April 19, 2026
Karl Morris — performance coach to 6 Major Champions — explains why most golfers never improve, and the mental shifts that actually make the difference. No generic advice. No swing tips.
I've spent the better part of thirty years standing next to golfers on practice ranges, watching them bash ball after ball into the distance. Some of those golfers went on to win Major Championships. Most didn't improve at all.
Here's what I've noticed: the golfers who get better aren't always the ones who practise the most. They're the ones who understand something that most players never quite grasp — that improving at golf isn't primarily about what you do, it's about how you think about what you do.
If you've been searching for how to get better at golf and you're expecting a list of swing tips and practice drills, I'd gently suggest that's part of the problem.
Let me explain.
The sports psychologist Tim Gallwey wrote something years ago that I've never been able to shake. He put forward a simple equation:
Performance = Potential – Interference
Your Potential is essentially your technique — everything you've learned, every lesson you've taken, every hour you've spent on the range. Most golfers spend almost all of their energy trying to add to that side of the equation. More lessons. More tips. More practice.
But here's what they miss: the Interference side of the equation is often where the real game is lost.
Interference is everything that stops you delivering on your potential. It's the moment a bad shot contaminates the next one. It's playing a hole fearfully because of what happened there last week. It's the voice in your head analysing your downswing while you're trying to hit a golf shot. It's unrealistic expectations that turn a bogey into a catastrophe.
I've worked with players who had beautiful swings and couldn't break 80 consistently. I've worked with players with technically imperfect swings who competed at the highest levels of the game. The difference was almost always in how much interference they let into their performance.
The honest truth is this: most golfers would play significantly better tomorrow without changing a single thing about their swing — if they could reduce the amount of interference they bring to the course.
One of the most powerful — and most overlooked — factors in getting better at golf is the story you carry about yourself as a golfer.
What do you believe about your ability? What story do you tell yourself after a bad shot? What narrative runs through your head when you step onto the first tee?
I've seen golfers who are "technically" playing well but are losing shots to a story of self-doubt they've rehearsed so thoroughly it runs on autopilot. And I've seen players pull off shots that exceeded their apparent ability because, in that moment, they genuinely believed they could.
This isn't about positive thinking in the vague, motivational-poster sense of the term. It's about recognising that the mind is not a neutral observer of your performance — it is an active participant in it. What you think shapes what you do. The story you tell has consequences.
Start paying attention to the story. Not to change it overnight, but simply to become aware of it. Awareness is always the first step.
There's a body of research — much of it from neuroscientist Dr Gabriele Wulf — that has quietly transformed how the best coaches in the world think about skill development.
The key finding is this: where you place your attention during a golf shot matters enormously. There are broadly two types of focus — internal and external.
An internal focus means you're thinking about your body. Your hip turn, your grip pressure, your shoulder rotation. It feels productive. It feels like you're "working on your game." But research consistently shows it actually increases muscle tension and reduces performance. When you focus internally, you are, in a sense, getting in your own way.
An external focus means you're thinking about the effect you want to create — the flight of the ball, the target, where you want the club to travel through the hitting area. And the research is clear: external focus produces better, more fluid, more consistent performance.
Dr Wulf found that golfers who used external focus improved their skill acquisition by around 33% compared to those using internal cues. That's not a marginal gain. That's a significant shift, available to you right now, without changing anything about your swing.
The next time you're on the range or on the course, notice where your attention is. Is it on your body, or is it on what you want the ball to do? That simple shift could be worth several shots a round.
I want to address something that most golfers find uncomfortable, because it's important.
Golf is the ultimate game of consequence. Every shot counts. Every contact goes on the card. There is nowhere to hide in the scoring column.
Yet watch the average golfer on the range and you'll see something very different. Ball after ball, with no target, no score, no consequence, no routine. It feels like practice. It rarely is.
What most golfers are actually doing when they hit a bucket of balls is rehearsing motion, not training performance. And those are very different things.
Here's a simple question to ask yourself: does your practice have consequence? Is there a score involved? Is there a target? One ball, one shot, one chance?
When you replicate the conditions of the game in your practice — when there's something at stake, even something small — your brain engages differently. You learn differently. You improve differently.
I created a short game game years ago called Par 18 for exactly this reason. You play nine unique chip shots with a single ball, you putt out every time, and you score yourself against a par of 18. Simple. But because there's consequence, because every shot matters, the quality of what you're doing goes to another level. The brain is engaged. You're training, not just hitting balls.
This principle applies throughout the game. Add consequence to your practice and watch what happens.
Here's something I see constantly and it costs golfers dearly: the bad shot debrief.
A poor shot is hit and immediately the analysis begins. What did I do wrong? Why did that go right? What was my alignment? The golfer becomes a detective, scouring the scene of the crime for evidence.
This is understandable. It feels responsible. It feels like learning.
But what it actually does is lock your attention onto the negative and contaminate the next shot before you've even prepared for it. The emotion from a bad shot — the frustration, the irritation — bleeds directly into what comes next.
The golfers I've worked with who score best on any given day are not the ones with the fewest bad shots. They're the ones who recover from bad shots most quickly. They hit one poor shot and it's gone. They move on.
This is not denial. It's not about pretending the shot didn't happen. It's about understanding that once a shot is played, your relationship to it is the only thing you can still control — and that relationship will directly influence the next shot.
Learning to let go quickly is one of the most practical skills you can develop. It is also, in my experience, one of the highest-value things you can work on if you want to get better at golf.
If I had to distil thirty years of working with golfers — from club players who just want to enjoy their Saturday medal a little more, all the way to Major Champions — into the most honest answer I can give to the question "how do I get better at golf?", it would be this:
Work on your swing, yes. Get lessons from a good coach. Develop your skills. All of that matters. But recognise that at every level of the game, a strong mental approach allows you to get the best out of what you've already got. And most golfers are leaving a lot of that on the table.
The gap between how well you currently play and how well you're capable of playing isn't only in your swing. A significant part of it is in your mind — in the story you tell, the attention you bring, the interference you allow, and the quality of your practice.
Those things you can start working on today.
Karl Morris is a performance coach who has worked with 6 Major Champions and two Ryder Cup teams. The Mind Caddie app brings Karl's mental game coaching directly to your phone — with structured programmes, guided audio lessons, and Karl AI, a coaching tool you can speak to before, during, and after your round. Explore the app here →
Money back guarantee if you follow the app for three months and do not see an improvement in your game.
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