“My Confidence Is Zero.” How One Golfer Started to Get His Game Back

“On a scale of one to ten, how confident are you feeling about your golf?”

“Zero.”

That was the answer I received from a golfer who recently visited my coaching studio.

And here’s what made that particularly interesting. This wasn’t a beginner. He’d previously played off single figures. He knew what it felt like to strike a golf ball beautifully and have a pretty good idea where it was going.

But somewhere along the way, he’d lost it.

He described hitting a seven-iron approximately 70 yards left of the target. Some of his drives were travelling barely 100 yards. And perhaps most importantly, he wasn’t enjoying his golf anymore.

He told me something that really struck a chord.

That’s what golf means to so many of us, isn’t it? A few hours away from everything else, enjoying the fresh air, the company and the game. But when every shot becomes a worry, that enjoyment can disappear.

Then he said something even more revealing.

And that was where our lesson really began.

The surprising discovery

One of the biggest mistakes golfers make is trying to fix something before understanding what’s causing it.

A ball goes left, so they aim right. The next one goes right, so they change their grip. Before long, they’re standing over the ball with half a dozen swing thoughts and very little confidence.

I wanted to take a different approach.

So I asked him to hit a few shots with his seven-iron, without consciously trying to change anything. And the results were fascinating.

His initial club path measurements were 1.4°, 2.9° and 1.7° from the inside. He was striking down on the ball, as we’d generally like to see with an iron. One shot carried 142 yards, with just 405 left sidespin.

Now, those weren’t the numbers of somebody who had completely forgotten how to swing a golf club. In fact, several were very encouraging.

But there was a problem.

He wasn’t delivering the club consistently.

And when we started looking more closely, we discovered something interesting.

The problem wasn’t necessarily where he thought it was

His setup was comfortable, but it wasn’t helping him.

His shoulders were sitting slightly open to the target, and there were inconsistencies in his grip and alignment. Nothing particularly dramatic. But sometimes the smallest things can have the biggest influence.

I explained:

That’s an important distinction. Just because something feels natural doesn’t necessarily mean it’s helping you produce a consistent golf shot.

So rather than completely rebuilding his swing, we worked on giving him a better foundation: his grip, alignment, posture and balance. Simple things, but important things.

And gradually, the shots started becoming more predictable.

Then something remarkable happened

We moved on to his hybrid. He thought a good shot would travel approximately 220 yards.

After working on his setup, he produced a shot travelling around 217 yards with zero recorded sidespin. Later, another travelled approximately 229 yards, with just 125 sidespin.

Think about that for a moment. This was a golfer who had arrived describing enormous shots to the left, unpredictable ball flights and a complete loss of confidence. Yet here he was, producing some excellent golf shots.

Of course, one good shot doesn’t mean everything is fixed. But it demonstrated something incredibly important.

He hadn’t lost his ability to play golf. He needed to understand how to produce those good shots more consistently.

And for somebody who’d spent so long questioning everything about his swing, that was a significant discovery.

“I’m gonna give it a five.”

Towards the end of the lesson, I asked him the same question I’d asked at the beginning. How confident are you feeling now, out of ten?

Remember, he’d arrived at zero.

His answer was a five. That was a lovely moment. But what interested me even more was what he said next.

For me, that was the real achievement. Not the longest shot. Not the lowest sidespin number. But the fact that he now had something he could understand, trust and build upon.

He wasn’t leaving with a head full of complicated instructions. He was leaving with a clearer understanding of his golf swing and a plan for what came next.

What can we all learn from this?

Having coached golfers for many years, I’ve noticed something. When we lose confidence, we often start looking for more things to change. Another video. Another swing thought. A different grip. A new takeaway.

And the more we think about, the more complicated golf becomes.

But here’s something I’d really like you to remember.

A bad golf shot doesn’t necessarily mean you have a bad golf swing.

It means something went wrong with the delivery of the club. The important question is why. Was it your setup? Your clubface? Your balance? Your body movement?

Until we understand the cause, we’re simply guessing. And guessing is a very difficult way to build confidence.

That’s one of the reasons I developed the Timeless Golf Swing®, our evidence-backed, trademarked golf swing philosophy, built around three principles: Free-Flowing Motion, Coordinated Movement and the Six-Second Finish. The aim is to make your golf swing easier to understand, more natural and ultimately more repeatable.

If you’d like to read more about the thinking behind it, you can download a free sample of The Proper Golfing Handbook.

But first, we need to understand what’s really happening.

My final thought

If you’re struggling with your golf at the moment, especially as we head into winter, perhaps you’re closer to playing better golf than you think.

This golfer arrived believing he’d lost his game. Yet the evidence showed he still had plenty of ability. What he’d lost was consistency, clarity and confidence.

By the end of our lesson, his confidence had gone from zero to five out of ten. His golf wasn’t suddenly perfect, and we still had work to do. But he was starting to understand his swing again.

And sometimes that’s the biggest improvement of all.

Because when you understand why something happens, you can start to change it.

And when you start seeing those changes working, confidence has a chance to return. That’s what good coaching should be about. Not making golf more complicated, but making it easier to understand, easier to repeat and, most importantly, more enjoyable to play.

If you’d like to find out what’s really happening in your own swing, a VIP Day at our studio in Leamington Spa gives us the time to gather the facts, build your foundation and leave you with a clear plan.

From the Coaching Vault is part of our ProperGolfing Winter Series, sharing real conversations and discoveries from genuine coaching sessions.