What Will People Think of Me? (And Other Cognitive Missteps of Professional Golfers)

How to Avoid Conditioning Yourself into an Illogical Overthinker

Becoming a professional golfer is a lot like setting off to sea in a canoe: bold, unpredictable, and completely without a map. It’s a path littered with uncertainty and frustration, but also moments of brilliance you won’t find anywhere else. It’s part art, part science, and entirely ridiculous. Along the way, you’ll face moments of glory, stretches of frustration, and the occasional flash of magic that reminds you why you chose this path in the first place. Buckle up, grasshopper—it’s going to be a wild, map-less ride.

When you’re navigating without a map, plenty of wrong turns, detours, and dead ends are inevitable. Some of these cognitive missteps will be innocent: like always placing your ball marker with the “lucky side” facing up, or insisting on parking in the same spot every day after your hot opening round of 68. But other missteps can derail your journey—like leaning on the wrong guidance at the wrong time, or overthinking yourself into paralysis.

There’s no cheat code for this game, but rest assured, there are plenty of ways to make it harder on yourself. Think of these couple of lessons as a starter-guide for the weird, ego-crushing journey you’ve signed up for.

Lesson #1: Novelties Will Wear Off

Just when you’ve resigned yourself to a round full of mishits, the magic appears—a seven-iron you couldn’t replicate if you tried - or a short-sided pitch shot that zips to gimme range. Your first instinct isn’t joy; it’s obsession: “What did I do there?” You want to bottle it, capture the formula, and replicate it forever.

This is the birthplace of placebo swing thoughts, born in the quiet aftermath of a perfect shot and the desperate search for its secret. Following the "Nice shot" from your playing partners, you gaze down at your divot and momentarily zoom out into deep thought.

“What did I feel there?”

As you put the club down in your bag with your left hand, you mimic a golf swing with your right. Something makes sense.

“Ah, that's what it was,” you think.

You quietly nod your head for effect. “Flex the lead wrist,” “Pause like Hideki,” “Look at the front dimple of your golf ball.”

And just like that, you've got a new mental companion joining you on your merry way. At least that's what you think.

These mental comfort foods might work for a hole or two, but they always abandon you, inevitably leaving you scrambling for yet another quick fix.

Overthinking is the fuel for this endless cycle. You start asking yourself questions like, “Should I narrow my stance?” “Is my grip too weak?” “The guy I’m playing with is four under with a super-deep backswing. Maybe that’s what I need to do?” In the moment, these thoughts feel productive—like you’re solving a problem and improving yourself—but when aggregated, they’re just distractions at best.

The real damage of your constant questioning and overthinking is you quickly create a new equilibrium for yourself. You train your brain to search for comfort in novelty instead of trusting the fundamentals you’ve worked hard to build. It’s like training for a marathon for six months and then deciding to run it in flip-flops because they’re ‘comfy.’

Your pavlovian response after a couple of bad shots has become to immediately treat your swing like a broken appliance—desperately fiddling with knobs and switches hoping to fix it.

So, how do you break free from the endless cycle of chasing quick fixes? Well, swing thoughts aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves; a large portion of tour players compete with them daily. I’d love to offer you a groundbreaking AI solution, or at least a divine golf mantra that sounds cooler than “trust the process” to solve your problems. But there’s a reason “Trust the process” is the Vitamin C of golf advice—it remedies most things.

The key lies in sticking to playing thoughts that align with your long-term mechanics and mental approach, rather than chasing the shiny new idea that feels good for 10 minutes. The best remedy I’ve found is to develop a simple, repeatable routine that focuses on—wait for it—the process, not the outcome. Make that process fit your personality. Are you data-driven? Great, rate your commitment to your routines and track your progress over time. Make all the fancy charts you’d like in order to increase your buy-in. More of a learning-by-doing guy? Awesome—verbally debrief your round with someone patient enough to listen afterward (and consider buying them a beer every once in a while as an appreciation of their service).

When things go awry, hold steady in your swing thought canoe. Don’t abandon “ship” over a single poor shot. Chances are, it’s just variance working against you. Thanks to a statistical phenomenon called “regression to the mean,” your next shot is likely to improve—all without you changing a thing.

Lesson #2: Accept That This Pursuit Is Yours, and Yours Only

Ah, the eternal question: WWPTOM—What Will People Think of Me?

It’s that sneaky, uninvited guest on the first tee, whispering things like, “What if your coach sees this disaster?” or “What will your old high school buddies think if they see this?”

Here’s the thing: they’re usually not even noticing. Researchers call this the “spotlight effect,” a cognitive bias where we believe others are paying far more attention to us than they actually are. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it’s a persistent one—just ask anyone who’s ever tripped in public. The truth is, most people are too caught up in their own lives to care about your three-putt on the 18th. Their focus is on their own “crises,” like their toddler’s latest crayon mural or the eternal struggle of “What’s for dinner?”

Voilà, you’re welcome—I’ve just crossed off most of the names on your WWPTOM list. Easier said than done, I know, but here’s the truth: if those people aren’t the ones you’d call in a crisis or lean on for advice, then their opinions—real or imagined—don’t matter.

Now, let’s get to the epicenter of the WWPTOM storm—your inner circle: your family, coaches, and a handful of close friends. These are the people I can’t scratch off any list for you, because they matter. They matter because they care. Some are fully invested in your game—the over-invested dad who expects a full play-by-play after every round or your coach dutifully breaking down all of your tournament stats. Others are more laid-back, sending the occasional “Nice round” text.

Here’s the freeing truth: they don’t care about your golf nearly as much as you think they do—they care about you. Your dad’s friend might be pitching in for your tournament entry fees, but it’s not because he’s mesmerized with your wedge game. It’s because you’re someone worth supporting. Your uncle might brag about you getting through Q-School, but let’s be real—he wouldn’t if you were a total nightmare to be around.

When you’re sweating that 5-footer to make the cut and the WWPTOM storm rolls in, don’t waste energy fighting it. Instead, channel it. Their investment in you is about who you are, not what you shoot. Your job isn’t to validate their support by never screwing up. Your job is to keep going. And maybe to cheer for them in return. That’s all anyone who matters really expects.

Although you’ll definitely step in other illogical potholes on your way, grasshopper — you’re at least aware of a couple of the bad ones now. Try to take this lesson to heart, and recognize the cognitive missteps for what they are when they appear. Best of luck on your voyage — it will be absolutely beautiful and absurd.