Did you ever have one of those magical golf days when you found the zone and your mental game of golf was totally dialed in? Those times when your putter is so hot, that you can’t miss from anywhere on the green, and the game of golf has gone on auto-pilot for you? What is the difference between that day and the days that every shot is a struggle?  Why is it possible to go out one day, put on a clinic of amazing golf shots, to return the following day and stand over the ball asking yourself what do I do next?

I have certainly had my share of those magical moments and poor golf days.  As I seek to improve my golf game I am discovering that the mental game of golf is just as important as the physical game. My buddy says “It depends on who shows up to the course that day,” and I think he is right.  The person who shows up needs to be focused on his game with total awareness of what he is going to do for each shot, without trying to force anything to happen.

The first obvious part to the mental game of golf is to leave the cares of daily life in the car.  I would even be so brazen as to suggest that the cell phone should stay there as well, (your mileage may vary) a ringing cell phone is a huge annoyance not only for you but for others. The bottom line is that you need to be able to totally focus on your game without being distracted.

Our golf swing can occur in less that 1.5 seconds and that gives us absolutely no time to think about what we should do or be doing during the swing itself.  I am sure that you have discovered that a random thought during the swing is a formula for disaster.  The mental side of golf means then that our decisions about what to do are already set before the golf swing occurs.  The time for making decisions is in your setup routine.

In your setup routine, you want to be visualizing the shot, deciding where it will land to set yourself up for your next shot. This is the critical point, the mental picture that you put together must be couched in positive terms. You see the shot completing exactly the way you want it with out any negatives. You must focus on a totally positive outcome. The trees, the lake, the sand trap or other obstacle need to be ignored in your mental picture. Conversely a picture like “DON’T hit it into the water” will put you in the lake every time.

Once you have made your club selection and start your setup, your thinking process needs to get out of the way.  From this point on it becomes a matter of performance, your body is now in charge of the activity.  This is the critical place where you let go and trust that your muscles, sense of feel and prior training will take over.

Golf mental training is being able to get your brain out of the way and turn your swing over to total trust in your body to actually perform.  You can learn to do this by incorporating it into your setup.  When you are approaching your ball and deciding where the next shot will be going, add that image of yourself making your best golf swing.  After this you can go through your routine knowing that your body now has that image and you no longer need to worry about it.  Try it, it works.

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