One of those days

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had similar days.

I highly recommend trying your best not to know what your score is mid round. Every time I’ve broken 80 I didn’t know exactly what my score was until the end.

I have gotten to the level where I just can tell I’m stringing together several good holes and may have a chance to post a score. Instead of adding up to see where I am, I just tell myself that I’m a better player now and I start having more fun because this is how it feels to be a solid golfer. Then I just start enjoying each shot and when I hit a poor one I just shake it off as the exception and trust that most likely I take my medicine and get the shot back on another hole.

Most people I know that finally break 80 don’t realize it until after their last shot. You should still be proud and happy you tied a personal best. The one thing you don’t need to take away from the round is that thought that you aren’t able to finish or close strong.

I agree with your advice and appreciate the post. I hardly ever look at my score mid-round but for whatever reason when I was going to 18 I thought "dang, I've had a good run on the back 9" and looked down and noticed I had 7 pars and a bogey. That's where I messed up.

I know the feeling man. I’ll never forget the time I was on my way to my best round ever then finished triple, double, double. Took me a while to get past that round mentally.

You’ll break 80. Typically, when you least expect it.

Had a buddy with the same problem, he could shoot 80 with no problem but just could not break 80. He once was looking to make par on 18 to shoot 77 … drive down the middle, perfect lay up to 90 yards … then he shanked two balls in the pond to the right of the green … he ended up making a triple and proceeded to get both drunk and mean.

I have issues when I try to play safe to save a score also. The issue for me is there is a difference between playing safe and swinging safe. All golf swings need to be relatively aggressive - if you let up, bad things happen. So I need to learn to make conservative club/shot choices, but hit the shot aggressively. Cautious swings lead to bad things happening.

I don’t know about all the “I’m a better golfer stuff” but I play my best when I don’t know where I stand / don’t know my score / goes more to probably playing “one shot at a time”, but some people deal with that differently