So — Is Golf A Mental Game?
Of course there are various possible approaches to this (no pun intended, golfers!).
Is it a game of mind over matter? Are you nuts to spend so much time at it? Is it an exercise in intimidating your opponent into missing the putt?
Actually, the answer to all three questions is yes. But let’s concentrate on the first one. Mind over matter, mental control, picturing and performing the perfect swing, stroke, contact? Yup, all of these.
As I’ve got older, wiser and slower (physically that is, my mind is still razor sharp and alert!), my golf has got better and better. Despite the loss of power and ever-greater exhaustion coming up the hill on the 18th. And this comes from greater understanding of the techniques involved, less wastage of energy on the unimportant aspects and generally an improved mental approach to the game. Although it’s taken me more than thirty years to reach this point, and my lowest handicap ever, I have often thought that it must be possible to assimilate all the knowledge in a way other than pure practice and experience. And I don’t mean reading magazines either, or, indeed, having endless lessons with the pro which usually destroy your game rather than improve it, at least for the first seven rounds thereafter.
What it really boils down to is the mental approach, as I keep saying. I don’t mean by this discarding the foolish notion that the ball will actually clear the tree in front of you, turn sharp right having done that, sail over the bunker and stop immediately on the narrow green. That ain’t going to happen and we all know it, so why do we keep trying? No, I mean getting an assured rhythm into your game and the certain knowledge that softer is better.
When I lived in France, I would often chat to the pro in the bar. He was quite an elderly pro who had been on the European tour, but had taken on a new wife, some thirty years his junior, spawned a sprog and evidently need the extra income from the lessons he gave during the summer. He had the very annoying habit of never standing still when you were speaking to him, but constantly swinging from side to side, performing little golf swings. He explained that this was what golf was all about, getting the rhythm – and apparently keeping it as well. Okay, that’s one way of doing it, but I now realise that there are other ways of getting this simple message into the brain.
Mental? Yes.
Nuts? Never!
Guest Writer: Chris MacAdie who says check out this e-book Secrets Of Hypnotic Golf written by Andrew Fogg, a Clinical Hypnotherapist who is also a golf fanatic.
Technorati Tags: golf, mental approach to golf, mental performance
About Keith Watson
Hi - I am Keith Watson.
This blog is dedicated to Banger - a teacher from my teenage years who - at least once a week - insisted upon cracking the hilarious - and I have to say - never heard before line "What's on Watson?".
I would smile demurely - the rest of the class would fall about with sides aching - and life would go on for another week.
'Wats-on My Mind' I have decided will assist me personally as well as be of interest to others (I hope) who share my challenges. It will help keep me organised and document my activities so that I know what I did yesterday.
You think I am joking!!
I have been in the website development game since 1993 and have been involved with over 2000 website builds (with the help of my fantastic team of freelance programmers)
It was only in the last two years though that I have moved over to making money for myself on line and in particular linking up with an amazing talent called Adam Eason to produce and distribute self help and hypnotherapy products.
As a result of looking to promote these products I have downloaded hundreds of internet marketing articles and e-books, studied countless reports, tested list building tactics, butterflied, boot-camped, buzzed, adsensed, affiliated, met a jerk, jv'ed, plr given-awayed, and generally suffered from information overload.
My computer - presumably in a fit of pique or simply demanding a holiday has given up the ghost on at least two occassions - causing me even more stress.
Oh this simple business of making money online.
BUT the great news is that it is all working and our list has grown - I have found some gurus I have complete faith in - and Adam and I are actually making money from our endeavours.
Some way to go but I am more relaxed and can spot a phoney over hyped, sexed up, must have latest product which you must either buy or if not, simply fade into oblivion. There’s not room on this Internet for the two of us.
This ramble of an introduction is really to set the scene for I am sure an interesting journey which I invite you to join. In fact I want you to help me find the right tools, scripts, plugins etc. etc, that will catapult me into the stratosphere of success. I hope you will be there with me.
I don't just consider success in a monetary sense. I so want to help some friends of mine who are involved in Christian missionary work in some pretty harrowing parts of this world. If I can bring any help to their missions that will give me more satisfaction than anything else.
I really, really do love this web stuff and the people you meet. I am convinced that this powerful technology can be harnessed to do some good.
