Our learning style begins at an early age. We are taught to look at what is wrong, not what is right. We are taught to be modest, not to be conceited, not to be self centered, to be humble, to expect success, to take our success for granted, to be crisis oriented, to put out the fires of life. If our parent and peer models handled adversity with anger, throwing objects, yelling at others or similar behavior, these styles tend to become part of our repertoire of behavior patterns when we experience difficulty in the same or similar situations. If, for example, your father yelled and pounded the steering wheel when cut off by another car, you were learning that yelling and physical aggression were acceptable behaviors when goals were blocked or others interfered with your goal.

The process of long term memory occurs in that part of the brain that is also responsible for emotion. That is why you recall things from your past that have an emotional charge associated with them. These memories are laced with excitement, happiness, anger, frustration, loss or acquisition. Thoughts and images of these past events are capable of producing a smile and feelings of happiness or fueling a feeling of frustration or rage.

The physiology of anger produces extreme nervous system arousal. This extreme arousal includes muscle tension, quickened movement and impaired judgement, all a sure formula for disaster on the golf course. I am not suggesting that anger can’t work for some players. In fact I have a few (very few) students for whom anger wakes them up and helps them get refocused. For the majority of players, anger is a self-destructive process. Sam Snead said he saw many promising amateurs and pros allow anger to ruin their game. Snead was the first to acknowledge that you have to have fire to compete, but you must learn to control the flame.

Years ago many psychotherapists advocated venting anger, getting it out. Many therapeutic environments had clients beating furniture and each other with pillow clubs. Research has subsequently demonstrated that once anger is expressed, it fuels the further expression of anger. In other words, anger expression spirals anger out of control.