You're Reading: Improving Golf Concentration by Playing Chess
Golf is said to be largely a mental game. It requires a golfer to both exercise disciplined course management and mental toughness. Phil Mickelson credited part of his game’s improvement to his efforts to better focus prior to winning the PGA Championship in 2021 at the age of 50.
If you find yourself losing concentration during a round of golf or never feeling engaged or locked in on the course at all, try playing one of the oldest board games in the world, chess, to improve your mental focus in golf.
Chess Grandmasters are often regarded as geniuses (certainly some are, especially when basing off of IQ). Golf has a considerable mental aspect, yet it is safe to say that the game’s best do not require or have for that matter the IQ of a Magnus Carlsen or Gary Kasparov, each with 190 IQ scores. Nevertheless, studies have shown several benefits from playing chess that can actually improve your golf game and lower your scores.
Studies have shown that playing chess improves one’s ability to concentration. Concentration is naturally built into the game. A lapse in concentration can easily result in a hanging piece (chess term for a piece that can be captured and is unprotected). Furthermore, players must utilize concentration to analyze the board, recognize possible blunders for potential moves, and overall look ahead several moves.
In fact, for those playing at a professional level, the cognitive demands of chess and the amount of brainpower chess players must exert can cause weight loss. Grandmasters “could burn up to 6,000 calories a day.” By contrast, the average American male will burn between 2,000 to 3,000 calories.
At this point, it is worthwhile to clarify a definition. While the terms Focus and Concentration are used interchangeably, there is technically a distinction between the two. Your focus is the thing that you are giving your attention to or “where you choose to concentrate.” Hence, concentration is performed after one achieves focus and is related to the act of directing your energy to what is in your focus.
Now, these terms are not worth tripping yourself up over. However, to be technically correct, on the golf course, we are largely interested in improving our concentration, which is the benefit chess provides. This is not to say that focus is unimportant; yet, it is related more to discipline in its strict definition and, ideally, the discipline to focus on your game will already be present.
Chess has many benefits beyond simply increasing concentration. The following will help your golf game.
Course management is often something that golfers perform subconsciously. For example, course management includes club selection. Assume you are 150 yards out, without too much thought or concentration, you will select your 150-yard club. After making your perfunctory selection, you proceed to make your swing without considering the nuances of the particular shot or the dangers to avoids and the places to miss.
This is fine in that you do not want to be consumed with the trouble that surrounds a given shot. However, being aware of the trouble and pragmatically factoring it into your couse management will increase the likelihood of making a lower score.
The more the process of identifying the best approach shot becomes second nature the better. Chess can help in this area.
When playing chess, you must visually process the board and pieces to find patterns and then use logic to determine the best solution.
Like the situation described above, golfers are constantly faced with comprehending visual objects (rather than mathematical problems for instance) and then making the determination of the best shot to play.
Naturally, establishing a good and consistent pre-shot routine will strengthen your course management as it will force you to evaluate the circumstances involved. Playing chess should improve this process if you have a routine and serve as a good last resort if you do not.
Once you have played a few chess games and you actually and honestly try to make the best possible moves and put your opponent in checkmate, you will understand how every move can be pivotal, especially if you and your opponent are evenly matched.
Ultimately, you should recognize that every move requires acting with intent and having a real reason for doing it. Piggybacking off the last point about identifying patterns and club selection in course management, having more intent will develop a natural inclination to consider more precisely what it is you are doing. In the case of golf, you will be less likely to make the mistake of gripping and ripping it.
Granted, there is something to be said about paralysis over analysis and overthinking. Remaining calm and relaxed like the image Dustin Johnson often portrays has its benefits. He really appears to not put much thought into anything. If that works for you, more power to you.
Dustin Johnson’s pre-shot routine?
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) February 1, 2019
”I get a number, I see what way the wind is blowing and I hit it.” pic.twitter.com/j6RHjYec8x
If you do not possess the same skills and characteristics as D.J., though, taking some time to analyze your shot and consider your intent before you hit your shot will be beneficial. Let’s not forget, D.J., also has his caddy to rely on in case he drifts too far off.
In Jack Nicklaus’s book Play Better Golf, he alludes to adopting a practice establishing intent:
"[T]he more specifically you ‘target’ mentally, the more accurately you will physically aim the clubface and align yourself at address. And the more precisely you do both those things, the better your chances of hitting the ball where you’d like it to go."
— Jack Nicklaus
If you want to achieve optimal performance, you will want to reach your flow state.
“Flow is a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in an activity.”
You have probably found yourself in a state of flow before even if you did not know what it is. Perhaps it happened to you when captivated by a book or when playing a sport. As I am writing this article, I hope to reach my own state of flow in which I am totally immersed in the writing, researching, and composition of ideas. It’s much more fun than staring at a blank screen wondering what to write.
Studies have shown that playing chess is responsible for high levels of theta brain waves similar to those found in people who are in flow state. Athletes will typically perform their best in flow.
If all this talk about flow and theta waves sounds familiar, it is. During the broadcast of Capital One’s “The Match 5” (Brooks Koepka vs. Bryson DeChambeau), Phil Mickelson had a discussion about theta waves and flow with Charles Barkley.
”Get your brain in theta.” 🧠@PhilMickelson and @B_DeChambeau had Charles Barkley’s head spinning. pic.twitter.com/qwIqaH3esX
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 27, 2021
Unfortunately for DeChambeau it did not help his effort in that match as he lost to Koepka 4&3 in the 12-hole match. Perhaps you will have the same baffled take as Charles Barkley, but just know that chess can help you get to flow.
Having discussed the various benefits of playing chess and the connections they have to golf in the general sense, let’s dive into how exactly your game may improve.
In theory, your golf swing itself will not receive any direct benefit. After all, chess, whether you believe it is a sport or not, does not include physical coordination or mobility as does golf.
While you may be more committed to your golf swings, have more confidence due to how greater concentration has lowered your golf scores, and even practice more, these are just indirect benefits. If you lack the fundamentals of the golf swing, playing chess will not grant you the swing of Rory McIlroy. Still you will need to develop the muscles required in a golf swing and train them to perform as though second nature.
What you may find is a boost to your putting performance. You probably find that there are some days where you see the break in the greens and some days where you are flummoxed after every putt. Playing chess and achieving the above listed benefits will not completely eliminate your off days; however, hopefully, you will more consistently find days that your green reading is on point and you surprise yourself with the decreased number of putts that you take in your round.
Your brain is not technically a muscle. However, exercising it, with chess in this case, will strengthen its capabilities similar to exercising your biceps. Ideally, your ability to concentrate will maintain throughout all 18-holes. Unfortunately, amateur golfers usually will play a round of golf in which they suffer a stretch of bad holes that besmirch an otherwise well-played round.
If you can increase the amount of time that you can concentrate by exercising your brain, you may shrink these stretches of holes. Of course, other things than concentration are sometimes to blame for a big number or a series of big numbers on a scorecard. A bad break, lip out, or even your muscles growing too tired to physically perform are common culprits among others.
When you are truly engaged in a game of chess, you will surely be competing to win. This competition can help if you find you lack competitiveness on the golf course when you wish you had it.
The competition in chess also teaches you the importance of end game. End game strategy in chess matches is critical and can mark the difference between an expected victory and a blunder or crafty play by your opponent to achieve a draw or stalemate. There is no real difference in a golf match. After all your work to capture a lead and possibly even a considerable lead, you still need to finish your round off solidly and not fall victim to a collapse that sees your competitor claim the win.
In golf and in chess, you cannot let up regardless of the situation because you never know what could happen.
Lastly, understand that there are no guarantees that your game will improve by playing chess. It depends on your own characteristics. For instance, if you are like Dustin Johnson, chess may prove harmful to your game.
Okay, so the first complication that might arise is finding a partner with which to play this ancient game. If you do not have someone that you can regularly or even somewhat regularly play against, you still have options.
Online platforms like Chess.com, provide the solution. You will have the option to play against bots that will adapt their playing style and level to your ability. You can also play against friends you find in the community or you know in real life when it is not always convenient to meet up in person.
It is important that you play against someone who is going to provide you with a fair challenge: an opponent who is either at your skill level or slightly better. If you play against opponents who are worse than you, you will not be tested nor be required to concentrate as much.
Of course, if you play against someone who is significantly better than you, you may be able to learn better tactics but the game could be too lopsided to gain any benefits. For an extreme example, observe the gameplay of Magnus Carlsen (reigning five-time World Chess Champion) against Bill Gates.
If you really want to see your concentration skyrocket, add some distractions to your game of chess. A great way is to have the television on with the volume up during your game. Ideally, your opponent will not be subjected to this so that your challenge is still the same and only you are disadvantaged. Playing online makes this possible.
The idea in this scenario is not to multitask by watching the television and playing chess. Instead, direct your focus to the game of chess and direct your concentration to the game as well. The television will serve as simply a distraction that you will ignore if you are good enough. If you can still play your game and avoid blunders or hanging pieces, you know that your concentration is on point. Now, if you can actually multitask and watch the television and win your game, you may want to consider a career in chess.
There are other ways to improve your concentration than playing chess. Tiger Woods suggests a mental exercise very similar to that of playing chess with the television on. However, instead of playing chess, his method is reading a book. Unless you have already mastered this ability, you will probably find that you are doing much passive reading rather than active reading and consistently find yourself re-reading paragraphs after realizing you did not actually consume the information.
For Phil Mickelson, as alluded to at the start of the article, he used meditation and breathing to improve his concentration. Additionally, he would practice “36, 45 holes in a day and try to focus on each shot so that when I go out and play 18, it doesn’t feel like it’s that much.”
Again, playing chess will not magically fix your golf swing. Unfortunately, it will also not directly solve the issue of sudden noises that break the white noise or stillness just as you swing.
A chess move occurs over an extended period of time compared to a golf swing, and your thought processes can be restarted as necessary with much less cost after a disruption.
Granted, if a sudden noise disrupts you during your chess move, you may lose your train of thought and make a blunder. Still, though, this is not as detrimental as slicing your ball into the woods (especially if you “never slice” in the first place) 😂.
Furthermore, it is harder and less likely to simulate this kind of random disruptions during a game of chess. By contrast, on the golf course, you have to contend with the sound of a mistimed golf cart or flock of geese.
Secondly, chess can be stressful. If you know, you know.
As with many things, the older you get, the harder it becomes to focus. When Mickelson was younger, he did not feel the need to employ the tactics that he is employing now in order to seek better focus and concentration. Physical exercise can slow down the effects of aging and loss of focus. Cognitive activities too can help.
So, playing chess has several benefits that can play into your golf game and help reduce your scores. Will it prevent you from losing concentration and help you maintain your mental focus during your rounds? You will have to try it to know for sure. It’s your move.
Of course, regardless of your age, improving your concentration may improve your golf game.
