Mental
Tips For A Better Golf Game
by Bob Skura
Bob
Skura is author of How Great Golfers Think – Perfecting Your
Mental
Game. For more information or to order his book visit: www.howgreatgolfersthink.com
Fore Thought
Pictures Part II
If you want to play
professional basketball you need to be blessed with a lanky body. But golf has
a blind eye to physique. Can you imagine lumpy Tim Herron trying to make a
living doing spin around jump shots, or 5’9” Trevor Immelman dunking against
Rasheed Wallace? How about ultra featherweight Lorena Ochoa? Don’t even go
there. In contrast, probably every member of your club could match his or her
build with a successful tour player’s body type. This shows that performance in
golf has very little to do with physical attributes. Obviously though, all
successful players have a common ability to think properly. But what is it that
they’re thinking about anyway? It’s those darn pictures we learned about last
time isn’t it? Yes it is.
Lev Vygotsky, an expert on
language development, gives us a hint at what may be happening. His research
showed that as we get older we tend to transition from thinking in images to
thinking in concepts. Read this as thinking about simply getting the ball into
the hole versus thinking about the mechanics of how to get it there. The fact
that Adam Scott swings the club perfectly on plane while Jim Furyk and Ryan
Moore reroute it over the next interstate highway suggests that they are
directing their actions towards pictures rather than focusing on mechanics.
Now, since awareness is the
first step toward enlightenment here’s your exercise for the week. Read the
last article and familiarize yourself again with Nicklaus’s three pictures.
Then note the percentage of time during your swing that you see one of those
pictures as opposed to thinking about club-head and body positions. The greater
percentage of time you choose to see pictures, the less mechanical you will be.
Your body will move expertly to complement your pictures in the same way it
brings a fork of food to your hungry mouth without ever missing the target.
So whether you’re built like
the willowy Lorena Ochoa or the oak tree we call Brent Wetterich you creating
pictures will improve your golf game.
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Fore
Thought
Pictures
Jack Nicklaus was giving a golf clinic one day when the ball he was
about to hit fell off the tee. Turning to the audience he said
“Darn, and I hit that once really well!” Everyone
laughed but Nicklaus wasn’t entirely joking. Nicklaus has
written that he always had a clear picture of every shot he hit whether
it was a practice shot or one for money. In fact he had three pictures
that were so real to him that he could see them before they happened.
One was of the location he wanted the ball to end up. One was of the
behavior of the ball during flight and upon landing. Finally he had a
picture of himself making the swing. You could call these the goal
picture, the plan picture and finally the success picture. For a person
who played without the aid of a psychologist Nicklaus was right on the
money. Studies have shown that imagining oneself completing a sports
skill increases performance.
A good way for you to practice creating pictures the way Nicklaus did
is to do it away from the course at first. Do it in bed before you go
to sleep or in the morning before your round. Play a mental round of
golf by creating three pictures for every shot from the first tee all
the way to the final putt and imagine that you are making all pars and
birdies. When you form the picture of yourself hitting the shot imagine
what emotion you are feeling. If you imagine calm and poise it will
transfer to your real-life play over time.
If you’re not sure about this approach you should be. The
first two pictures are very similar to the preparation most tour pros
do for every new course they play. If you take the time to try the
technique you can raise your game to a higher level.
Bob Skura is author of How Great Golfers Think – Perfecting
Your Mental Game. For more information or to order his book visit: www.howgreatgolfersthink.com
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Learning
Versus Performing
Boo Weekley was quoted in the Associated Press Feb 28, 2008 about a
three-putt that cost him a victory in the Honda Classic last year. He
said: “Ain’t nobody who wants to three-putt. But
it’s just part of how I play golf. It just happens.”
Now listen up Boo. Great achievers don’t think like that.
It’s never a case of “It just
happens.” Great achievers learn a lesson from every
situation, from every adversity and from every victory. Why? Because
learning lessons prepares people to handle difficult situations when
they rear their ugly heads again.
If, like Boo, you tend to say, “It just happens,”
it very likely will happen again. Meanwhile a player like Tiger would
say: “What can I learn from that situation?’ While
there is no guarantee of never missing a short putt again the correct
approach can reduce how often you do.
There are even lessons to learn from victory. Most people think we
should simply remember the thrill of victory and the pleasure it brings
but the value of learning a lesson from an achievement is that it keeps
you in motion. After all, if you identify too strongly with a picture
of a particular success you may get stuck on that picture and never
move on to other achievements.
There is actually academic evidence to prove these concepts. Carol S.
Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University, is the author of a
study called Self Theories: Their Role In Motivation, Personality and
Development. In this study she divided a grade five class into two
groups. One was given performance goals and the other was given a
learning goal. The students with the learning goals outperformed the
performance group.
So if you want to move ahead of the pack avoid the temptation to say
“It just happened.” Look for the lesson to be
learned not only from every adversity, but also from every
success.
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Mentors
Gary Player phoned the leader the night before the final round of the
2008 Masters and said “I know you can do it.” The
next day Trevor Immelman went out and earned himself a green jacket.
And that’s what mentorship will do for a person. In fact
research shows that the support of a friend or mentor influences the
achievement of goals directly by helping a person become more
persistent and indirectly by helping the individual develop an
expectancy of success.
Immelman first met Gary Player when he was five years old and
maintained a relationship with him from that time on. Obviously it paid
off. Now, before you march yourself or your children off to the next
tournament to meet Tiger Woods who can’t realistically spend
time with every youngster in the world, consider that a mentor
doesn’t have to be someone you meet in person.
Jack Nicklaus’s hero was Bobby Jones. But he didn’t
meet him when he was a child. It was Jack’s father Charlie
who had become fascinated by Jones while watching him in a tournament
at Scioto Country Club. Charlie passed his admiration on to young
Jackie.
Mike Weir touched greatness another way. He wrote to Jack Nicklaus as a
youngster asking if he would be better off as a right-handed golfer
instead of as a lefty. Weir kept Nicklaus’s answer close to
his chest until he won the Masters in 2003 and made the historic
correspondence public.
The point is there are different ways to benefit from mentors. If you
or your youngster can meet a mentor or role model/hero by all means do
so. But even if you can only read about such a person the effect can
still take hold. All you have to do is be able to keep the person in
your mind’s eye and he or she will serve as a perfect support
system for all your dreams.
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