Jul 13 2011
Learn To Practice Your Mental Golf Game
As a PGA Golf Instructor my job is to help people improve their golf game. As a golfer improves their golf swing mechanics, they must also train their mental golf game. Training your mental golf game takes practice just like training your mechanics.
We all have experienced the total mental collapse on the golf course. We may have needed a par on the last hole to shoot our best score, only to make a double bogey, or played a career front nine only to have a disastrous back nine. When this happens we like to use the words like choked, gagged, collapsed, and fell apart. I like to look at it from a different angle. If you have never been in that situation before, how are you supposed to know how to handle it. You must train your mental golf game for these situations.
As children we played games, pretending that we were on the last hole of the US Open with a putt to win. Or that we had a foul shot with no time left on the clock to win a big game. These rehearsals prepare us for the real situation. In golf we must train our mental game in order to perform at our best. We need to get our nerves all jumpy and our heart pounding, then, learn to hit good shots. We need to accomplish this in practice and in casual rounds. I get most of my information on the mental golf game by reading books.
The best source of information is Dr. Bob Rotella. Dr. Bob Rotella is the leading sports psychologist in golf and works with many players on the PGA Tour. His latest book, “Your 15th Club”, deals with training your mental golf game. It is a fantastic book. If you have never read any of Dr. Rotella’s books, or seen any of his DVDs, you are missing out. His approach is easy to understand and makes sense. I recommend all of his books and DVDs to my students. To get started I recommend reading “Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect” and “Your 15th Club” in that order. I would also recommend his DVD set titled “Rotella Speaks”. Click this link to read Dr. Bob Rotella bio.
Click this link to begin training your mental golf game. The information you gain from the recommended books and DVDs will help you lower your golf score. Good luck and good golfing.
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