn it around and shoot closer to my rating the second (909 in the second round, meh).

I don't often feel nervous or jittery going into the tourney; at the tournament above I felt pretty good starting out. It's just that one mistake leads to another and it snowballs out of control.

Do you guys have any more advice on how to avoid these first round woes? Once you start shooting poorly, how do you stop the bleeding?

For me, the best way to prevent that snowball effect when something goes wrong is to have a gameplan ahead of time. I'm an over-thinker, but rather than try not to over-think, I put the over-thinking to work and try to focus it in a beneficial direction. Whether the tournament is on a course I'm familiar with or even if it's one I only get one quick trip through in the morning, I try to give myself a ballpark estimate of where I want my score to be, even breaking it down per hole. This isn't necessarily the *best* score I can shoot, just an average "I can be happy with that" kind of score. My ground rule is that I can't expect to make any putts outside of 15-20 feet, and I can't bank on being within 20 feet on the drive on any hole that's over 180-200 feet. That forces me to be more conservative on my expectations and take a bit of pressure off myself.

But the key to doing that prep work is to stick to it when you're on the course. If you bogey the first hole, the temptation is always to make up that stroke as soon as possible. Then you try to hump up and reach that basket that you couldn't reach once out of 100 drives and you shank the drive. That's where the snowball starts, when you start trying to do things that you either aren't that good at or you just wouldn't normally do.

If you can fight that urge and stick to the plan, you stop (over-)thinking about what just happened and you start focusing more on what you are about to do. Ideally, you make sure that the mistake hole, the bogey hole, is the only blemish on your card even if the result is you come in one or two strokes over expectation.

In my experience, it's when you get into that groove of targeting and hitting your number (not necessarily birdying) that things start to click into place. When you play for a three on a hole, you nestle your drive next to the pole or can a 35-40 footer for a deuce. Whereas when you try too hard to park the hole, you get first available and end up with 4s and 5s all over the card.

There's an old adage that has its variations in a lot of different sports, but the gist of it is that you can't win a game/tournament in the early going, but you can certainly lose it. So in golf, you can't really win a tournament in the first round, but you can definitely take yourself out of contention in a hurry right out of the gate. The goal is to not lose the tournament in the first round. You try to win it in the last round.

 

[1978]

Are you warming up enough before the rounds? It takes me 9-12 holes to play anywhere near my average level.

 

[bradharris]

Do you guys have any more advice on how to avoid these first round woes? Once you start shooting poorly, how do you stop the bleeding?

I go into every round I play with the expectation that I'm going to have a few rough spots. I used to imagine how well I could shoot on a perfect round, and every mistake seemed to crush my confidence.

Now, when I have a bad shot, or a bad hole, I simply take a deep breath and say, "okay, that was the bad one, no big deal." This helps to put it behind me and focus on the next hole. Now instead of trying to scramble and make up for the bad hole, I just forget it and move on.

 

[chickenonabun]

I would just try to stick to my gameplan, just because some guy throws a great spikehyzer that you never thought of and parks a 400 foot hole doesn't mean that you should try the same thing. That is what practice is for, in tourneys you want to throw the higher percentage shot that you know you can execute correctly every time. Stay within the bounds of your game and don't start out too aggressive and the first round should go better.

 

[Captain Bad]

Are you warming up enough before the rounds? It takes me 9-12 holes to play anywhere near my average level.

I really do think this is a big part of it, at least with the physical aspect. It would help to explain why I tend to do better in the second round. Admittedly, I do need to do more to warm up in the morning. I try to throw a few holes and then spend some time putting, but I could be doing more.

 

[Captain Bad]

I go into every round I play with the expectation that I'm going to have a few rough spots. I used to imagine how well I could shoot on a perfect round, and every mistake seemed to crush my confidence.

Now, when I have a bad shot, or a bad hole, I simply take a deep breath and say, "okay, that was the bad one, no big deal." This helps to put it behind me and focus on the next hole. Now instead of trying to scramble and make up for the bad hole, I just forget it and move on.

Yes! That sounds like me.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm overconfident going in and expecting too much. I tend to get pretty down on myself when things go wrong; especially on the green. I think a lot of that is like what you are saying; that I expect to be perfect, and when I miss a shot it damages that over-inflated image and the confidence suffers. A little lesson in disc golf humility perhaps?

Thanks. I'll keep this in mind the next time I'm out.

 

[goosefraba1]

I think another aspect is to get a certain pattern down. Like using the bathroom before you leave the house.... arriving 45 minutes early before the players meeting.... listening to a certain song(s) while warming up.... Play a certain number of holes before.

All of this will tell your body that it is about to perform.