How Does Mood Affect Your Game?

1) Scored 88. Drove the ball well, hit a lot of good shots, but with the odd total duff thrown in. Putted poorly

2) Scored 93. Drove badly ( Huge slice ), hit a lot of sliced irons, with several ( but not loads of ) total duffs. But chipped and putted a lot better. Had two snowmen on the card.

I enjoyed both rounds.

The banter was great, I lost both rounds, the first by a much larger margin than the second.

I don't play anything like enough golf, so I always enjoy getting out there.

BUT.

I felt I was playing so badly during the second round it definately affected my mood. I was annoyed with myself. I felt I wasn't doing myself justice. My game had gone to pot and I couldn't work out what I was doing so wrong.

There was very little in the two rounds in terms of score.

There was a huge difference in the rounds in terms of my attitude.

I've only had one other round this year feeling so bad about it. And that was when I was playing Homer and HTL at their place. Again, the company and the banter were great. I played poorly, but not suicidally badly. But I walked off feeling I'd let myself down, and them, for not giving them a decent game.

I know I'm not cut out for the mental demands of really competitive golf. I can't raise my game on a whim. I can easily lose a game when I'm 2 up with 3 to play.

But that doesn't affect my mood. It's just my perception of letting myself, and others down.

And not having a clue what I'm doing wrong, I suppose.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe in the first round the swing was under control, and the putting ( which feels like it's easily fixable ) was wrong.

But in the second round, I had no control, and no idea, what I was doing out there.

Not quite sure where I'm going with this, it was meant to be a discussion on how we can use our mood to control at least our enjoyment of the game, if not our ability to actually play well.

What do you think?