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One of the best books to read is ‘The Inner Game’ by Tim Gallwey, he explains in great detail about how our conscious mind-Self 1, fights with our natural ability to hit the ball- Self 2. By confusing Self 1 and keeping it busy we can then allow ourselves to play without interference. One of his best drills is the Back-Hit drill, I have taken this and added a few things to help tempo and retain balance, I call it the back, hit, bounce drill, on your take away say b-a-c-k slowly, where ‘b’ is the start of the backswing and ‘k’ is the top of the backswing, then say ‘hit’ when you hit the ball and then hold your finish until the ball bounces and say ‘bounce’. Saying this out loud at an even, calm voice or even in your mind will turn off the interference from Self 1 and allow you to swing tension free.

via Play Better Golf » The Mental Game.

Shanks!
Devoted the last 6 months of my golf life to short game practice, and mainly trying to understand and execute Stan Utley’s techniques. I had been happy enough with my long game and my distance and consistency, but was sick of not scoring any better for many many years.. perpetually stuck in the low 80s barrier.

So for about 6 months I averaged probably at least an hour per day of short game practice, overall. I didn’t playl. Occasional driving range to make sure my long shots were still ok. Usually I would head over to the practice area in a public course near my house, in the AM before work, and then sneak again over there at lunch, for another session. Logistically I was lucky in that it’s easy for me to get over there.

Yeah, that’s a lot of practice. Some days I would skip, but I would go more often then not. I was able to grasp, absorb and improve my facility with Utley’s various methods for chipping, pitching, putting, bunker and recovery. I read all his books and watched all his golf channel and youtube vids over and over again, religiously.

My technique improved. I often would find myself looking like a genius on the pratice area. But I started having a problem. It usually started when I would move to working on slightly longer pitch shots from tighter lies. I would start shanking– often combined alternatively with fat shots. Horrible!!

It started to become a very consistent pattern… I would get to the practice area, hit a bunch of great shots and then at some point start shanking. I would gradually deteriorate, shanking more and more until I would eventually stumble on something that would make them go away, I’d hit great shots again and feel like a hero once more. I would think it was licked, only to have it return again, the very next day, usually as soon as I started trying the tougher lies again. Frustrating!!

Very very frustrating. Started to get me thinking about throwing in the towel. One who shanks doesn’t deserve to play golf! The dreaded shank!! Most golfers don’t even want to say the word!

I developed all sorts of theories as to what was causing them: ‘Pitching from tight lies is hard and causes tension, and the tension makes me flinch and shank.’ or ‘I get tired and my swing stops working’ or..’i'm too old (48) and golf is just too hard’, or.. ‘my setup is wrong, Im too closed, and if I try to swing on a single plane (i.e. flat) as utley advocates, then I’m misaligned and at that point I have to shank.’

I started laying down a club as a reference point for my allignment, and that helped, but wasn’t a cure. They returned after I would stop using the club.

I firmed up my grip and left arm and increased my arm swing length somewhat and that seemed to help, but ultimately I knew that was a bandaid and sure enough they came back.

Finally I saw that they weren’t going away completely. I would need to come to terms with them, or just stop playing. Then I started to think more about shanks in general, and decided that shanks had a bad rep that was undeserved; I convinced myself that a shank was no better or worse than a fat or thin shot, just different. An unfairly categorized mis hit. That kind of thinking oddly seemed to help and reduce the tension or whatever it was that was causing them to begin with, but they still didn’t go away completely, and clearly I wasn’t going to be breaking 80 very much with them being so “abundant”.

Finally I decided that my only hope was to take it a step further. I decided I would truly welcome the shanks. I borrowed a method that I got from Tim Gallwey’s golf book that I read long ago, called “welcoming the yips”. Sure enough when I really allowed myself to shank and really started to feel and focus on what was actually going on, something really cool happened: I started focusing on the heel of my wedge. Without trying to control it, I just focused on it, to see what it was doing exactly. Then it happened: I felt myself leaning in towards the ball slightly during the process of the swing. And as soon as I became aware of it, the instability felt really noticable– like a big ship teetering in the waves.

The cure seemed clear.. stop doing that leaning thing!! It made sense that the leaning could cause both shankin and the fat shots. But I knew from the inner game book that trying to avoid something doesn’t nessesarily make it go away, and often strengthens it. So I focused instead on expressing stability during the swing, and kept on focusing on the heel of the club, and just noticing whether I leaned in or not and how much, without trying to control it.

Well– in short, Bingo. No more shanks. I’m happy to report that I’ve been doing much better the last few days, and ‘they’ are being held at bay. I’m feeling much more confident now and I even think I’m getting ready to play again. Will keep you posted as to my progress. Dang shanks!

The Inner Game of Golf: Getting Rid of Negative Mantras
Creating a Positive Focused State of Mind
By Audrey Sussman PhD, Director Anxiety Control Center
The purpose of this article to reveal what you can do to stop negative thoughts that get in the way of your game. Would you like to create a positive, focused state of mind? At the end of this article there will be a link so you can get your own copy of 2 Mind Calming exercises used at the Anxiety Control Center. Although written for golfers the ideas are really for anyone who finds their mind racing with disconcerting thoughts.
Golf is like life, that’s what makes it such a complex sport. One day you are in perfect rhythm with things moving smoothly, and the next you just can’t seem to get into the flow.
The golf course can be a wonderful place to hone your skills or take a break from the pressures of work. But, at times you may notice that an uninvited guest tags along, turning what would normally be to an enjoyable experience into an exasperating one. No, I’m not talking about an annoying acquaintance tagging along, I’m talking about the unsettling “voice” that plays in the “back of the mind.” I call that negative voice a negative mantra. It’s like having an internal narrator or a play-by-play commentator.
When your inner voice is positive and supportive it enhances your skills, and you can fall into a natural rhythm, focused, alert, and “in the zone”. But when the voice turns negative, it can have devastating effects on your game that have nothing to do with your capability. When a negative mantra “plays” on the unconscious level it can lead in an undesired direction, creating stress, anxiety, anger or doubt in your own abilities.
Like any meditation, negative mantras gain power with repetition as they play subconsciously, again and again, in your head. Sometimes these negative mantras are obvious, like when you are beating yourself up for a slice on an earlier hole. You know what’s distracting you, but just don’t know how to stop “the voice”.
At other times you may not even be aware of your own negative mantras. You don’t know why you’re “off.” You just know that you are. And this feeling of being “off” can soon become an even stronger negative mantra of its own.
What goes on at the golf course can also reflect what is happening in other areas of your life. A negative feeling from home or work, or even something that happened last time you were golfing can travel with you during your play, subtly affecting your concentration, your rhythm, and your enjoyment of your day on the course.
The good news is that negative mantras do not have to control your life. The first step of being in control of your own mantras is to become aware of them. Start the process today with a simple action. Next time you get annoyed, frustrated or stressed, stop and “listen” for the thoughts playing in your mind. At first it may take awhile to become aware of the specific negative mantras that are affecting you, but as you fix your attention on what’s going on in your head, you’ll notice that repeating themes start to emerge.
Because negative mantras gain power through unconscious repetition, this simple act of “going inside” and listening actually changes your state, and sometimes can be enough to stop a negative mantra in its tracks.
Other times, you may find that a negative mantra is so powerful that simply becoming aware of it is not enough to stop it. In this case, you need to take the next step to convert these negative mantras into positive ones, like the ones you carry around when golfing at your best. There are many techniques that can be learned to quickly reprogram and change negative thoughts and mantras.

The-Inner-Game-of-Golf

Long before Dr. Bob Rotella made tweaking a golfers head as important as tweaking his swing, Tim Gallwey, who knew virtually nothing about the mechanics of the game when he penned the first edition of this visionary work, understood that even the best technique collapses when the mind cracks under the games pressure. Gallweys ultimate insight into the game was that a golfers mind is a golfers worst enemy; too much thinking only gets in the way.

The new edition of this groundbreaking instructional continues to preach such Inner Game fundamentals as trust, concentration, visualization, feel, and relaxation, and is full of what Gallwey calls awareness exercises. Much of what he has to say seems obvious in a world in which most good athletes have some kind of psychological guru always at the ready to help improve performance, but Gallwey, with his bagful of anecdotes and encouragement, was one of the first to explore this uncharted territory, and still remains one of the most readable. –Jeff Silverman

Applying foucs to your golf game
I re-read this book every couple of years, and enjoy it thoroughly. When a golfer has studied all the technical swing mechanics books, seen all the lesson videos and taken every tip from every source, he/she still needs to learn how to prepare himself mentally to play the game, and more importantly – improve his game. This book makes it possible to improve rapidly and to continue improving.

Tiger Woods

Steve Williams’ Hitting The Zone came to hand as I searched the shelves of my favourite second-hand Hard to Find book shop.

Steve’s book, co-authored with Hugh de Lacy has been around for some time however having read literally; no let’s not go there, just let’s say lots of golf tuition books, I decided I should at least, buy it for my collection.

And then thought it’s about a Kiwi so maybe a wee word about it will fit the bill for a Golf in Godzone blog.

So here’s a few of my Aha! thoughts while reading what turned out to be a very good book.
And I’d go as far as say it’s a must-read for young golfers.

Not because it’s one of these do this, don’t do that kind of mechanistic methodology tuition books.
It focuses on the mind side of playing this great game.

Its focus on the mind, exquisitely explained in the book’s opening quote.

“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a half inch course-the space between your ears-Bobby Jones”

My first Aha!
Steve approves of the use of “shrinks” then writes, “Tiger Woods is an exception-the nearest thing to shrinks on Team Tiger are Steve, and Tiger’s [late] father Earl.”

I guess it’s because so much has been written about Tiger’s swing coaches we fail to observe Tiger doesn’t have a favourite “shrink”.

I also liked Steve’s definition of a successful swing and/or performance.

“We could define success in any sport as the natural learned potential stored within the subconscious, minus the negative interference from the conscious.”

-See what I mean when I write it’s a book about the mind rather than mechanical methodology?

Steve’s definition brought to mind Tim Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Golf and Tim’s idea that we have a Self 1 which creates physical and mental interferences with the natural abilities of Self 2.

Steve gets very upset when he hears of his old boss, Greg Norman, being called a “choker”. And I’ll come back to my thoughts on Greg later.

Mention is also made of the rapid fall in form of Ian Baker-Finch but Steve is not naïve enough to suggest he’s got a fast-fix solution for such a huge fall in performance level.

Steve is a great believer in the value of goal-setting and I found this heading kinda cute;
“The pen is mightier than the passing fancy”.

Suggesting that if you don’t put pen to paper and write down your goals. Whatever goal-of-the moment comes to mind is nothing but a passing fancy.

I’m almost there with my Aha! Moments so please bear with me.

A minor factual error but worth commenting on is, when writing about Sam Snead, Sam is attributed with winning the 1946 US Open. Not so it was the 1946 Open at St Andrews.

Sam never did win a US Open and is on record of having said something Greg Norman might have said in reference to his well-documented losses.

Sam said, “It goes without saying that my biggest disappointment was never winning the U.S. Open. I’m reminded of it all the time. It hurts when people remember you for the things you didn’t do, rather than for the things you did do.”

The Great White Shark has a great golfing record but alas all too many people focus on the events where he didn’t quite finish the job.

My thought for the day, and something I did today with some success, but more importantly, enjoyment. Comes from Steve’s thoughts on the relaxation.

“Whatever the on-course relaxation routine, Steve says it’s vital for a player to deliberately break his concentration between shots.
It would be absolutely exhausting, if not mentally impossible, to maintain full concentration throughout the four hours or so it takes to play a round of golf.”

Aha! So when I see Steve and Tiger, talking and laughing between shots, there’s an explanation other than a chat between friends. It’s one of the ways to create a break in Tiger’s concentration between shots.

Slainte

Stan

I wrote you a week or two ago about Inner Game “certified” pros, and you were gracious enough to write me back.

You probably get notes like this all the time, but I thought I’d write, anyway.

As I look over my scores as posted on GHIN.com over the past dozen or so rounds, they are 85,88,87,93,89,90,86,87,84,86,85,87 – the scores of a slightly better than bogey golfer.

This summer I had an intention to improve my golf game and see if I could get into the 70s. I’m a 51 year old executive at an emerging small cap public company, so I don’t have a lot of time. But I decided to play 3x per week vs the 3 times a month of years past. Now it’s only 9 holes each time and one of three sessions is at the range and putting green, but I figured that swinging a club regularly could help. I also upgraded my original Big Bertha set of woods to something more contemporary, and took one lesson at a video based instruction shop (lifting my left heel, breaking my left elbow at the top of my swing). Also, I’ve been reading golf books – a few of Mark Frost’s golf history books (The Match is a really fun read), Michael Murphy’s Golf in the Kingdom, Ben Hogan’s Five Fundamentals, Bob Rotella’s Golf is not a Game of Perfect, and most recently the Inner Game of Golf.

Up until I read the Inner Game, I was still in the 43-46 range for 9. During that time I was also trying to incorporate a couple of the swing changes and get accustomed to the new clubs.

Since reading the Inner Game, I’ve been out 4 times, I’ve shot a 30 on an executive par 3, and a 41, 37 and 39 on regulation courses – an average of +3 per 9. And on this morning’s 39, I was 2 under through 5. On the 6th hole Self 1 was reveling in the possibility of shooting a 34 and I had a concentration lapse and made 2 doubles in a row.

The most fun part of all this, is when I posted the 37 on GHIN.com, there was an error message…

“This score isn’t in your normal range. Press POST SCORE again if you want to post this number.”

So, thank you for helping me create a new normal!

- Phil