HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

Ration your passion to optimise performance

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A poor golfer by his own admission, Groucho Marx left us with some memorable quotes about the game. It was he who told us that if we need a doctor, we should call the nearest golf course. He famously revealed that he wouldn't want to join any club that would have him as a member. But perhaps one of his most insightful quotes wasn't about golf at all. When he said, "Fan the flames of love with the bellows of indifference," he just might have been on to something.

Whether or not golf is addictive, it is without question a hard game to leave alone... and obsession is rarely healthy. Even if we absolutely adore the game - in fact in many cases because we absolutely adore the game - we can overdo it. And when we do, the quality of our play typically nosedives. If we want to play our best golf more often, we need to learn to meter the passion we feel for the game. And here is why.

To perform at our best, we need enthusiasm. Enthusiasm isn't just an enjoyable state of mind; it promotes engagement, focus, a better quality of attention. All of those have clear benefits to our performance. When we don't have enthusiasm, our interest and application plummet. We become easily distracted, give up easily, get bored.

To underline the relationship between performance and overdoing it, consider the generally accepted stat on tour that 85% of players make 85% of their cash in just three tournaments each year.