Hey Fellow Golfer - 

Thank you for reading this week’s More Pars Than Bogeys Newsletter. If you find it valuable, could you forward this email to a fellow golfer?

Thank you.

You can click here to read the online version of this week’s newsletter. 

And be sure to catch up on this week’s podcast episodes:

#54: [Inside the Mind] Henry Stetina: Simplify Your Short-Game, Slow Down, and Play Better Golf

P.S. On January 25, 2025, I’m hosting the first-ever virtual Mental Game of Golf Summit, providing insight, strategies, and frameworks to make playing to your potential a habit. 

You can join me, Josh Nichols, Michael Leonard, and a handful of other brilliant minds for a jam-packed day of learning.

Early-bird tickets are on sale and you can snag yours here. 

You step onto the first tee, take a deep breath, and stripe one straight down the middle of the fairway. 

For a moment, you feel unstoppable. 

But two holes later, you're trudging through the woods, searching for your ball, and wondering, "What happened?"

Sound familiar?

Consistency can feel like an impossible puzzle, something you catch glimpses of but never seem to hold onto. Most golfers think consistency is playing flawlessly every round or sticking to a weekly practice routine. 

But here’s the hard truth: most people underestimate what it really means to be consistent.

Consistency isn’t about the occasional good swing or a few days of effort. It’s about showing up repeatedly, even when it’s frustrating. It’s about trusting a process that builds habits over time. And most importantly, it’s about learning to recover, adapt, and stay focused when things don’t go as planned.

If you’ve ever felt the frustration of a scattered round or the disappointment of “falling off track,” you’re not alone. But the good news is that consistency isn’t magic - it’s a skill you can develop with the right mindset and approach.

Consistency is one of the most coveted goals for golfers because it represents reliability, control, and confidence in their performance. 

However, most golfers misunderstand what consistency truly means and how to achieve it. Consistency is less about flawless execution and more about understanding patterns, managing variables, and building trust in a repeatable process.

In today’s newsletter, you’ll learn what consistency truly means, understand why it’s a process (not a quick fix), and discuss how you can incorporate it into your game to achieve lasting improvement.

Let’s tee off!

Consistency on the Course

Consistency is the reliable ability to repeat effective actions, behaviors, and processes over time, resulting in steady, measurable progress and improved performance.

Consistency isn’t about being perfect; it’s about showing up, regardless of yesterday’s outcome and how you feel today.

It results from deliberate habits, intentional focus, and emotional resiliency.

Consistency is a superpower and a byproduct of commitment.

Yes, consistency can be viewed as a habit, but describing it as the outcome of consistently practiced habits is more accurate. In other words, consistency results from repeating intentional behaviors, routines, and patterns over time until they become automatic.

In golf, consistency emerges from the habits you build, specifically, the habits around your mindset, practice, pre-shot routines, emotional regulation, and recovery after mistakes. 

It’s not something you “do” directly; it’s something you earn through committed repetition and focus on the process.

In the game of golf, consistency shows up as…

1. Reliability in Performance: Consistency means performing similarly across multiple rounds, holes, or shots. It’s not about playing perfectly but minimizing drastic highs and lows so your game feels predictable and under control.

2. Trust in a Repeatable Process: Consistency is rooted in trusting a repeatable routine, from pre-shot setup to swing mechanics. It’s about following the same steps every time, no matter the pressure or conditions.

3. Emotional Steadiness: Consistency in golf isn’t just physical - it’s mental and emotional. It’s maintaining calmness, focus, and a positive attitude, even after a bad shot or frustrating hole, to avoid letting emotions derail your performance.

4. Quality Over Quantity: Consistency is repeatedly executing quality shots within your abilities. It’s not about being perfect but delivering your best effort repeatedly, whether hitting fairways, making solid contact, or managing the course effectively.

5. The Ability to Recover Quickly: Consistency also means bouncing back from mistakes with minimal damage. It’s not avoiding errors entirely but being able to recover, reset, and refocus so they don’t spiral into more significant setbacks.

What Consistency Is and Is Not

In nearly 16 years of coaching thousands of individuals, I’ve found that most people underestimate what it means to be consistent. Consistency isn’t doing what you’re supposed to do two days in a row, nor is it taking action toward your goal this week.

Most golfers underestimate what consistency truly means because they view it as short-term effort, think hitting the range two days in a row, committing to practice this week, or having one “focused” round. But real consistency isn’t about isolated actions; it’s about long-term commitment to a process that builds results over time.

One “good” week of practice doesn’t create sustainable progress. Consistency comes from showing up regularly, not sporadically. The real magic happens when you keep going long after the initial excitement fades.

Practicing for three days straight feels great, but it’s the golfer who practices small, deliberate skills every week for months who actually improves.

Consistency is not a short-term burst of effort. It’s a process of showing up, doing the work, and trusting in incremental progress over the long haul. Like compound interest, small, intentional actions add up. 

The process is slow, but it’s dependable. The more you repeat a productive behavior - like a pre-shot routine or focused practice - the stronger the habit becomes. It’s not about one perfect swing - it’s about building a repeatable motion you can trust through thousands of intentional repetitions.

4 Common Misconceptions About Consistency

Below are several other misunderstandings and misconceptions about what consistency is and how to cultivate it.

1. Consistency Means Hitting Perfect Shots Every Time: Many golfers believe consistency means flawlessly executing every swing or making every putt. In reality, even the best players miss shots, but they minimize errors and recover quickly. 

For example, on the PGA Tour in 2024, the leader in fairways hit the fairway 72 percent of the time and the leader in greens in regulation was 74 percent.

2. I Can Achieve Consistency Overnight: There’s a misconception that a quick fix, tip, or one great lesson will make their game consistent. True consistency takes time, intentional practice, and mental discipline to build strict habits.

You won’t develop consistency with a swing upgrade after one lesson with your coach or after watching the same YouTube video twice. It takes time. And, if you can learn to fall in love with cultivating consistency, it’ll happen faster.

3. Consistency Comes from Mechanics Alone: Golfers often think fixing their swing mechanics will instantly lead to consistency. While mechanics are important, consistency is equally (if not more) influenced by mindset, emotional regulation, and focus.

Think about how well you can hit the ball or implement your new swing thought on the range compared to on the course. Equally - if not more - important to being consistent in your swing practice is being consistent in your physical, emotional, and mental resiliency practices. 

Learn how hiring a high-performance hypnotherapist and mindset coach can help you 10X your speed of success on and off the course.

4. More Practice Automatically Equals More Consistency: Many assume spending more time on the range will guarantee consistent results. However, without purposeful, structured, and mindful practice, those hours may reinforce bad habits rather than develop consistency.

Why Consistency is So Hard

Inconsistency often stems from having too much on your mind or too many commitments on your plate, leaving little energy to fully commit to and execute a process with intention and effort.

As I shared in last week’s newsletter on the power of cultivating strategic tunnel vision, this mental overload leads to what I call scatterbrain.

Scatterbrain focus happens when your mind is pulled in too many directions at once. Picture standing over the ball while thinking about your grip, stance, swing path, tempo, course strategy, and that missed putt from two holes ago - all at the same time. Instead of gaining clarity, this overload overwhelms your brain’s ability to process information, creating confusion, hesitation, and poor execution.

In golf, trying to think about everything is the fastest way to achieve nothing. The same applies to your approach to improvement - trying to tackle everything at once doesn’t speed up progress; it slows you down. It overloads your mental capacity, leads to inconsistent results, erodes confidence, and kills flow and enjoyment.

The solution? 

A strategic, simplified approach. Focus on one area at a time. 

By narrowing your attention to a single swing thought, goal, or aspect of your game, you’ll eliminate mental clutter, learn faster, and play more confidently and consistently.

This is where strategic tunnel vision becomes your ally.

But here’s the reality most golfers overlook: consistency is boring.

The stories of overnight success you see in blogs, books, and podcasts are often misleading. They skip over the long periods of deliberate, consistent work that paved the way for those breakthroughs. In a world addicted to quick fixes and instant gratification, the unglamorous truth about consistency often gets lost.

It’s not flashy. It’s not exciting.

Consistency is showing up and doing the work - again and again - when no one is watching. Like a golfer grinding away on the range or sticking to a pre-shot routine, the small, repeated actions build the foundation for big results.

If you can embrace the “boring” parts of the process, you’ll find that consistency isn’t just the key to improvement - it’s the secret to unlocking your full potential.

You can learn more specifically about hypnosis (what it is not, what it is, how it works, and how I use it to help my clients unlock their potential) in either of these recent resources:

• “How Hypnosis Can Help You Improve Your Golf Game.”

• Episode #7 of the Scratch Golfer’s Mindset Podcast

• Grab your free hypnosis audio recording to play your best round

How to Create Consistency

Consistency is one of the most coveted goals for many because it represents reliability, control, and confidence in their performance. 

However, most misunderstand what consistency truly means and how to achieve it. Below, I’ve outlined several best practices and reminders to help you cultivate consistency.

1. Start Small - Commit to Smaller Chunks: Building consistency doesn’t require a massive overhaul of your game all at once. Start with one small area, like your pre-shot routine or 5-foot putts. Mastering small, manageable steps builds momentum and confidence over time.

2. Less is More - Don’t Try to Be Consistent with 10 Things at Once: Focus on improving one or two aspects of your game instead of spreading yourself thin. Trying to fix everything at once often leads to frustration and burnout. Narrowing your focus ensures more meaningful progress.

3. Connect It to the End Goal - How Does This Action Step Impact Your Ultimate Goal? Every step you take should move you closer to your long-term goal, whether it’s breaking 80, becoming a single-digit handicap, or enjoying the game more. Knowing how today’s practice session impacts your goal makes the work feel worthwhile and provides purpose to needing to sink 50 5-foot putts by the end of the day.

4. Know Your Why - Why Does This Action Step Matter to You? When you connect your actions to a deep personal reason, it’s easier to stay motivated. Maybe it’s to feel more confident on the first tee or to prove to yourself you can master the mental side of golf.

When you know why you’re playing - whether it’s to compete, connect with friends, or test your limits - it becomes easier to stay consistent in the work needed to improve.

5. Schedule Time for It Daily/Weekly: Consistency is a habit, and habits thrive on routine. Whether it’s a dedicated 10 minutes for mental practice, range work, or putting drills, make it a non-negotiable part of your schedule. Just like scheduling your tee time, carving out regular practice ensures you show up ready to improve.

6. Anchor It with an Existing Habit: Pair your new consistency-building practice with something you already do to exponentially increase the likelihood that this new behavior also becomes a habit.

For example, if you have a putting mat in your garage and each night after work you walk from your driveway and into your house through your garage, consider a non-negotiable rule of needing to make ten putts before you enter the house.

And remember this: you’re one action away from getting back on track.

***

As a Golf Hypnotherapist, I use hypnosis to unlearn and upgrade outdated, habitual ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving that are holding you back from your potential.

Click here to schedule a Mindset Coaching Discovery Call to learn how I can help you make playing to your potential a habit. 

Your Next Step

Every newsletter will conclude with a suggested action step and further resources on the topic we discussed.

After reading today’s newsletter, I want you to identify one specific aspect of your game in which you’ve been inconsistent. Write it down and explore it with curiosity. Then, outline a list of action steps that will allow you to build the habits necessary to cultivate consistency. 

Thank you for reading today’s newsletter.

If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow golfer ready to take their game to the next level.

Until next time,

Paul

P.S. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Reply back / drop a comment below to let me know.

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