Next Year's Masters Swing Showdown: Master Your Game Now!

Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch? ” series here .

Seeing grass in my backyard earlier this week for the first time in nearly two months was an exciting reminder that we’ve almost made it through a particularly brutal winter in the Northeast. But I was also surprised to feel a sudden wave of anxiety as a daunting question popped into my head: Have I done enough to prepare for the golf season? Well, for this season, that is.

If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been committed to working harder on my golf game than ever before since the fall by sticking to a daily schedule of training and practice with the ultimate goal of reaching scratch golfer status. And I’ve really stuck to it, spending at least one hour every day (and sometimes a lot more) on activities that will hopefully help my golf game other than a one-day trip to Disneyland with the kids. And as any parent knows, that’s tougher training—both physically and mentally—than anything you’re going to face on the golf course.

Anyway, I decided to talk to golf psychology coach Josh Nichols to assess my mental state heading into the golf season. And his encouraging words are something every golfer chasing a goal should hear. Why chasing goals can be tricky This “Late Scratch?