When Golf Psychology is the Enemy...
Whether you call it Golf Psychology, Sports Psychology, the Mental Game of golf, the Mental Side of Golf, or Playing in the Zone...
Golf happens in the mind, and it's not just a matter of good or bad thoughts, because there is a crucial time period in every shot when ANY thought will ruin your game...
The Mental Secret That Separates Tiger From The Rest Of The PGA is So Powerful, If You Aren't Ready For It, It Could Ruin Your Golf Game!
The reference is: Golf Digest article, Tiger Secrets it is one of the best articles on Tiger I have read.
This article shows how Tiger is thinking on the golf course. It also explains why Tiger has stayed with Hank for so long.
“I’ll tell you 100 percent what happened,” says Williams. “Tiger came back from Carnoustie, and instead of spending hours on the practice field, he just tried to picture how he wanted to swing the club. He used what Hank was telling him to do — which he had been having quite a bit of difficulty putting into practice — and went about getting swing thoughts organized and the right mental picture. He came to Firestone having done little actual practice, but from that point on, he had a mental image of himself that he was able to relate to the movement of his body.
“And each week he played, he got a little bit better right up to the Tour Championship. His rhythm and balance with every club were exceptional, and never changed. In the 10 years I’ve been with him, it was the best stretch I’ve ever seen Tiger play.” That process was how Woods came closer than he has ever been to “owning” his swing, to borrow the phrase that has been his goal since he began working with Haney in early 2004.
Golf Swing Control teaches this same thought process so you can learn the secrets Tiger uses to play his best game ever... But before you try to apply the mental focus technique that has transformed Tiger's game, make sure you are ready for it...
Read on to see how it works.
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As you can see in the box above, while amateur golfers around the world are trying to figure out the golf swing, tour professionals are trying to figure out how to be more consistent and win. Their hurdle is the mind. Golf professionals know that everything they do is controlled by the mind and when they are distracted by poor thoughts, their game suffers.
So while amateurs get swing training, professionals are getting mind training... But is it really the answer?
Well, yes and no. In the box above, you can see that Tiger is no longer dealing with conscious thought, but rather, advanced visualization.
Let me explain...
When a professional golfer is under pressure, the last thing he can afford is a shred of doubt in his mind. When he or she makes a decision, right or wrong, they have to commit to it, or the doubt will ruin whatever possible success they might have by interrupting the mind while it is making the swing. For this part of the golf shot, decision making, golf psychology is crucial...
Doubt ruins the golf shot because doubt is a conscious thought and ANY conscious thought good or bad is your enemy when it comes to movement, or the swing portion of the golf shot. That is because the swing movement is handled in the subconscious part of the brain using pictures. Conscious thoughts only interfere with the process.
Do you ever wonder why swing thoughts don't work for very long? A swing thought is a conscious thought and conscious thoughts can only control one thing at a time. The subconscious uses pictures to control movement and one picture can control thousands of operations all at the same time.
The Zone is that place where you "see" what you want to do without thinking about it.
You might be thinking, "What pictures?" It's easier to show than explain.
If you were in a dark room that you knew, you could walk around until your bearings were a little off. What happens then? You slow down and reach out to touch something. As soon as you touch something you know, the picture comes back into view and you know where everything is. If the picture wasn't there, you would be super cautious until you could get to a place you knew.
Let me try to explain with an analogy we can all relate to.
Everyone has at least two minds, the conscious and subconscious. The conscious is used for decisions, questions and logic. The subconscious, runs the body functions, guides movement, and stores your memory. Although the two minds can work together, the subconscious can do just about everything the conscious can do, but the conscious cannot do anything that the subconscious can do.
That said, the subconscious cannot exist without the conscious to give the commands. The conscious is the boss, and the subconscious is the super-employee that can do everything except decide what should be done.
Here's the problem during a golf shot... The boss (the conscious) wants to make sure he's in control and often ends up getting involved in and hurting the process. The boss has to be there to decide on the shot, but he has to know when to let his super-employee do his job of guiding the body accurately through the swing movement.
The swing portion of a golf shot happens in the subconscious(the super-employee) and conscious thoughts(the boss) can only hurt the process.
This is an area of golf only one or two people have looked into. It is the most crucial because it is the swing that decides where the ball will go. The difficulty is that this area of concern cannot be tackled by looking at the thought process... because thoughts are the problem!
The current method for removing conscious thoughts from the swing is to trust the swing and concentrate on the target.
At first it seems logical that thinking about something other than the swing will keep the conscious mind from getting involved in the swing. And this does work, but there is a problem with it.
What if the swing isn't working so good on its own that day? Are you going to be able to trust it? Can you not think about it? Or do you just have to accept your B or C game that day?
This is where the current methods break down. It is also the reason many 1st and second round leaders don't win tournaments, but there is an answer.
If the swing isn't working well, the conscious mind(the boss) will be asking what the hell is going on. The subconscious will be doing everything it can to produce the best movement, but it now has to deal with a boss(conscious thought) in it's ear. The problem is that the subconscious just doesn't have a clear picture that day and the boss can't do anything about it... But make matters worse.
The breakdown happens in the process the subconscious uses to create clear pictures and has nothing to do with your conscious thought process.
OK so what is the answer?
The answer is to split the conscious mind out of the shot(get the boss out of the room) before the swing is made. Since the subconscious uses pictures to guide movement, we can make the swing more accurate if we find a way to make the pictures as clear as possible.
How?
Remember what happened in the dark room when we touched something? Instant picture!
Instead of trying to use thought to create visualization, you can use this same touch feedback system to make clear pictures for your subconscious to follow. I'm talking about your internal balance feedback system. One of the ways it monitors your balance is by monitoring the surfaces of your body that touch the ground in relation to the force of gravity felt in those areas.
I have reduced the process of removing thought from the swing down to four steps.
Awareness of internal balance/touch feedback. Use of feedback to control the golf swing. Creating vivid pictures using the feedback. Using the pictures to remove the conscious from the swing.
The best part is that the internal feedback makes the pictures, so all you have to do is focus and let them play. Your body will do the rest.
What you have is a feedback system that you can use to rerun a swing in your mind, see it as if you were watching a video and fix it right on the spot... On the range, the golf course or at home hours or days after you have played.
Used properly, this feedback system can be used to fix swings during the swing... All without the distraction of conscious thought.
What's more, this simple method of visualization will spill over to your business, job, or life, giving you a valuable resource you will use to solve problems faster than ever before.
I introduce this system in the Free Interactive Golf swing Book Newsletters, and I explain it further in Golf Swing Control. If you want the last real "Unfair Advantage" in golf this is it. The missing link between the mind and the body so you can swing the golf club without distraction.
To see an in-depth video analysis of Tiger's golf swing, Click this link
Click on this link to Learn more about Golf Swing Control and to Gain the Unfair Advantage on the Golf Course.
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