Your Inner Golfer

In his first round at the 2010 Bridgestone Invitational Tiger Woods shot one of his worst scores ever at the tournament: A 4-over 74. Headlines on television and on the internet proclaim that Tiger has lost his touch. His play was ‘atrocious’. He’s all but finished. But is it really true? Is this the end for Tiger?

Tiger’s off-the-course distractions in recent months have been well publicized. It’s obvious to anyone that they have affected his focus and his concentration. While is it possible that for some reason Tiger has indeed lost his touch, it is much more likely that its not his physical game that is failing him, it’s his MENTAL game.

Continue reading It’s not Tiger’s touch, it’s his mental game »»

Anyone who was watched the first rounds of the 2010 Masters Golf Tournament knows 2 things:

• Tiger Woods is back
• Tiger Woods is BACK!

In addition to physically returning to the golf course, Tiger Woods seemingly has not missed a beat, showing the same skills as a golfer that have made him the best player in the world during the past several years. Although some of the pundits and golf analysts you see on TV seem surprised by his performance, I for one, am not. The reason is simple: Tiger Woods is a study in the importance of playing mental golf.

Continue reading Tiger Woods: Mental focus at The Masters »»

A friend of mine told me this story and was then kind enough to write it up for posting. I hope you all enjoy it. GK.

There is nothing that will throw a golfer out of their rhythm like incessantly waiting for ten (or more) minutes to tee off on each hole. Even with the sportiest of rangers and the scientific spacing of groups, it only takes one slow player to disturb the pace for everyone unfortunate enough to get stuck behind the train wreck. I’ll try to limit my use of expletives, so let’s just say that waiting on each tee makes me a bit ‘agitated’, and my score almost always takes a nosedive when conditions are slow. Considering the fact that crowding on the golf course is not likely to improve, I knew I needed a way to turn my frustrations from waiting into something positive, but what was I to do?

Luckily for me, fate intervened and answered my question. I was partnered up with an eccentric teenage player for an excessively slow round on a suburban Chicago course, and he has come up with a unique way to keep himself in the right frame of mind during waits on every tee. Whenever we got stuck near a pond or lake, he would break out this telescopic fishing rod and make some casts. He had permission from the course staff, although they found it quite an odd request. At first, I thought that this kid was just going through the motions, but on the fifth tee, I realized that he was more serious about fishing than he was about golf.

Continue reading Fishing on the Golf Course: A diversion worth consideration? »»

It always amazes me when I think about the different emotions I experience at the end of a round of golf. Most days, I am in a celebratory mood when I enter the “19th Hole” for a cold beer and camaraderie, as I just successfully made it through another 18 holes. Still, there are the times when I really feel down or downright angry after a round of golf, and overall bad play isn’t usually the cause of my disdain – I am used to floundering. Rather, I just cannot stand it when I don’t take advantage of chances to reach personal benchmarks.

Many years ago, just about the time I came to grips with the fact that professional golf was not in my future, I can recall a round that still burns me to this day. Perhaps there was something ‘extra’ in my morning Cheerios, because I was hitting irons flush all day. Never have I felt in such control, and I was nailing every shot under 150 yards to within five to ten feet of the pin. You would think that I would have been thrilled to taste just a bit of greatness, but instead, I could not take my mind off of the fact that my driving was atrocious, and I only made one putt after an approach all afternoon. By the 18th hole, I knew I would most likely make another bogey, which I did, and by the 19th Hole, I was ready to drown my frustrations.

Continue reading The 19th Hole: Celebration or Commiseration? »»

While I know there is no denying the sheer power of visualization and guided imagery in producing significant changes in a person’s emotional and physical attributes, there are many studies and real-life examples that prove this fact. Even if someone fully believes in these techniques, the mind works in such a way that it helps to see concrete proof of the process working for others.

Several large universities have conducted studies that prove the efficacy of visualization and guided imagery in a controlled setting, and the results garnered were truly enlightening. Most of these studies involved two control groups: one that was using visualization and one that wasn’t. Each group was asked to perform a myriad of related tasks and actions, both familiar and unfamiliar. In almost all cases, the group that utilized visualization performed significantly better than the groups left to their own devices.

Continue reading Visualization: Does It Really Work (for Golf)? »»