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Croquet enthusiasts at every level of the game have many resources to draw on to improve their game. Subjects like shot making, shot selection, break play and triple peels are exhaustively covered on the web and in USCA books and videos. But the literature is strangely silent on the one aspect of croquet that causes more losses than any other: the mental game. All of us have choked on a critical wicket shot in a tournament, or made a tactical blunder during last turn, yet there are no articles on how to avert these mental errors.Stress prevents the vast majority of players from playing anywhere near their potential. Yet the behaviors and techniques needed to conquer stress and win the mental game can be learned just as surely as tactics and shot making. Below are techniques and rituals to deal effectively with stress, turning it from a negative force of distraction into a positive source of creative energy.
Confident humility.
The central paradox of the mental game lies in the tension between confidence and humility: to win you must be confident in your shot making and your strategy, yet if you are not truly humble before your competitors—especially those with higher handicaps—your loss is assured. The winning temperament is neither arrogant nor fearful; it is a healthy mixture of confidence in your own ability and respect for your opponent’s.
To bolster your confidence in your own abilities, think back to the time when you made a particularly good shot or won a tough match against a strong competitor. In the days before a tournament and the minutes before an important match, dwell on your successes and the facts they support by telling yourself, “I’m a competent player with solid abilities.” If you have no successes to draw on, then tell yourself, “There is no pressure on me because I have nowhere to go but up.” Both these statements are effective because they’re true. Even the most skillful liar cannot fool himself, so focus on positive affirming facts, and repeat them until your repetition becomes unconscious.
Respect me now or respect me later.
To develop respect for your opponents, think back on all the times you lost to a higher handicap player. Opponents are like hotplates: you can either respect them from the start, or you’ll respect them after they burn you; either way, you’re going to respect them. Better to respect your opponent before the match than to get burned and respect him afterward. This is especially true when playing higher handicaps; there is no surer way to defeat than to believe you are better than your opponent and that victory is assured.
Shoot to win.
When confronted with very stressful situations, humans tend to revert to the behaviors they have practiced in drills or simulations. The Secret Service’s presidential protection detail has shooting drills every day because they want their agents’ response to a crisis to be second nature. The stakes in croquet may be lower, but the effect of practicing rituals is the same: predictable performance under pressure. It is crucial to develop and repeat positive messages during practice, so that when you approach a wicket shot in a tourney, you revert to the same positive messages and rituals that allowed you to run the hoop effortlessly in practice.
Mantra, mantra, mantra.
At a recent tourney where four of the five other players in my block had lower handicaps, I decided to adopt the theme, “The only thing I have to lose is my handicap.” There is no shame in losing to a lower handicap, because the expected outcome is that the higher handicap will lose. Dwelling on that simple fact was tremendously liberating and allowed me to play with abandon. Before, during and after every shot, I repeated, “The only thing I have to lose is my handicap.”
Indeed, approaching the last wicket shot in the final, I was relaxed and calm because my repeating message was the same one I had been hearing before every wicket shot all week: “I have nothing to lose but my handicap.” After you win the match, you’ll have plenty of time to focus on all the stress you overcame. The key is not to focus on it during your match.
It’s a mallet, not a roller coaster handrail.
A prerequisite to overcoming stress is recognizing it. Different people manifest stress differently, but two common symptoms are dry mouth and a white-knuckle grip on your mallet. When these symptoms occur, take a drink of water—by itself a useful diversion—and consciously relax your grip. As you stalk your wicket shot, repeat to yourself, “I feel the stress draining out of my arms.” And then, as if by magic, it will. It sounds hokey, but it works.
Once your grip is back to normal, return to your positive message du jour: “I’ve been making these wicket shots all day,” or “The only thing I have to lose is my handicap,” or whatever theme you’ve chosen. Again, the potency of the message is directly correlated with its truthfulness.
Go negative.
We’ve all indulged in the guilty pleasure of gloating when our opponent is six balls dead. Sometimes there is actually merit to focusing on your opponent’s difficulties. When stress intrudes on your game and your positive messages are unavailing, go negative, i.e., focus on your opponent’s sources of stress. For example, when you are running a difficult break against a player with a lower handicap, and stress begins to distract you, say to yourself, “Think of the pressure he must be under; he’s got both tracking points and prestige on the line, while I have nothing to lose but my handicap.” This technique is effective not because it affects your opponent, but because it distracts you from your own sources of stress.
Tactical messages tailored to the situation at hand can also be invaluable. While waiting to play the top seed at a tourney last year, I watched her absolutely clobber another player. Like a boxing match between two mismatched opponents, watching this was unnerving. I decided to take a look at the scoreboard to seek some solace there. Sure enough, I had clobbered this same player worse than she had, and my average score per game was higher than hers. I repeated those messages to myself over and over, and they helped me calm down and win.
In the semifinals of a recent tournament, my opponent had kept me stymied and dead for over an hour, and I was 10 wickets down going into last turn. I remembered the words of my mentor, Mark Blundell: “It’s not about who’s ahead, it’s about who has the innings.” I said that to myself over and over again as I ran two breaks for 11 wickets. “It’s not about whose ahead, it’s about who has the innings.”
Ben Morehead lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut with his wife and two children. He is active in the Greenwich Croquet Club, and is webmaster of greenwichcroquet.com.