No Golf Magic Today

So now that I know I am capable of having the kind of game, and hitting the kind of shots I hit last week at Roosevelt, now that I know I have hit bogey golf for 9 holes, let's see about doing it for the 2 Sundays in a row. Today I even had an extra hour of sleep because it is the end of Daylight Savings time, the time marker where the day gets darker faster. Something I really really don't like but something we put up with until Spring. It is an ushering in of the cold season and the coming winter, at least here in LA. I actually had pretty good sleep last night, which only means I didn't binge watch on anything really. That would come later on tonight LOL. But before golf this morning, I walked to McDonalds and had a proper breakfast. And had a mug of tea as well. So really I had no excuses not to do well. I tried to think of what I did prior to my game last week that helped. It wasn't any visualization or affirmation or anything like that I don't think. Simply I successfully turned off that inner dialogue of fear and not doing well. I was able to suppress the negative programming that I don't play well and instead got myself relaxed shot after shot after shot. Consequently, I hit more good shots than not. I hit more great shots than not. And I got into a rhythm the entire morning. Now how to do that again this morning? I guess I could have started with paying attention to my thoughts. There wasn't anything in particular or anything unusual that I remember that stuck out. I remember practicing swings from the fairway mentally. I think that was the difference in last week's game. I was hitting my long irons from the fairway really really well. And I hoped to do it again today, particularly since it is a longer course. I remember trying to focus on hitting rather than NOT whiffing. Today we were paired with the same guys from a couple of weeks ago. Big young guys who swing for the fences and more often than not miss badly. But when they connect, the ball does go long. I think remembering 2 weeks ago must have triggered something because right from my very first shot, I missed the ball badly. I topped the ball so bad, it rolled 2 inches from the tee. Wow. And my next attempt was a dribbler to the left that didn't even go 50 yards. Needless to say I had maybe one good shot in 8 attempted in this first hole. Such a far cry from last week already. And now I knew I had to settle down somehow. Because I already knew I got myself speeded up and I needed to RELAX and SLOW DOWN. It took until Hole 3 for me to do that and finally belted a drive over 200 yards from the tee box. And I actually hit a bogey 6 on this hole. Encouraging. Until the next hole when I missed my tee shot again. And then on the long Hole 5, I blasted it again from the tee. Probably the longest tee shot I had ever hit from that hole. But I wasted it with 2 lousy follow-up shots from the fairway. Damn. I got one more bogey on Hole 7. But it should not have counted because I actually lost the ball on the left side and just dropped it near where I thought it landed. I hit great shots after that though. The short Hole 8 and Hole 9 I hit decent tee shots but again messed up the putts this time. In other words, there would be no magic today. I felt like I regressed. I need to find a way to settle down earlier. It was all in my head. That much I was sure.