THE MENTAL GAME Long hitting in itself has never won a tournament that I know about, but the

effort to hit longer than necessary to score well sure has lost an awful lot during my time in the game! Jack Nicklaus Golf is played on a course five-and-a-half inches long ...the space between your ears Bobby Jones If you think you're a good putter, if you keep telling yourself how great you are, it certainly helps Arnold Palmer The right attitude and strategies are essential for success in any sport (or any human endeavor for that matter), but they seem to be especially important in golf. In so many other sports, your actions are reflexive, which leaves little time to think about anything. But in golf, the ball just sits there giving you practically all the time you need to decide what youre going to do this time to pull off a successful shot. And how you handle yourself mentally on the golf course, starting with your basic attitude and including general and specific strategies toward the game, have a very important influence on your results. So this section of Toms Golf Tips is devoted exclusively to tips Ive collected on the mental game of golf. They are worth checking out. Technique is everything in this game and it doesnt come naturally to most people. Dont hesitate to see a pro to learn the proper technique. It will be a good investment. Think before you hit and play within your capabilities. Dont try to execute a shot when your chances of success are minimal. Learn the terminology and basic rules of golf. Understand that golf is more a game of precision than brute force. Distance is fine, but not helpful at all if the ball ends up in the woods. Dont try to think of more than one swing key at a time when youre making a shot. Its counter-productive.

During the swing, it sometimes it helps to think about a short mantra, such as Amsterdam to keep other thoughts (especially negative thoughts!) out of your mind and improve your tempo. Dont dwell on a bad shot after it happens. Focus on the shot ahead of you. When you do have a bad shot, try to determine what caused it and turn it into something that helps your game. Dont try to slug a seven-iron when a six-iron will get you there comfortably. Most high-handicappers err by underclubbing themselves. If long irons are giving you trouble, switch to fairway woods and metals. They are much easier to hit. Dont hesitate to use a three-wood off the tee for more control. Rather than easing up on a club if youre concerned about hittingit too far, take a club with more loft and swing away. Try your best on every shot. Make a conscious effort to remove tension from your grip and body. Tension is a swing killer. Take a few seconds to visualize the shot you are about to make. It helps. If you tend to slice (as a right hander), hit your tee shots from the right side of the tee and do the opposite if you tend to hook. This gives you more fairway to work with. Always give yourself room for some error. If you need to fly the ball over a tree, and you think a seven-iron will do it, hit an eight-iron. Pick out a precise target on every shot, and always try to put yourself in the best possible position to hit the next shot. Wind strength and direction can have a big bearing on ball flight. Try to learn through experience what one-club and two-club winds feel like.

The same goes for uphill and downhill shots. If you have a sidehill shot with the ground falling away from you, aim left. If you have a sidehill shot with the ball above your feet, aim right. Pay close attention to where you are losing strokes, and devote your practice sessions to those areas. While on the course, don't think about your final score. Concern yourself only with the shot at hand and the process of producing the best shot possible. Make sure you are thoroughly familiar with the proper use of golf carts and with other golf etiquette matters, so you can focus entirely on your game. Above all, try to develop confidence in all your shotmaking. Negative thinking is probably the biggest score-wrecker in golf, especially on short putts. Convince yourself you can make that shot, or sink that putt, and good things will happen. Make your practice session harder than the real game. Instead of just beating balls in a general direction on the range, give yourself very specific targets to aim at whenever you practice. Aim for an imaginary fairway 20 yards wide and see how many drives out of 10 you can get within the fairway. This will give you evidence of your progress and will also get your mind used to dealing with tight driving holes and pressure situations. "Having a Great Attitude" Teaching over 2000 golf lessons each year, I have found very few non-athletic people. Folks are so worried about missing the ball, looking bad, feeling embarrassed, pursuing perfection and the straight golf shot. In my experience, those people who find some joy and success at golf, are those who have a GREAT ATTITUDE! They are at peace enough with

themselves, their work, and their families, to pursue the learning journey of golf with a sense of humor, humility, open mind and heart, but most of all while having fun. If we can have fun, we will be less tense in our minds, shoulders, arms, hands and fingers. Tension is the number one deterrent to improving ones golf game. Just imagine moving some of the passion we feel about golf into our personal lives. After all, playing golf and being forced to deal with our own failures and frailties really does mirror everyday life, doesnt it!. Remember, golfs a game, have some fun with it!

"Behaviors on the Golf Course are Keys to a Person's True Character" There is a famous expression that states "Sports Build Character." As inspiring as those words may sound, as true as those words may be, there is a follow-up to that expression which says, "Sports can reveal Character." Since sports reveal character, business executives can wisely utilize their time on the golf course to their advantage, gaining intimate knowledge of their business associates. Here are some situations you may encounter while playing:

People who want to impress you with their low handicap. It becomes quickly apparent that these players are no where near the ability they described. These people are trying to project an image that they are better than they appear. Beware of the deception! People who claim to have a higher handicap. Again, it becomes obvious the ability doesn't match the handicap, though in the opposite way. This is called "sandbagging" and these people have stacked the deck and want to win at all costs. People incapable of admitting mistakes when playing poorly.

They will criticize course conditions, blame their caddies, equipment, anything by themselves. These people are looking for "scapegoats." People that assume they do not have to putt out short putts or "gimmies." These people will not ask for favors they will expect them. People of the opposite extreme, refusing tap-ins of inches. Though putting out all putts is legitimate, most people do not insist on it in a non-tournament situation. It may be hard to do a favor for this type of person. People who shoot the same score all the time. No matter where they play, they don't count "mulligans" or penalty strokes. These people have some very creative interpretations of the facts, and hold steadfast to them. People who improve their lie. In the rough, or behind trees, or grounding the club in the sand prior to hitting it, watch out because these people blatantly cheat. People who hit out of order. Observing those who hit out of order when teeing off with no regard to their playing companions, are very inconsiderate and don't have respect.

Finally, observing your companions on the course will allow you to see them in a different light, when their true colors shine through. We live in a world where everyone is looking for a competitive edge, and some people play at a win at all cost mentality. I believe with these tips, you will go to your next golf outing "one up" even before you tee off. "The Most Important Golf Shot" For years in many locker rooms and clubhouses, one of the main topics of discussion has been, "What is the most important shot in golf?" One side of the argument is for the tee shot, and the other side is for the putt. One of the strongest proponents for the tee shot was Ben Hogan. In the early 1960's, while a teaching pro at The Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, TX, I discussed this with Ben, and he felt strongly that a players tee shot was THE most important shot.

It was Ben's fervent belief, that from a mental standpoint, one's whole round depended on the initial tee shot. He claimed to have rarely witnessed or been part of a great round that started with an errant tee shot. He believed that when you begin with an excellent tee shot, your mental attitude would carry forward on all successive shots. On the other side, many argue that the putt is the most important. One such advocate was the legendary teaching pro Harvey Penick, who strongly believed that the short game, around the green, was the essence of scoring well. He contended that a two foot putt counted just as much as a tee shot. This argument did not hold water with Ben. Adamantly he stated, "If you are trying to make a two foot putt for a seven, due to an errant tee shot, who in the hell cares? After all, a missed two foot putt will generally only cost you one shot, whereas a missed tee shot can easily cost you two or more shots." After listening to Ben's logic, I calmly explained, that in my humble opinion, I thought both sides were wrong. This definitely got Ben's attention. I hurriedly added, that while both sides had made good arguments, I considered Willie Ogg's, the original teaching professional selected and respected by the membership of the PGA to conduct business school teaching seminars, to have been the best. You see he told us that the most important shot in golf is always "the next one." Hogan laughed out loud and completely agreed. (And some of you thought he was always "the wee ice-man.") So the next time you overhear the discussion about the most important shot in golf, just sit back and laugh to yourself because you already know the Real Truth. "Muscle Memory" For most of us, the conscious mind is only capable of dealing with one thing at a time. We call this concentration. When we hit a poor shot, we often blame our inability to concentrate. Consider an alternative, the problem may not have been that we didn't concentrate, but rather, we probably concentrated on the wrong thing, a golf swing thought, instead of the target. When I was in school, I read several studies on how the body learns athletic motions. I have also observed the same phenomena while working on my own swing and from observing my students and other golfers as they attempt to

learn new motions. What I have observed, and what the studies mentioned, is that it takes a certain amount of time for the body to learn a simple motion, much longer than most of you would imagine. I therefore recommend for my students and for you as well, to practice a new motion for at least three to four weeks (if practicing regularly) before moving on to something new. If you do any less, you run the risk of not learning the motion, or you may only partially learn it, depending on how often and over how long of a time span you practice. For definition purposes, learning occurs when a conscious effort to put the body in a particular position or to move it in a certain way is transformed from a conscious action to an automatic action, requiring no thought. Many of you would call a learned motion "muscle memory," and I do too, just for the sake of simplicity. For all intents and purposes, it's as if the muscles do have a mind of their own, they can perform amazingly complex motions without a person having to think about it. For illustrative and descriptive reasons, I much prefer the term "muscle memory," even though it may be an inaccurate term. What difference does it make if you call it "muscle memory", "learning", or, as as one irate fan of mine prefers, "motor memory." They all refer to the same principle! One final note, since most golf instructors recommend golf lessons spaced at weekly intervals, the result associated with this type of schedule is that the student practices something new each week, thereby losing what they were attempting to learn in the preceding lesson. This is a classic example of why golfers should be wary of the untrained golf instructor. If you want to improve, make an effort to find a golf instructor who knows what he or she is doing!

"Acceptance" Did you know that you use 17 facial muscles to smile and 43 facial muscles to frown? Facial expression is simply a reflection of your emotions. Your ability to control your emotions will give you the ability to control an efficient golf swing. Your golf swing is then a reflection of your attitude and acceptance will play a major part in the success of your game of golf. To obtain a consistent swing, golf demands emotional discipline. Just by staying in control of your emotions, you can gain control of your golf swing. Most swing flaws are derivative of a persons negative emotions: intimidation, anger, frustration, embarrassment, etc. You are allowed to feel and express these emotions but, to avoid an inconsistent golf swing, you will need to keep these emotions "in check". The positive must overtake the negative. The act of acceptance is, making the choice of a more positive attitude, lending towards a more fluid and consistent golf swing. Acceptance: (1) the act of taking or receiving something offered. (2) favorable reception; approval; favor. (3) the act of assenting or believing. A person who chronically complains, self-intimidates, or plays with a bad attitude, will have to realize that their negativity will become detrimental to the flow of their golf swing. Muscles will contract and become immobile from such self-induced tension. "Beating your self up" over a bad shot (or negative "self-talk"), will only produce more bad shots. Here are some examples of negative self-talk: I'm so stupid. I can't hit anything today. I bet I'm going to hit it right in the water (sand trap, bush, etc). Worse yet, there are some people who choose to express their anger by throwing things ? like golf clubs!Knowing how to control a bad attitude on the golf course will take the practice of acceptance. Acceptance is not easy. Here are a few suggestions of how to become a more positive player of golf: * Approach your shot by focusing on your routine set-up to the ball.

* If you hit your shot off-line (not where you intended it to go and has remained in-bounds), you must immediately think of one positive thought about your last shot - say something out loud such as, "Nice shot", in order to trick your subconscious. You have to jolt your negative "self-talk" with a positive audio-confirmation. * Even if the ball is in an unfavorable lie, you have to accept its position without frustration. Accept it as a positive challenge. * Repeat your confident routine set-up and be in the "here and now" of your present golf swing. The past is done and the future hasn't happened yet. "Associate the Motion" When you were born, the process of learning was based on trying something new for the first time, every time. As time has gone by, you no longer grasp at straws to learn. You build upon each experience making it easier to understand. This process is called, learning by ASSOCIATION: "The connection or relation of ideas, feelings, etc; correlation of elements of perception, reasoning, or the like. An idea, image, feeling, etc., suggested by or connected with something other than itself." Learning golf can become a much easier process if learned by association, or past experiences, and adapting them to your golf swing. Some associative motor skills can be taken from your athletic background or simply through common daily activities. Before your first lesson, I purposefully have a conversation with you to find out about your background in sports and what your life consists of on a daily basis. This initial conversation is not only necessary for us to become comfortable with each other, but, I'm also gathering associative information which will dictate your method of learning. A successful golf swing requires your entire body to perform well with a synchronized, fluid motion. You will need confidence to carry out this process. Developing your swing or correcting a swing flaw will be easily trusted if learned through the method of association (past experiences in sports and life). I use what you already know, and will continually make reference to that associative skill in order to regain your confidence. Associating the motion, combined with a positive mental attitude, can go a long way in any process towards success. The following are some examples of association for your golf swing:

Your grip pressure should feel... - like holding on to the hand of a 2 year old, as you would for a pleasurable stroll. - like holding on to a garden hose, to allow the water to flow freely, without obstruction. (I will never use the analogy of holding a "bird in the hand" because I haven't, yet, met a person who has had that experience to identify with!) The full swing motion is ... - like the delivery and release of throwing a ball, as executed by a pitcher in baseball (hardball). "Fake It Till You Make It" The mental game of golf is an art in itself and takes practice. Years ago my friend and playing partner, Corey Pavin's caddy Eric, turned to me after making a sand shot and said, "You always make par out of the sand trap." Ever since that day whenever I get in a sand trap I know I am going to make par from a sand trap. It occurred to me that I should focus on accomplishing exactly what I want to do on every shot. Let's take chipping. Do you know that you could get the ball in the hole on every chip shot? Most people never think they could chip the ball in the hole and set up over the ball expecting little or no success. One of my favorite little phrases is "Fake it till you make it!" Pretend that you are going to sink the ball in the hole every time until you know that your are! Chipping from off the green is an extension of the putting stroke. A good chip stroke means that the shoulders, arms and hand (the triangle) work together. My junior golfers say it feels like a robot! Out of the mouths of babes. Put your hands all the way down on the grip of the club for more control. Aim the clubface to the target. Take your stance with feet very close together putting 70 percent of your weight on the left or target side leg. Maintain a consistent grip pressure and make sure you aren't tight in your shoulders, arms or hands. Keep an even speed in your back swing and follow through.

The most common errors come from a slow back swing and a fast jerky through upswing. Practice in the mirror a few minutes each day to see the smooth speed and consistent swing arc. After you have developed a consistent chipping technique and have success in getting the ball up in the air and on the target line, we can learn to control the distance. The Goal Setting Secret You can discover many formulas for goal setting on the net. It's everywhere! Acronyms like SMART abound. But they often miss out the most important aspect - motivation. After all, most goals that golfers set are not achieved. Why? Because they don't really want it enough. Their "heart" isn't in it. Here's a great method for finding out if your really want that goal. Begin by imagining a time in the future when you have already achieved your goal. Really be there, inside the socks and shoes of that person i.e. you, who has already done it! Look around and really enjoy it. See what you would see. Hear what you would hear - perhaps friends talking about how amazing your game is now. Feel what you feel - that wonderful feeling of having achieved your goal. Even taste and smell what it's like. Then, go 3 months into the future. So by this time, your goal has been around for 3 months and it's beginning to be just something you do. Enjoy that too in every sense. Then go, 6 months, a year, even 5, 10 years down the line and really enjoy, not only having your goal, but the wonderful consequences of it. Here's lies true motivation. If you don't feel fantastic after this short sensory journey into your future, then give this goal a miss, and choose another one. Remember, never leave the site of a goal, without full experiencing, in all your senses, having achieved it, and it's glorious consequences in the months and year that follow.

"Ten Minutes to Better Golf Have you been saying..."I really want to improve my golf game this year, but how can I when the weather is too cold and rainy"? Well there are many ways in which you can start improving various aspects of your golf game without having to brave the weather. Here are a few: PHYSICAL PRACTICE (10 Minutes Each Day ) Exercise - especially starting with stretches Watch What You Eat - many studies show how your performance is directly related to what and how you eat Without A Club - work on your backswing motion and your balanced finish With A Club - pick up a seven/eight iron and work on your GRIP, AIM and SET-UP. Mirror work is great!

MENTAL PRACTICE (10 Minutes Each Day) Be Goal Oriented - write down specific goals, short term and long term Have A Vision - visualize yourself achieving these goals. Close your eyes and visualize! Know Your Swing - focus on rhythm and timing as you swing

These Techniques Will Hopefully Get You On Your Way "TO BETTER GOLF IN '99!" You are you're greatest opponent! Your Greatest Opponent You probably have heard many times that your greatest opponent is yourself, not old man golf. The following is a brief explanation why.

Your brain or computer starts working at a very early age. Approximately six months after conception, your brain starts recording all your mother's thoughts and actions while you are still in her womb. It continues to record everything you do and experience during your lifetime and accumulates a data base on YOU. For simplicity sake we will refer to your brain's data base as your TAPE. Your tape is a conceptual representation of the entire history of all your previous thoughts and actions which comprise your present performance level. The concept of your tape is important to comprehend because your brain or computer is programmed to make similar decisions in accordance to what is in its date base or tape. Since your brain is programmed to make decisions similar to what you have done in the past, the biggest challenge you will face when trying to change your thoughts and actions to improve your golf is your tape. Your brain will use all of your strengths and weaknesses recorded on your tape to keep you at your present level of performance or within your comfort zone. To improve your golf, you must overcome your programming to repeat what is on your tape. This may seem like a simple explanation of what you are up against, but it is crucial for you to be aware that your tape will control you unless you exercise control over it. Fortunately, you can change your past tendencies because the most current portion of your tape has the biggest impact on your decision making process. But make no mistake; it will be a battle between your desire to change or improve and your brain's programming to have you repeat what is on your tape. Your tape doesn't care if it's positive or negative; its job is to have you repeat the same thing over and over. When you go to sleep, your brain reviews all your thoughts and actions for that day. If you do something different from your normal routine, your brain has to decide to either assimilate this new behavior or reject it so it can make spontaneous decisions once you awake. This is why the best time to give your tape new instructions is just before going to sleep and immediately upon awaking. Otherwise, you will more than likely go right back to the previous responses on your tape. Free golf match play mental tip : By successfully putting new thoughts and actions on your tape consistently for a period of 30 days, your brain will assimilate these as new habits and they will become part of your normal tape response. Remember that you control your tape or

your tape will control you. It is your choice and will be reflected in your golf score. If you are interested in more by Michael Anthony, check out his website: Michael Anthony's Free golf mental tip match play page I have read this book and highly recommend it to all golfers. Many an excellent mental golf tip in this book. I have also used some of this info in my quest to break 80 as I found it extremely helpful. Prevent Paralysis by Analysis now! by Lester Bouchard PhD. golf psychologist. Free golf match play mental tip: The more I focus, the less I worry about pressure and everything else. My mind is totally and completely into the target. Some people choose to worry about hitting out-of-bounds, some choose to think about their swing, but when I'm looking down at the ball, I actually see the target." Nick Price golf mental tip match play In most instances players do not do enough analysis of their own strengths and weaknesses, which aspects of their game are causing the loss of strokes as well as when considering their target or the appropriate shot to play. There is, however, a danger in diverting to the extreme opposite end of that spectrum and over-thinking, particularly when assessing one's swing, when over the ball or when under the pressure of competition. In these circumstances, overanalyzing can be just as debilitating. The golf swing is a technically precise series of movements. On any given swing there are at least a dozen different variables that can affect the ball flight and outcome of the shot. Regardless of how good a player is kinks will periodically pop up and errant swings will be made. It is an inevitable consequence of this game and the precision necessary to achieve excellence. There is a time to be analytical about correcting or improving one's swing and on the course is not it. Once you start overanalyzing your swing on the course you begin to focus on mechanics and lose flow, rhythm and tempo. Your swing becomes mechanical, rigid and forced thereby paralyzing its natural fluidity.

Furthermore, there is a difference between a recurrent flaw and the occasional error. Players have to recognize and accept the difference. Free golf match play mental tip : Either way, the time to work on one's swing is during practice and only during practice. When you're over the ball the only thing that matters is being confident and letting your body do what it has hopefully been trained to do. If you start thinking too much tension and doubt creep in, which inhibit the swing in some manner. The most important time in any routine is the last few seconds. This is the time when the quality of the shot will most likely be determined and it is all based on your thoughts and the automaticity of your movements and action. You have to be relaxed, fluid, confident, decisive and act without hesitation so that counterproductive thoughts or physiological reactions do not have time to appear. If they do, then you have to discipline yourself to step back and start again. When preparing to hit a shot, a player has to trust his/her own instincts, decisions and swing and just let it happen. To prevent the consequences of over-thinking, develop sound routines and take Nick's advice and become target focused. Make it part of your pre-shot routine. Lock in on the target as you approach the ball. Once you have set up on the ball focus on nothing more than the target and ball. Create the vision of the ball traveling to the desired location and recite a confidence thought like "I've got this shot." Take one last look at the target, bring your eyes back to a dimple in the center of the ball and immediately let it fly.

Developing a Healthy & Rational Philosophy Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. Peaksports.com- mental golf tip page The first step in developing a healthy philosophy or belief about your golf is to uncover and identify the specific self-limiting beliefs or expectations that may hold you back from playing your best. Armed with this information you are in a position to challenge your self-limiting beliefs and adopt a new philosophy about the game of golf. Identify Your Expectations and Labels. As discussed in last month's newsletter, several different types of limiting beliefs exist. I will discuss a few of the most common expectations that limit you. (1) 'I'm failing if I can't break 70 today.' I am not a fan of target scores, but this one can make you feel frustrated easily if you are not on track to accomplish the target. (2) 'I hope I don't lose it on the back nine.' This

is a big one for many amateurs who shoot a good score on the front and then start to worry about back nine results. (3) 'Here I go againsyndrome.' This one is deadly to stalling momentum. A good example is the golfer who makes the first mistake of the round and says to himself 'Here I go againmaking a double and screwing up a good round.' (4) 'I always play poorly when'. This is the number one generalization in golf. The classic example is the golfer who has trouble playing a troubling hole and approaches it from a defensive mindset. Golf mental tip match play Change Your Lingo. Irrational beliefs, according to psychologist Albert Ellis, often take the form of absolute statements such as, 'I must break 70 or I am a failure.' Ellis states that people need to change the terminology they use to describe events or needs. The goal is to abolish absolute thinking (via changes in terminology) to stop making unrealistic demands on yourself and others. The major task is to replace dire needs with preferences and desires, such as, 'I would prefer to shoot the best score possible today.' Golf mental tip match play: Dispute and Rationalize. People adopt irrational beliefs that limit success because they do not dispute the reality or evidence for the belief. Let's use an example of an irrational or unhealthy belief: 'I always end up making a big number to ruin my round.' In this case the golfer anticipates a train wreck at some point during the round probably because it has happen in the past (a generalization). I teach golfers to argue against or dispute these irrational ideas. You have to look at the evidence for this belief. Just because it has happened in the past, does that automatically mean it will happen repeatedly. Golf match play mental tip Replace with a Healthy Belief System. The hardest step is to adopt a healthy philosophy or attitude that helps you play better golf. Let's use an example of what it means to replace a unhealthy belief with a healthy one. Unhealthy belief: 'I don't play well every time I have to tee off early in the morning.' Healthy belief: 'Today I believe I can turn it around and play well early in the morning.' Which one do you think will give you a better chance at playing well? golf match play mental tip: Step Outside the 'Box' and Take a Risk. The difficult part about changing one's attitude is that a golfer wants to hold onto those ineffective beliefs for whatever reasons. It may seem like taking a risk to view an event or situation in a different way. I

often challenge students with an assignment to get them to think 'outside the box' and push beyond what feels natural to do. If you are very score conscious during the round, for example, I would ask you to keep track of something else such as fairways and greens hits and set a goal to do so. Free golf match play mental tip Avoid Negative Labels. Often a player gets labeled by one of his peers (or himself) and then adopts the label. Soon the negative label takes on a life of its own and the player internalizes the label as part of his self-concept. If you think you are a streaky putter, for example, you will live up to that label. Here are examples of a few negative labels some of my students maintained: 'I'm an airport player,' 'I'm a range pro,' 'I'm a choker,' 'I'm a poor closer,' 'I'm a slow starter,' or 'I'm a mental midget.' You can see how destructive it can be to adopt negative labels.

Avoiding Big Numbers will Improve the Bottom Line Dr.Cohn How many times have you played a decent round of golf only to have that one or two holes jump out and bite you? Some amateurs have a mental block with one or two golf holes that always balloon their score. Or golfers will hit a bad shot, which turns into a triple bogey and ruins a good round in the making. At the end of the round, youre upset because you shot 84 when it could have been a 79 if you dont have a couple big numbers on a couple of holes. Golf match play mental tip : The first step to avoiding big numbers is to minimize the damage after one poor shot. Some players anger makes them too aggressive on the next shot and they end up making matters worse. Dont let that one bad shot lead to another because you are so angry about the first bad shot. Some golfers cant take their medicine and chip out of the treesthey try to hit a perfect recovery shot and whama big number. If you get into trouble and hit the ball into the woods, instead of trying to hit the perfect fade around and over the trees, chip out and play for bogey. Keep your emotions in check because anger or frustration can cause you to make one poor decision after the next. Frustration can also cause you to hit shots very quickly without the proper thought process.

Second, what causes big numbers? Hitting the ball out of play. Free golf match play mental tip : One of your goals should be to keep the ball in play as often as possible. For example, if you are on a tight par four with water on the right and out-of-bounds on the left, you dont have to hit a driver just because everyone else hits a driver. You can play the hole like a par five. Hit an iron off the tee, lay up with another iron, and wedge the ball on for a chance to make par, at worst bogey. Its a lot easier to play from the fairway than the bottom of the lake! Golf match play mental tip : Third, dont carry the expectation that you always find a way to screw up the round and make a big number when its going well or that you always screw up on hole number 14! Both of these expectations will turn into reality if you hold on to them. Both beliefs will make you play defensively when you have a chance to shoot a good round. As soon as you start to think dont screw this round up with a big number, you are playing defensive golf. Instead, set a goal for the end of the round to have a chance at making birdie or par on the remaining holes. You have to stay aggressive and play offensively, but at the same time keeping the ball in play and playing within yourself.

What's REALLY Behind Your Behavior? by Norman Hallett Someone the other day commented to me that they thought Napoleon Hill, in his classic book, "Think and Grow Rich" (click to download this as a free ebook), talked in riddles. I thought they were referring to "The Secret", but they weren't. This person's confusion stemmed from the notion of the Subconscious Mind... what it is and what is does. I understand the confusion. Something you can't touch, see or smell lend itself to a deeper analysis. What you CAN "see" are the results of the functioning of the subconscious mind. In the 1930's, Napoleon didn't have the science we have today to try to explain the way the mind works. And even now, you have to analyze the outcomes of the workings of the mind to understand the mind. Of all the explainations I've heard and read of what the subconscious mind is, I like Frank Caprio, M.D.'s take on the subject. In his book, "Healing with Self-Hypnosis" he states, "The subconscious mind is that part of your thinking that is governed by your instincts. Behind all behavior are motivations hidden in your subconscious mind. He goes on, "Your subconscious mind consists of associated sense impressions and memories of all your past. It is composed of your brain, spinal cord, and a network of nerves that branch out through your entire body. These nerves extend from head to toe, and information about every move, every thought, and every emotion follows the route from brain to body. Every single bodily activity is thus controlled. This includes your involuntary internal organs, such as those that make up your digestive, circulatory, reproductive, and respiratory system, as well as every physical motion, even the blinking of your eyes.

Every automatic habit and personal idiosyncrasy is controlled by your subconscious mind." (Now, here's come something very interesting...) "This subconscious communication goes on day and night, whether you are awake or asleep. It maintains a storage bank of memories of that includes everything that ever happened to you -- every experience, relationship, word spoken -- everything. Not only are the memories of your every experience, good and bad, stored in your subconscious mind, but also therein are the memories of the emotions and the environment that accompanied the experience. Your subconscious mind controls all functions of your body that are not under direct control of your conscious mind, and upon specific occasions, it actually takes over the powers of the conscious mind. For example, the subconscious mind can prevent the conscious mind from speaking, resulting in stammering." These facts are only some of the reasons I'm so fascinated with the subconscious mind and why it is the ABSOLUTE KEY to getting what you want for you and your loved ones. Recall ANY story where someone overcame impossible odds. ANY story. In every case, the "base" of the miracle was belief in one's self. I would advise all of us to set lofty goals... Goals that will inspire us. But what about that little voice in your head that doubts that you'll achieve a goal that high? That little voice is your Subconscious Mind and the great thing is that you can self-program that little voice to support your goals... no matter how seemingly-impossible. And the way you do that is to place your mind into a light alpha brainwave state and submit your positive suggestions directly to your subconscious mind.

Deciding to take control of what goes into your subconscious mind is the main decision you will have to make in order to start creating your wealth... wealth of money, of romance, of golf or anything!

Emotional Awareness and Control are Keys to Consistency and Optimal Performance by Dr. Lester Bouchard "What separates great players from the good ones is not so much ability as brain power and emotional equilibrium." -Arnold Palmer. Tantamount to emotional control is emotional awareness. A player must be in touch with his/her emotions; in other words, a player must be familiar with his/her own emotional tendencies and reactions and the circumstances which invoke them. He/she must recognize these situations when they are occurring and have a means of managing, counteracting or overcoming them. Without these abilities, a player is likely to be consumed by any one of a number of negative emotional reactions and thus devastate any chance of performing at one's best. Players often experience negative emotional reactions prior to and at the start of competition. They may also encounter them late in a round, when playing poorly, a moment of consequential importance is perceived, when distracted by some outside influence such as other players, playing conditions, or spectators or occasionally when playing well. Any of these situations may bring about physical and mental responses such as increases in heart rate, blood pressure, or respiratory rate, shortness of breath, clammy hands, butterflies in the stomach, muscular tension, flushing, twitching, sweating, losing self-control, feeling hot, doubt, awareness of unpleasant feelings, concerns about performance, negative self-talk or images and an inability to concentrate. Needless to say, all of this can be highly detrimental to performance. To aid in this recognition process a player can make note of these events on a separate piece of paper or scorecard as they occur. List the different types of physical and mental reactions down the left hand column with the hole numbers across the top. Place a tick mark for each occurrence in the box of the hole in which it occurred. Make an independent column for pre-competitive reactions. Alternatively, a player can keep a post-round journal and reflect back on any negative reactions and the situations in which they occurred. This, however, may not be as accurate. This process of merely recording the incidences alone will facilitate some attempt to control the reaction. Once you learn to recognize

these situations at the time of their occurrence your own natural human tendency to self-regulate will initiate inherent mechanisms to attempt to overcome them. It's a biologically conditioned response just like the reactions themselves. Regardless of the circumstances, it is imperative that a player stay cool, calm and collected. A player must be thick-skinned and resilient. To enhance management, he/she can incorporate any one of a number of selfregulation and emotional control strategies; techniques such as deep concentration breathing, progressive relaxation, positive self-talk and imagery, affirmations, thought-stopping, the use of cues and triggers and modeling. The specifics of each of these techniques goes beyond the scope of this short article.

Define and Find Your Zone by Dr. Lester Bouchard "All seasoned players know, or at least have felt, that when you are playing your best, you are much the same as in a state of meditation. You are free of tension and chatter. You are concentrating on one thing. It is the ideal condition for good golf." Harvey Penick We have all experience moments of superior performance in one endeavor or another. This elusive high performance state has been most commonly referred to as the zone, but also the flow, peak performance, ideal performance state and other terms. The zone is most often reached when an individual is faced with a challenging but attainable task, when confidence is high and when one has the appropriate arousal level and is immersed in the activity. In other words, when one is completely focused on achieving and his/her determination is strong and belief in success is unshakable. The ironic part of this, however, is that some individuals play best when they are relaxed, while others when they are excited, irritated or highly intense. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult to teach players to get into or close to the zone. It's individualistic, which brings me to the point of this writing. To increase the chances of getting into the zone or the frequency of its occurrence, a player needs to identify the characteristic of his/her own zone state. No one would argue that exceptional focus, confidence, and determination are prerequisites. Which arousal state may be optimal for each player, however, must first be determined and then they can be taught the appropriate techniques to attempt to facilitate it and the zone. One way of determining your ideal state is to keep a journal. When you experience moments of heightened performance or exceptional rounds record details such as when and where you were, how you felt, what you were thinking, how you were acting, or what you were doing that may have contributed. How was your attitude and intensity level and what were you focused on before, during and after shots? What were your self-talk and visualizations like? You may also want to list the quantity and quality of sleep the night before as well as the meal before the round and anything in between. The more details that you notice and record the better. After several journal entries you should start

to see some commonalities. And these patterns will act as your guide to finding the zone. If you are a player that plays best when calm then you may start to incorporate more relaxation and calming exercises during your rounds. Likewise, if you are a player that performs better when excited, irritated or intense then you may want to integrate energizing exercises. Regardless of which, regulating breathing patterns coupled with self-talk and imagery can help you reach your ideal state. The pace and content of these techniques, however, will obviously differ dramatically depending on your own zone characteristic

"Playing Cool Mad" by Sam Snead Letting your temper take you over, I saw, was a mistake. When you give in to anger, you lose control. A man who stays cool mad will beat you every time. In golf, the trick of developing just the right mixture of heat and coolness in competition was one of the most difficult I had to learn. The game turns lots of pros and everyday players into club-throwing maniacs. There's hardly a locker-room door left in the country without dents in it, and the number of clubs thrown or smashed gets bigger all the time. The number of first-rate amateurs and promising young pros who've let their dander rise up and ruin their game is more than you can count. On the face of it, the calm, quiet player should have all the advantage. This so far from true that I'll make the statement that any golfer who misses a shot and starts whistling is one of the easiest guys in the world to beat. You've got to have that fire, that thing in you that sometimes makes it absolutely necessary to relieve your feelings - the thing which made Eben Byers and Jesse Sweetser two of the world's greatest amateur champs prior to Bob Jones's time. Byers, Sweetser, and Jones all filled the air with clubs. Bad shots drove them wild. Chick Evans was another who got red-necked, and in modern times Byron Nelson could pretzel a club or beat a bush to death with the bet. When Doc Cary Middlecoff first joined the Grapefruit Circuit of the pros, he was described in a newspaper as `cheerful and placid of temperament" - until the Atlanta Open when Doc 3-putted and slung his club half a mile and howled like a hurt wolf. Tommy Bolt has become famous for his rages. I've gone through all this and been as guilty as the next man, so that I've formed some strong convictions on the subject. Show me the fellow who walks along calmly after topping a drive or missing a kick-in putt, showing the world he's under perfect control, yet burning up inside, and I'll show you one who's going to lose. This boy is a fake. His nervous system won't take what he's handing it. If you bottle up anger entirely, it poisons your control centers.

But if you go all the way in the other direction, the practice of kicking tee markers, abusing shrubbery, and wrecking equipment can become such a habit that it also spoils your muscular reflexes. Mad golfers keep their blood boiling and agitated all the time for a reason. Deep down, they look forward to tearing their hair. Without knowing it, they get to hoping they'll butcher a shot. We're all show-offs at heart, and guys who break up locker rooms enjoy every minute of it. Doctors and mind experts go around explaining that it's perfectly OK to explode on the course because it releases your built-up tensions. They don't tell you though, how you can rave like a wild beast and break 90. Good golfing temperament falls in between taking it with a grin or shrug and throwing a fit. I believe you should blow up, at times, if it helps, but only if you can still keep your wits about you. I couldn't beat any pro if I didn't get my temper outbreak over with fast, then start thinking out the next shot. It's like opening a steam valve for a moment, then shutting it. An old-timer in Scotland once said to me, "Make your game as storm proof as you can, " by which he meant that when everything went wrong, I should be capable of producing my best shots, regardless of my frame of mind. Which is about as easy, if you don't work at it, as scratching your ear with your elbow

THE MENTAL GAME The right attitude and strategies are essential for success in any sport (or any human endeavor for that matter), but they seem to be especially important in golf. In so many other sports, your actions are reflexive, which leaves little time to think about anything. But in golf, the ball just sits there giving you practically all the time you need to decide what youre going to do this time to pull off a successful shot. And how you handle yourself mentally on the golf course, starting with your basic attitude and including general and specific strategies toward the game, have a very important influence on your results. So this section of Toms Golf Tips is devoted exclusively to tips Ive collected on the mental game of golf. They are worth checking out. Technique is everything in this game and it doesnt comenaturally to most people. Dont hesitate to see a pro to learn the proper technique. It will be a good investment. Think before you hit and play within your capabilities. Dont try to execute a shot when your chances of success are minimal. Learn the terminology and basic rules of golf. Understand that golf is more a game of precision than brute force. Distance is fine, but not helpful at all if the ball ends up in the woods. Dont try to think of more than one swing key at a time when youre making a shot. Its counter-productive. During the swing, it sometimes it helps to think about a short mantra, such as Amsterdam to keep other thoughts (especially negative thoughts!) out of your mind and improve your tempo. Dont dwell on a bad shot after it happens. Focus on the shot ahead of you. When you do have a bad shot, try to determine what caused it and turn it into something that helps your game.

Dont try to slug a seven-iron when a six-iron will get you there comfortably. Most high-handicappers err by underclubbing themselves. If long irons are giving you trouble, switch to fairway woods and metals. They are much easier to hit. Dont hesitate to use a three-wood off the tee for more control. Rather than easing up on a club if youre concerned about hitting it too far, take a club with more loft and swing away. Try your best on every shot. Make a conscious effort to remove tension from your grip and body. Tension is a swing killer. Take a few seconds to visualize the shot you are about to make. It helps. If you tend to slice (as a right hander), hit your tee shots from the right side of the tee and do the opposite if you tend to hook. This gives you more fairway to work with. Always give yourself room for some error. If you need to fly the ball over a tree, and you think a seven-iron will do it, hit an eight-iron. Pick out a precise target on every shot, and always try to put yourself in the best possible position to hit the next shot. Wind strength and direction can have a big bearing on ball flight. Try to learn through experience what one-club and two-club winds feel like. The same goes for uphill and downhill shots. If you have a sidehill shot with the ground falling away from you, aim left. If you have a sidehill shot with the ball above your feet, aim right. Pay close attention to where you are losing strokes, and devote your practice sessions to those areas.

While on the course, don't think about your final score. Concern yourself only with the shot at hand and the process of producing the best shot possible. Make sure you are thoroughly familiar with the proper use of golf carts and with other golf etiquette matters, so you can focus entirely on your game. Above all, try to develop confidence in all your shotmaking. Negative thinking is probably the biggest score-wrecker in golf, especially on short putts. Convince yourself you can make that shot, or sink that putt, and good things will happen. If you think you're a good putter, if you keep telling yourself how great you are, it certainly helps -Arnold Palmer Make your practice session harder than the real game. Instead of just beating balls in a general direction on the range, give yourself very specific targets to aim at whenever you practice. Aim for an imaginary fairway 20 yards wide and see how many drives out of 10 you can get within the fairway. This will give you evidence of your progress and will also get your mind used to dealing with tight driving holes and pressure situations. So how do you Apply Mental Imagery? In describing how he employs mental images to enhance his performance, Jack Nicklaus once wrote: I never hit a shot even in practice without having a sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. Its like a colour movie. First, I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I see the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then theres a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality only at the end of this short private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball. The worlds greatest living golfer advocating mental imagery. However, having this skill on tap comes only through practice it doesnt become second nature overnight. If you want to perfect and

use mental imagery to your fullest advantage you can start by doing two things: 1. In every practice session, before you play a shot, first imagine it happening as perfectly and precisely as possible. See, feel, and experience yourself moving through the shot in your mind as you would like it to actually happen. 2. In competitions, before the round starts, mentally recall your game plan, shot making skills, focus skills, reactions, or feelings that you want to carry into the round. To become highly proficient in the use of mental imagery, you have to use it every day, on your way to practice, during practice, after practice, and in the evenings before sleeping. Another way of looking at this is Daydreaming. How many times a day does your mind wander to your next round of golf on Wednesday or at the weekend? You are already using mental imagery when this happens all Im suggesting is that you become your own movie director and get a bit of cohesion and structure to your daydreams. And the idea of being your own movie director is not as far fetched as it may seem. Mental Imagery is an indispensible tool for athletes in every sport. It is difficult to identify a top performing athlete who does not use mental imagery to improve their performance levels. The power of mental imagery can be transferred into your golf game when applied properly. Lets briefly clarify the critical difference between visualization and mental imagery. Visualization is seeing with your minds eye while you are playing. Mental imagery is feeling with your minds eye before you play. Ok, this is obviously generalized for the purposes of this article yet the key distinction is revealed. To benefit from mental imagery in your golf game youll learn how to engage your emotional body while directing specific visual images in your mind. Yet you will do this before you play. Visualization, on the other hand, will be employed during each and every shot you play on the course.

The outcome of using mental imagery is to get your conscious and unconscious minds in harmony. To do what I call a prehearsal of coming events.You step deeply into your mental images of playing excellent golf and fill yourself with what this feels like. Acting as if you are already actually doing what you are imagining. This is the heart of true peak performance training mental training. By repeating this guided mental imagery process your entire being becomes engrossed in the experience. Your mind accepts these prehearsals as actual events.

You see, the unconscious mind does not make a distinction between a real or an intensley imagined state. Read that again if this concept is new to you. Now that youre read it again Ill repeat it! The unconscious mind does not make a distinction between a real and an intensley imagined event! This is verfiable with current neuroscience research. I cover this subject in greater length in my book. Yet you can use this powerful knowledge today. Begin thinking with feeling. Use your emotional body to sesne what your pictures should feel like. Then step deeply into these mental images and play golf in your mind! It may seem simple but by using this technique alone I dropped my handicap from the 20s into the low single digits. Without golf lessons. Begin by lying or sitting still and recalling a time whwn you played very well. Now step into this memory and really dig deeply into every nuance of this stae you were in. It will be the doorway to future peak performance states. Once you have a good feel for this memory imagine yourself in the future. Stnding over as shot that was

previously challenging to you. Then make the swing. And continue your imaginary round of golf. This single technique can literally transform your game, if you are one of the few who choose to harness the incredible power of their mind. Use your mind properly and your game will improve. In fact, it is inevitable.

You Can't Visualize It, You Can't Do It: Imagery For Golfers Nov 6, 2010 Julian Morrow

mental rehearsal - google photMental imagery causes those muscle combinations and sequences involved in an actual series of moves to fire, thereby priming and reinforcing muscle memory "There is a law in psychology that states if you form a picture in your mind of who you would like to be and hold that picture there long enough, you will become exactly as you have been thinking." William James (1842-1910) Physician, Philosopher and the Father of Modern Psychology Mental Imagery: Art or Science Mental imagery, visualization, mental rehearsal...call it what you will, is a pictorial representation of a cognition that frees us to think abstractly, which includes the recall of past memories and germination of future dreams. It's the innate ability to voluntarily create events in the mind's eye, that is, as opposed to hallucinations, which are, as most people know, harmful and uncontrollable. Anyone and everyone with even a hint of self-awareness is already familiar with the concept since they use it on a regular basis, albeit supplemented with a shorthand version of self talk. Despite the fact that highly respected scientists and scholars, like William James, touted its benefits over a century ago, the idea that imagery could function as an intervention which could enhance athletic performance was not popular within the sports community. That is, not until the late 1980s, when medical instrumentation finally advanced to the point where research could be conducted which would provide hard data, thus verifying what its proponents whose instincts, supported by anecdote, had been claiming all along; the potential of the mind to get you where you want to go was unlimited.

The Neuromuscular Effects Induced by Mental Imagery What the consensus from these studies, using mostly Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans which measure the strength of cortical activity in various areas of the brain, revealed was that mental rehearsal activates areas of the brain which are responsible for the formulation of motor programs. The results spoke for themselves, visualization induces neuro-muscular changes that can be traced clear down to the cellular level. As could be expected, the reaction to these ground breaking findings was swift, not only from sports psychologists but from coaches. physical educators, trainers and even athletes as well. Everyone jumped all over it and shortly thereafter became a staple in the repertoire of performance enhancement strategists. One especially compelling study targeted a sample of body builders who, because of injury, were prevented from working out. Half the subjects were taught to replicate their exercise routines via mental imagery while the other half used as the control, simply engaged in relaxation exercises. To the astonishment of many, what occurred was that the imagery group were found to have significantly less muscle atrophy due to an overall increase in blood circulation than their more chilled out brethren. The Basic Factors Involved in Mental Imagery Actually, the terms, mental imagery and visualization, are somewhat misleading since the practice involves the incorporation of all the senses, not just sight, with additional emphasis placed on kinesthetics, balance and touch. What occurs when a golfer becomes fully immersed in the act of imagining the swing of a club, is that the neuromuscular patterns fire in the exact same sequence, albeit with less intensity, used in the actual motion. Visualization can be used from either the first or third person perspectives, However, when the practitioner's objective is to rehearse something like the stroke of a club, first person, which assumes the role of the actor, becomes the modality of choice. And what the technique accomplishes is twofold: most importantly, it reinforces the muscle memory needed to execute a move automatically, thereby adhering to the precautionary homily that decorates the walls of many a locker room and that most experienced athletes are familiar with, analysis causes paralysis. And second, it primes the coordination of muscles and tendons involved in the action.

In addition to utilizing all the senses, the more detail, realism and control over the image, the more effective it becomes. Therefore, as one begins to become familiar with utilizing it as a learning tool, the more aware of those sensations that accompany the act of swinging a golf club they must become. Of those, balance, kinesthetics and touch are naturally the most crucial and thus demand the greatest emphasis and concentration.

How Golfers Can Assess And Improve Their Imagery Capacity Nov 7, 2010 Julian Morrow

Practice makes perfect - google photos A person's mental imagery skills can be improved through continued use and by following the types of suggestions contained within this exercise The effectiveness of a person's imagery skills can be determined by examining the depth and duration of their focus while engaged in the process. While the use of PET scans to accomplish this is desirable, the procedure is time consuming, costly and is restricted to the few who have access and the training to use that type of sophisticated apparatus in the first place. The true value in assessing an individual's imagery capacity rests not so much on the absolute level of their self-reported ratings, as it does in creating a baseline that can serve as a point of reference from which comparisons can be made after formal instruction and practice have been enlisted. As a result, several self-report questionnaires, such as the Mental Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ-RS), which are reliable, quick and easy to administer have been developed for that purpose. The exercise that follows is similar to the procedure and scoring method described in the MIQ-RS manual (RS indicates a revised edition), the difference, however, is that it puts a greater emphasis on describing certain features of imagery that make it a more effective mind-body learning tool. Typically, once a person starts to use it, they become more proficient at it since they soon become habituated to noticing certain details of the activity while they are engaged in it. Besides providing a tool that evaluates existing skill level, this exercise also suggests the types of details that, if need be, can improve the clarity and usefulness of this strategy, making it considerably more effective when utilized on a regular basis.

Establishing Your Baseline Skills During this first phase, you are to visualize the scenario described in the instructions, with eyes closed, from a first person perspective without physically performing the movements. You are sitting in an overstuffed chair covered in a satiny-like material (hint: it takes more effort than a stiffer seat covered with a less slippery fabric). Slowly, you rise to your feet. Once standing, you shift your weight to your right leg and bring your left leg up, knee bent, so that your left foot is about a foot off the ground as you balance yourself. Hold that pose for about 5-10 seconds and then reverse the procedure so that you end up back in your starting position, seated in the chair. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, rate your effectiveness in capturing that moment. Understanding and Identifying the Most Salient Details by Using Your Imagination This time physically perform the exact same routine with your eyes open. Pay especially close attention to the position of your head and your line of sight. Sense the expression on your face and monitor the tension in the different parts of your body: your quadriceps, abdomen, calves, arms and shoulders, as you move. Concentrate on your breathing. Do you feel your chest expand when you inhale? Are you primarily breathing through your nostrils or your mouth? How and where does the texture of your clothes feel as they rub against your skin? How does the pressure on the different parts of soles of your feet change as you transfer your weight around and then return back to being seated? Gauging Your Improvement After about a minute, go back to visualizing the drill and again, without physical movement try to establish what you gleaned from part two. Were you able to successfully incorporate what was suggested in your mind? Once again, score yourself.

In this segment, repeat part two but while you actually go through the moves, turn your attention to searching for five details of the drill that you missed up until this point. After another sixty seconds or so, rate your efficiency and then compare your baseline score to your most recent rating. How do you measure up? Were you able to benefit from the two sets of suggestions that were provided by becoming more skillful with each step? At this juncture, If you believe that you've adequately mastered the procedure, you are now ready to break down the elements of your game and visualize yourself employing the proper mechanics as you play a couple of especially challenging holes with lan and confidence. As you become more facile at exerting full control over your ability to manipulate the action in accordance with your intentions, the more compelled you will be to use it, fostering a favorable spiral between your trust and reliance on it and increasing mastery, all of which should culminate in the numbers on your scorecard starting to tumble.

Golf Mental Game Tips Imagine yourself on the golf course. Take out your favorite club, tee up and address the ball. Gracefully make your backswing and solidly strike the ball. Focus on the feel of the grip of the club, as if the club is an extension of your arm. Finish with a nice follow through and hear the crowd clap as they admire your shot. If the mental imagery you just did re-created a true experience in your mind, it should draw on your kinesthetic sense to feel the club, visual sense to see the ball being struck by the club, and auditory sense to hear the ball at impact. This happens in your imagination, but the motor, visual and auditory regions of your brain awaken as if you just hit a ball. Therein lays the power of mental imagery. From the comfort of your couch, you are able to reinforce connections in the brain that mimic actual physical practice. You care because, like practice, these reinforced connections make you better at golf or whatever physical activity you are visualising. If mental imagery is so visual, can simply watching sports on TV improve your game? No. Watching other people play is passive. To boost your game you need to actively imagine yourself doing the physical actions. When you creatively visualise those movements, you stimulate the brain in ways nearly the same as when you physically do the actions. Imagine yourself running a race and your pulse should creep up. Mental imagery can only reinforce pre-existing connections in the brain. This means, in order to get better by mental imagery, you need to already be good at the action that youre visualising. So even if I creatively visualise myself batting a sensational innings, chances are, I will still be out at duck when I actually pad up. The mental part only works when youve already got game. Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers and Geoff Colvin in Talent is Overrated describe deliberate practice as the best way to develop your game. Think Tiger Woods to understand deliberate practice. His practice sessions are rigorous and structured with feedback built in to constantly improve elements of his game. They are also long. To achieve greatness, the authors say you need to spend over 10,000 hours or 10 years in practice. Mental imagery cannot replace hard practice, but it may be able to accelerate the process.

William Straub, a sports psychologist, ran an important study to learn how mental imagery could magnify the results of practice. He selected 75 undergraduate students for an eight week study of dart throwing. He divided the students into five groups. The first group was the control group. They were told not to throw darts for the duration of the eight weeks. A second group threw 50 darts for 30 minutes a day, five days a week for the eight weeks. The last three groups practiced, but unlike the second group, they practiced only on alternate days. On the other days, they performed one of three different mental training methods. Mental imagery was one of them. At the conclusion of the study, results showed that the first group of students that did nothing for eight weeks had no improvement from baseline. The second group that did only physical practice improved by 67 points. The group that practiced and did mental imagery on the alternate days showed the greatest improvement of 167 points! Straub proved that mental imagery can boost your game. To make it effective, you need to see, feel and hear yourself hitting that golf club, throwing those darts, or wondering why in the world you are up at dawn doing the Chakrasana. While there is no substitute for hard, deliberate practice, you may be able to accelerate your results through some sincere mental imagery. Let us know how it works.

The Effects of Mental Imagery on Athletic Performance Annie Plessinger What is Mental Imagery? Mental imagery, also called visualization and mental rehearsal, is defined as experience that resembles perceptual experience, but which occurs in the absence of the appropriate stimuli for the relevant perception (plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/). Whenever we imagine ourselves performing an action in the absence of physical practice, we are said to be using imagery. While most discussions of imagery focus on the visual mode, there exists other modes of experience such as auditory and kinesthetic that are just as important. However, for the purposes of this paper, only visual imagery will be discussed for it is the most relevant mode concerning athletic performance. Claims Although sports psychology is becoming more prevalent in today? s society, there is a surprising lack of web sites that endorse and offer visual imagery skills for sports. The few advertisements that I found endorse tapes which claim to rapidly improve your athletic skill, concentration, and endurance. Visual imagery advocates purport that this technique increases energy and avoids injuries as well. Not only will visualization improve athletic performance but the ads also claim that it will enhance motivation and overall enjoyment of the sport (www.health-o-rama.org/superlearning/spec-s.htm). Peak Performance Sports looks to sell tapes that has the "latest methods in sports psychology", one of them being mental imagery, which will elevate your game to a new level. The tapes will increase confidence, focus and self-composure which will in turn, improve your athletic performance. These tapes can work for any type of athlete, whether they are professional, amateur, or of a junior status (www.peaksports.com/index.php3). Jacksonville has a sports counseling center which teaches imagery along with other sports psychology techniques. At this center, they allege to reduce performance anxiety, deal with mental trauma sustained during and after injury, and help you with recurrent past images of terrible performances that athletes cannot seem to forget, such as the double

fault on match point or the missed catch for the winning touchdown (www.benchmark123.com/intrinsic). The Importance of Mental Imagery Many sports such as golf, tennis and skating, not only require physical skills, but a strong mental game as well. Most coaches preach the line that sports are 90% mental and only 10% physical. Especially in sports where hundredths of a second or tenths of an inch separate the champions from the mediocre athletes, an extra edge can be extremely crucial. Hence, numerous athletes are turning towards mental imagery to take their game to the next level. Different uses of imagery in sport include: mental practice of specific performance skills, improving confidence and positive thinking, problem solving, controlling arousal and anxiety, performance review and analysis, preparation for performance, and maintaining mental freshness during injury. How to Implement Mental Imagery There is no correct way to practice mental imagery. It is all left up to individual preferences and the present circumstances. It can be done on or off the field, very short (within a few seconds or minutes), of a long duration, sitting up, lying down, in complete silence, with a stereo, eyes closed or they can be open. A shorter version of imagery is best implemented during matchplay. For example, a tennis player may take a few seconds to visualize him or herself hitting the perfect serve in the place where he or she wants. Or a quarterback can go through a play in his mind just before calling the play. Longer, specific guided visualizations are usually designed for a quiet room prior to competition. In this case, the player should be in a relaxed and receptive state in order for the image to go deeply into the mind. It is recommended to do visualization two or three times per week. Another way that many athletes practice imagery is during bike rides, lifting weights, rowing, etc. Since one is exerting physical energy while doing mental rehearsal, it helps facilitate actual competition (Porter, 22-23). Some individuals are better at forming pictures in their heads than others. Or some people may excel in certain sensory experiences and not others. Advice on improving mental imagery skill can be found at www.shpm.com/articles/sports/tennis.html.

Studies During the 60? s and 70? s, the studies conducted on mental imagery were rather inconsistent due to different confounds such as lack of subjects and reliable controls. In addition, researchers used a variety of skills because they were not exactly sure what the subjects should do when they engage in mental practice. Hence, some were more likely than others to work with mental practice which varied the results . However, now there is sufficient reliable evidence that suggests imagery rehearsal can sometimes improve motor performance in a variety of sports. Feltz and Landers conducted a meta-analytic to examine 60 studies in which mental practice was compared to control conditions. Their analysis yielded 146 effect sizes with the overall average effect size of 48 positing that mental imagery practice "influences performance more than no practice," but consistently less effective than physical practice. On average, the effect sizes were larger with the studies which used cognitive tasks. Overall, the cognitive rehearsal conditions showed a better performance, about 1/2 of a standard deviation unit. (Paivio, 22-29) In 1992, Anne Isaac conducted a study which examined the influence of mental practice on sports skills. While most of the previous studies on this topic showed positive effects of mental rehearsal, they were not performed in actual field context using subjects who learned actual sport skills rather than just novel motor tasks. Isaac eliminated this problem in her experiment. She also tested the hypothesis of whether people who have better images and control over their images result in better performances. Isaac tested 78 subjects and classified them as novice or experienced trampolinists. Then she further divided the two groups into an experimental and control group. She also classified the subjects as either high or low imagers based on initial skill level. Both groups were trained in three skills over a six week period. In order to prevent confounds, the imagery group was unknown to the experimenter until afterwards. The experimental group physically practiced the skill for 2-1/2 minutes, which was then followed by 5 minutes of mental practice. Lastly, an additional 2-1/2 minutes of physical practice followed the mental practice. Meanwhile, the control group physically worked on the skill for 2-1/2 minutes, which was then followed by 5 minutes of a session trying a mental task of an abstract nature, such as math problems, puzzles, and deleting vowels. Then, 2-1/2 more minutes were spent physically working on the skill again. The outcome of the experiment was as followed: there existed a

significant difference in the improvement of the high and low imagers. In both novice and experimental groups where the initial skill ability was similar, the high imagery groups showed significantly more improvement than the low imagery group. Furthermore, there was a significant difference between the experimenter and control groups. Not surprisingly, the experimental group had significantly more improvement than the control group. This study posits that despite the level of skill (beginner or experienced) visual imagery proves effective. (Isaac, 192-198). In a recent experiment conducted by Roure et al, they found six specific autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses that correlated with mental rehearsal, thereby improving sports performance. The subjects were placed into an imagery group and a control group. The task measured in each group was based on their ability to pass an opponent? s serve to a given teammate, in the sport of volleyball. The experimenters measured the variations of the ANS during the motor skill and during the mental rehearsing sessions. The ANS parameters tested included: skin potential and resistance, skin temperature and heat clearance, instantaneous heart rate, and respiratory frequency. The results of the test revealed a strong correlation between the response in the actual physical tasks (both pre- and post-test volleyball) and during the mental imagery sessions. There existed a difference in the skills between the imagery and the control group, the former being the better. In addition, no clear difference was present between the pre- and post- tests in the control group. This study showed that mental imagery induces a specific pattern of autonomic response. These include: decreased amplitude, shorter duration and negative skin potentials when compared to the control group. As a consequence of the ANS, the imagery group was associated with better performance. In light of this experiment, Roure suggested that metal imagery may help in the construction of schema which can be reproduced, without thinking, in actual practice (Roure, 99-108). Not only does mental imagery seem to enhance athletic performance, but it has been shown to enhance intrinsic motivation as well. A study in 1995 tested who would spend more time practicing a golf putting task and who would result in having higher self efficacy. Thirty nine beginner golfers were grouped into an imagery or control group. For 3 sessions, both groups were taught how to hit golf balls. The imagery group practiced in an imagery training session designed for this specific golf skill. As a result, the imagery group spent significantly more time practicing the golf putting task than the control group. In addition, the subjects in the imagery group had more realistic self-expectation, set higher goals to achieve, and adhered more to their training programs outside the experimental setting

(Martin, 54-69). Since all of the studies mentioned have focused on adult subjects, I wanted to see if mental imagery had the same effect on children. I found a study which examined the effects of mental imagery on performance enhancement with 7-10 year old children. In this experiment, table tennis players were divided into three groups. The results indicated that the children who used mental imagery had significant improvement in the accuracy and quality of their shots compared with the control group. This study shows that mental imagery training for children can be beneficial. This could be a perfect opportunity to learn mental skills at an early age which can ultimately give them greater control over their own destiny. However, this is only one particular study, and more studies on children do need to be conducted (Orlick, 230-241). How Mental Imagery Works reason visual imagery works lies in the fact that when you imagine yourself perform to perfection and doing precisely what you want, you are in turn physiologically creating neural patterns in your brain, just as if you had physical performed the action. These patterns are similar to small tracks engraved in the brain cells which can ultimately enable an athlete to perform physical feats by simply mentally practicing the move. Hence, mental imagery is intended to train our minds and create the neural patterns in our brain to teach our muscles to do exactly what we want them to do (Porter, 17). Theories of Imagery Rehearsal Mechanisms Sports psychologists have attempted to understand the exact mechanisms that cause mental imagery to work. Numerous theories exist, but sports psychology lacks a single theory which completely explains the effectiveness of mental imagery. The earliest theory was proposed by Carpenter in 1894 called the psychoneuromuscular theory. This theory maintains that imagery rehearsal duplicates the actual motor pattern that is being rehearsed. His view is that the motor patterns which are generated during imagery practice are the same as those used for physical practice. Another prominent theory is the symbolic learning theory. This differs from the previous theory that instead of imagery working due to muscle activation, mental imagery works from the opportunity to practice the symbolic elements of a motor task. Therefore, it is assumed that the learning obtained from imagery relates to cognitive learning. A third theory, called the arousal/activation theory, connotes that

by practicing imagery, one will obtain a level of arousal that is optimal for the specific performance. The arousal functions as a way of "priming" the muscles which result in a lowering of the sensory threshold of the performer to facilitate performance. Peter Lang came up with an information-processing model of imagery which presumes that an image is a functionally organized, definite set of propositions stored by the brain. It is not simply a stimulus in a person? s head to which one responds. This image has two main types of statements: response propositions and stimulus propositions. The latter describes the content of the scenario to be imagined. Response propositions, on the other hand, describe the imager? s response to that scenario. Lang further states that an image contains a motor program which holds instructions for the imager on how to respond to the image. Hence, the image is a template for overt responding. So modifying either overt behavior or vivid imagery will result in a change in the other (Suinn, 492-506). Another popular theory is Suinn? s visual motor behavior rehearsal (VMBR) model which posits that imagery should be a holistic process that includes a compete reintegration of experience. This includes visual, auditory, tactile, emotional, and kinesthetic cues. He has demonstrated that physiological responses can result from athletes usage of mental imagery. Suinn? s method is one of the few which has solid evidence to support its effectiveness. A more recent model, which fundamental parts to an image. The first part is that the image itself must be a centrally arousing sensation so it is more like the real world. It has all the attributions of a sensation, the only difference is that it is internal. This image provides the imager with so much realism that it can enable him or her to interact with the image as if it were the real world. Secondly, there exists a somatic response. Therefore, the very act of imaging results in psychophysiological changes in the body. Finally, the third part of the image is the actual meaning of the image. Every image has a significant meaning and that specific meaning can imply something different to each individual. Since every person has a unique background and upbringing, the actual internal image can be quite different for each individual, even though the set of imagery instructions are the same (Murphy, 153-172). also places importance on psychophysiology, goes even further by including a specific meaning for an image. This model is know as Ahsen? s Triple Code Model of imagery (ISM). According to Ahsen there are three Conclusion

After reading through numerous studies, visual imagery seems somewhat promising and beneficial. Although it is not as beneficial as physical practice, visual imagery fairs better than no practice at all. Hence, a program with physical practice combined with mental training seems to be the best method. Virtually all of the studies show that mental training improves motor skills. More recently a lot of studies go even further and prove that visual imagery can improve various skills related to sports in actual field contexts. Visual imagery seems to be beneficial to anyone who wants to improve at their sport. Whether you are a recreational athlete or a professional does not matter. The benefits of mental imagery have proved successful at any level. So if you are a professional looking to break into the top, or a club player who simply wishes to defeat his/her friend, I recommend incorporated mental imagery along with physical practice. Not only can mental imagery improve specific motor skills but it also seems to enhance motivation, mental toughness and confidence, all which will help elevate your level of play. However, even though most of the studies demonstrate that mental imagery results in significant sports improvement, I am skeptical to the extent of the external validity of these experiments. If one can return a serve more precisely in volleyball, does that mean that it will work under real pressure situations? In addition, does this mean that improvements will be made in other areas of the game besides the serve? Will this work in other sports not yet tested such as football? It seems rather naive to generalize these finding to real world, intense pressure situations of all sports. There also lies a shortage of evidence regarding exactly how mental imagery works to enhance performance. More studies need to be done to determine when and why imagery techniques are and are not effective. If this problem can be addressed, then more effective techniques can be created and will in turn further increase the effects of mental imagery. In addition, it might also help solidify the validity of the previous experiments.