I used to think the shakiest part of my game was the part where I got mad. Turns out that's backwards. In this one, I'm closing out our five-part series on Jared Tendler's Everyday Golf Psychology with the idea that changed how I think about every bad shot I hit.

There's a reason the best poker players in the world don't try to calm down when they're furious — and the same logic applies the next time you slam a club after a three-putt. I'll walk through exactly how to use that feeling instead of fighting it, and how it ties the whole series together.

Greg Norman had a six-shot lead at the Masters and the exact same swing that got him there. By the back nine, it was gone. Same motion, same guy — so what actually changed?

Today on Close the Gap, we're looking at why the range and the course are never really the same task, even when the swing is identical. It's the reason "just practice more" doesn't always fix Sunday

In 1997, a college golfer stood over four short putts at a U.S. Open qualifier — and missed every one, losing a playoff spot by exactly one shot. Most people would've spent the rest of their life trying to forget that afternoon.

This guy went the other way. He turned it into a twenty-year career studying exactly why golfers fall apart under pressure — and today I get into what he actually did with that failure, and why your worst round might be more useful than you think.

Ever notice how one guy takes a bad bounce in stride, and another guy is still complaining about it three holes later? Turns out that reaction says more about your scorecard than your swing ever will.

Today we're getting into one of the most misunderstood parts of the mental game — and it might explain more of your bad rounds than you think.

There's a line about golf so famous almost everybody's repeated it without ever really thinking about it — and it turns out it might be completely wrong. Today kicks off a five-part series built around a brand new book from a coach who's worked with Tour pros and world champion poker players.

Stick around for the story of a missed four-footer that changed one man's whole career, and a much better way to think about what your mental game is actually there to do.

Every golfer thinks replaying their worst shots is how they get better. Turns out there's real research showing that's only true if you do it a very specific way, and most people are doing the exact opposite without knowing it.

There's a tiny shift, something as small as one word in your head, that decides whether a bad shot teaches you something or just ruins the rest of your round. This one closes out our Bad Advice series, and it might be the most useful habit in the whole run.

I used to think the golfers hitting the most range balls were doing everything right. Turns out there's a second half to that practice most people never get to — and it's the half that actually shows up on the course.

There's a batting practice study from the nineties, and a quieter follow-up on golfers, that together explain why some grinders never seem to close the gap between the range and a real round. Once you hear the fix, it's a two-minute change to how you already practice.

There's an experiment I can't stop thinking about. Researchers offered people in rural India a month's pay to win one simple game of skill — and the ones with the most on the line played the worst, by a mile. I'll tell you what that has to do with the four-footer you need to win your match, and why the most natural advice in golf might be quietly costing you the shots that matter most.

If you've ever stood over a putt, told yourself "this one counts," and watched it slide by, this episode is for you. There's a reason it happens, it's measurable, and it has a name. And the fix isn't trying harder — it's almost the exact opposite, and I think it'll change how you handle pressure for good.

Part two of my new series, Bad Advice — the five bits of golf wisdom everybody repeats that the research quietly disagrees with. Every golfer knows the feeling: first tee, shaky hands, and a little voice telling you to calm down. But what if that voice has been sabotaging your game this whole time? Today I dig into a Harvard study that flipped everything I thought I knew about pre-shot nerves.

It turns out the line between choking and coming through might come down to a single thing you say to yourself before you swing. I'll walk you through what it is, why it works, and the hundred-year-old science proving your nerves were never the enemy. This one might change your first tee for good.

There's one piece of advice you've heard on every first tee of your life, and I'm convinced it's quietly sabotaging your golf. It sounds supportive. It feels harmless. But there's a psychology study that shows it backfires hardest on the exact people who reach for it.

In this one, I get into why you can't summon a feeling on command, and what actually holds up when you make a double and everything starts to slide. It comes down to two simple things you can do before your next round, and neither of them is a pep talk. Press play, and let's kill this advice for good.