ABSTRACT
A fairly good golfer who hits reasonably straight drives may get a few bad bounces that cause several drives to end up in the rough. Suddenly the fairways seem to have shrunk to a width of about 10 feet. The golfer has lost his or her confidence, and for a while there will be fewer drives into the fairway, until some lessons or some good luck restore this mystical but very real and important feeling. Similarly, a batter who has hit several hard shots straight into the hands of fielders begins to feel that there are far more than nine people out there, while at the same time the ball to be hit seems to have lost much of its diameter. If a game depends on both luck and skill, and if the bad luck starts a losing streak, loss of confidence can prolong it. Winning streaks work in the opposite way, with a little good luck promoting confidence. Sometimes, however, the athlete can become confident to the point of feeling invincible, and such overconfidence can cause a winning streak to come to an abrupt end. In sports like golf, baseball, and tennis the player starts being overconfident when accuracy becomes so good that greed asks for a little more power, and this may play havoc with the smooth swing that generated the confidence in the first place.
