See Yourself Putting Better and Enjoying Golf More with Golf Psychology

See Yourself Putting Better and Enjoying Golf More with Golf Psychology

There were some amazing golf and putting psychology lessons on show with Phil Mickelson’s stunning win at the Tour Championship at East Lake this weekend. Yes I know Tiger won the FedEx Cup and the million with an amazingly consistent series of results. But given Phil’s year, both on and especially off the course, his victory on Sunday was a simply joyous and breathtaking turnaround. Phil had looked out of sorts in recent weeks and after his quadruple bogey 8 on the 14th hole in the first round, I had sadly anticipated him failing again over the weekend.

You’ve probably heard about Phil’s putting woes and his comments about how “I’ve hit the ball so well and yet my scores haven’t reflected that.” You’ve probably also heard about how “Bones” Mackay, Phil’s longstanding caddie, urged him to get help the week before the Tour Championship from Dave Stockton, one of the best putters in golf and twice a major winner. As if those weren’t sufficient reasons, Stockton also putts a bit like Phil does when he’s at his best.

So what major flaws did Dave Stockton notice in Phil’s putting stroke and what major changes did he prescribe? You’d expect them to be fairly severe given Phil’s recent comments about the inconsistent putting that has plagued him off and on over the last two years. He’s also talked about how his poor putting has detracted from the progress Butch Harman’s been making with his swing over the same period.

Well, Phil described the change in an interview as a “minor tweak” and went on to say “No, it’s very minor. It’s very minor. But [my] hands are back ahead like I used to putt, and the ball is just rolling much better.” In another interview, he talked about Dave Stockton’s comments just “reaffirming the way I’ve putted since I was a kid.”

So what golf psychology lessons can we learn from that then, Andrew, I hear you say? Well first of all, it confirms that if you’ve hit a particular shot well in the past, then you already unconsciously know how to hit it that well again – without changing your technique. All you need to do is to vividly recall one of those earlier successful shots and allow your unconscious golf mind to get on with the job as you get back into your comfort zone. I’d certainly include this type of visualisation in your pre-shot routine.

All that probably happened to Phil was he missed a few putts, lost his confidence and started to fear putting rather than enjoying the challenge. When that happens with any part of our golf game, we stop enjoying ourselves as much as we did and we start consciously analysing things. It doesn’t take too long before we start thinking there’s something drastically wrong with our swing or putting stroke and we start changing things, even though we seemed to have a perfectly effective method before.

This doesn’t just happen over a long period of time. For many of us it can happen in the middle of a round. Have you ever had the experience of playing a series of shots quite well and then hitting a bad shot, maybe a big slice? Did you badly pull or hook the next shot? If you did, you probably consciously thought you needed to make a swing correction, despite already knowing how to hit the ball quite well unconsciously. Well, you did say that you’d hit a series shots quite well, didn’t you.

Another golf psychology lesson was written on Phil Mickelson’s face all day on Sunday, not just when he won. He was clearly enjoying himself immensely, even before he started scoring well. After the round, he commented that, “Today was a lot of fun” and that’s not the way he’s been talking in recent weeks. Isn’t it odd how golfers seem to play so much better when they’re enjoying themselves, even if some, like a certain future Ryder Cup captain, have a hard time convincing us of that fact.

Andrew Fogg, the Golf Hypnotist, is an enthusiastic golfer, hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. He is a practicing golf psychologist and author of a soon to be published book The Secrets of Hypnotic Golf and a series of golf hypnosis MP3 programmes.

Visit his website for information on how to get the most success, pleasure and enjoyment from the wonderful game of golf. More specifically, it is about how to improve your golf by working on the 90 percent of the game that is played in the 6 inches between your ears.

Sign up for the free Golf Hypnotist ezine at http://www.golf-hypnotist.com/ and get your free 25- minute Your Own Virtual Caddy golf hypnosis MP3 that goes with this article.

How to Improve your Golf Swing Address

How to Improve your Golf Swing Address

Article by Tricia Deed







How to improve your golf swing address is very important. You will be amazed how your golf swings will improve by correcting your posture or spinal alignment, your stance or address, and the strengthening of your muscles and supporting tissues around the joints of the bones.

I will get straight to the point. Place your legs into position as you would do in readiness to strike the golf ball. Bend your knees. Lean onto the right foot while removing the weight from yor left foot. If you find yourself unsteady shift your foot slightly until you find your balance point. Once you have found it stay there until you feel stable. Leave your right foot where it is; then lean to the left foot, remove the weight off the right foot and repeat. You will now recognize and discover your balance stance.

Pick up your golf club positioning your legs according to your newly discovered balanced stance. As you position the golf club in your hands pretending to swing, it will feel differently. The reason is you have not been in your correct address and not able to hit the ball correctly and drive it the desired distance.

You probably already know that if you have been out of alignment you will need to retrain, but the rewards will outweigh the effort. It is better to strike the golf ball correctly, than to keep adjusting or compensating your golf swing to make it happen poorly.

When your spine is out of alignment and you are holding the golf club forward the body tends to lean backwards to maintain balance in order to compensate for the golf club being held too far forward. If the golf club is being held too closely then your body tends to lean forward with some spinal arching. In both instances golf swing difficulties will arise while trying to hit the golf ball.

While practicing my balance maneuver without the golf club, it was surprising how out of balance I became, but once I had my feet in their correct position, then my balance improved. I pretended to swing my golf club and discovered that I needed to incorporate some twist exercises to afford more flexibility and stretch in my upper back and waistline.

I picked up my golf club to do my practice swing and it defintely felt different. So I am back to the drawing board to correct my golf swings. Correct posture or spinal alignment does make a tremendous difference in the mechanics of the golf swing.

You may have noticed that when you held yor golf club to check out your new stance there was an added pull across the shoulders; and when you followed through you may have also noticed that your twist was a bit tight from the waistline and up.

By maintaining correct spinal alignment and exercising upper back, arms, and wrists for stronger muscle control, you will discover a big improvement in the distance and the speed of the golf ball.

As you improve the muscle strength of the upper back, arms and wrists, also include exercises to stretch the joints. Consider the joints as being similar to rubber bands. These rubber bands need to lengthen and be able to keep up with the increased muscle strength.

Picture yourself a few weeks from now having developed improved adjustments of the golf swing mechanics. Tempo, speed, distance, swing plane, and golf swing sequences will be changing causing you to reanalyze your golf swings. But these improvements will make you a better than average golfer.

To learn how to perfect your golf swing and to get great golf swing tips visit http://www.infotrish.vpweb.com/



About the Author

Through the years I have learned to be a jack-of-all-trades and maybe mastered one. Because my interests are many, diversity has been the road most traveled. Currently I am exploring different types of hobbies and combining these interests with my business of internet marketing.