Did my email anger you?

Did you feel threatened?

Did that bring up some old feelings?

or

Did you agree with the statement I made that Tiger Woods is not mentally tough and get a smug feeling?

Or did you have some other reaction?  Either way, I hope you felt something from that.

I received a lot of hate responses after that email. Some people said that I’m an idiot. Others said I was racist. Others said I had no idea what it takes to make it on tour. (I find it fascinating what it takes to get people to feel…something…anything and then respond.)

I pulled those statements I made about Tiger from yesterday’s front page of our local paper and another article I read online.  I didn’t even come up with them. I don’t normally make provocative statements but felt compelled to teach this way today.

…But this is not about me.  This is about you.

I write this blog and the emails in order to teach you something about golf that maybe you’ve never heard elsewhere.  But really, I’ve got a greater purpose for you in doing that. If you’ve followed me at all, you know that I think of golf as a metaphor for life. It’s almost like a religion. There are so many things to learn from playing this game that can be applied to the rest of your life. If you’ve read anything from me, you know that to be the case. You know you aren’t going to get mechanical swing instruction from me. I write about bigger things than that.

You know, I put out content all of the time and get no responses whatsoever. And then when I mention Tiger Woods,  the emotions come out.   Yes, yes, I could have said something about religion or politics to get a reaction but I thought I would stay within the bounds of golf since that’s what we are all doing here.

I sent that email out as it was…on purpose: to get a reaction from you for a powerful lesson and something I’ve been working on the last few years and that’s Emotional Mastery. A few years back, I became totally convinced that this is the key to opening the door to your golf (and life) potential and have been working on it ever since.

So why should you care about emotion and your golf game? Here’s why:

What is it that causes the yips? Emotion

Why does it seem that a 5 foot putt is sometimes harder to make than a 10 foot putt? Emotion

Why do we play well on the front nine and not on the back (or vice versa)? Emotion

Why is it that some golfers seem fired up and do very well when challenged? Emotion

Why is it that you play better on some courses and not on others? Some days and not others? Emotion

I could go on and on about that but you already know all of that.  All pressure is emotion too!

When teaching about emotion, other mental game teachers would just write something like:

“You’ve got to manage your emotions”

or

“Don’t get too high or too low”

“Get in control of your emotions”

When have you ever heard from someone who can tell you HOW to do that?

I, on the other hand, am trying to show you something by experience. In order to do that, you have to actually FEEL something and not just intellectualize it.There are answers and there are solutions to the emotion problem.

When you become aware of and work with your emotions, LIFE and GOLF gets so much easier and you perform better

Here’s some questions you might want to ponder about yourself. You don’t have to answer the questions directly…just absorb it and let your mind go where it needs to go.  The questions themselves will do the work for you and help you to take back control of your emotions. Take your time with each question and see where you need to go with it. I recommend you get yourself in that difficult emotion while doing this…remind my email again and get angry again if that helps.

In order to first make change, we have to aware of what needs to change.

If you got a strong negative reaction from my email:

1. How is it that you could allow a total stranger whom you’ve never met or seen in person cause you that emotion?

2. How does that happen on the course? In business, in your relationships?

3. Where does that emotion begin in your body. Try bringing up that emotion again and see where it starts.  When you become aware of this, you will be able to nip those troubling emotions in the bud BEFORE they become a problem.

4. Ask yourself:  “Why is it that some people would not have a strong reaction like I did”  Follow that up with: “Is that difficult emotion USEFUL to me?

5. Do I want to be a victim of my emotions out on the course or master them?

6. When have I been offended before OFF the course and shrugged it off? How did I do that? Can I do that ON the course just the same?

Now, here’s the big kicker:  7. What is the belief I’m holding that is causing me to have a negative reaction.

I’m sure that the people who wrote to me expressing their anger and hate would say something like:  “What he wrote made me so angry”

But how can I MAKE anyone angry?  I can’t.

NOBODY or NOTHING outside of you can MAKE YOU EMOTIONAL

If you got NO EMOTIONAL REACTION from my statement, you want to ask yourself: “Do I allow myself to FEEL?”  Can I get excited and passionate about golf…or anything?

Some golfers may be missing out on their potential because their true nature is a FEEL golfer yet they’ve shut that system down over the years.  I’ve run into that many times working with male athletes.

Emotional Mastery isn’t just about dealing with difficult emotions. It’s also about creating the fun ones like joy, bliss, pure, flow, etc. All of those emotions and more are what golfers use to describe THE ZONE.

You might be thinking about now: “This is a bunch of garbage. This has nothing to do with golf or my life. All I need to do is work harder  at my game,  practice more and I’ll get better.

And I would have to ask you…”How is that belief useful to your game?”

Tiger’s got some work to do. That’s no secret. He can still develop a type of mental toughness that he doesn’t have right now. That’s also a fact.

My own personal opinion is that the game of golf would be so much better if he were back in contention every week and I want to see that.  He brought excitement and passion into the game and it is sorely missed now.

The first step to mastering your emotions is allowing yourself to feel them.

The next step is to resolve the reason for the emotion and tell yourself that resolution WHILE IN THE EMOTION.

There’s more to this. I’ve developed a 7-step process to Master your emotions.  I’ll tell you more later.

The next time you hear from me, I’ll be giving you some training from a real pro instructor….unlike me.

Greens and fairways,

Craig

You hear it all of the time:

focus on the present

play one shot at a time

stay within yourself

Easier said than done right? You know what the problem really is? It’s that we have too much brainpower for this game. Our brains are way overdeveloped to be able to swing these clubs and knock this little white ball around a grassy field to drop it into a silly cup cut out of the ground.

What I’m writing here today could just be a big breakthrough for you as it has been for a lot of my clients I work with in my office. You see, most of the athletes I see in my office for help with their mental game are smart, really smart. In fact, some are quite brilliant outside of golf and sport. Out on the course, this can be a problem.

You read all of the time about pros who say that they think of “nothing” out there on the course when they are swinging or going through their preshot routine. This is great advice FOR SOME PEOPLE. And poor advice for others.

For many golfers, much better advice is to DIRECT your mind and give it something to do that is constructive instead of the destructive things you are currently doing with it. You are too smart for golf and so you have to learn how to channel all that mind power.

So, I have a couple main lessons for you here that once you understand, I think you could get a big “Aha” moment that frees your from your destructive thinking.

1. Just because a top pro tells you a certain way to think, don’t necessarily buy into it. Your brain probably works completely different than others. Everyone is unique. I’ve been preaching this for years now and sometimes it seems like nobody is listening. Do not think that advice from anyone in the golf world (including me) is good for everyone.
You’ve got to pick and choose and then trust that when it feels right or you somehow get a sense that this works for you, then it is!

2. I like to fill my mind with what my senses are taking in on the course. If you were to just stand on a course and just put all your attention on what your 5 senses are taking in, you will find many things to occupy your mind so that it doesn’t get in the way of your next shot so that you can play unconsciously.

3. Here’s the biggie. You’ve got to make a commitment BEFORE your round that this is what you are going to do during your next round. It’s a mental skill that you develop, get good at, and then do automatically at some point. It’s not going to happen without some effort and dedication. Too many golfers pay lip service to their mental game and then default right back to their old ways once they are on the course. If you haven’t pre-lived how you are going to think once you are on the course, then you’re unconscious is going to create a strong pull to do what you’ve always done…and you won’t break through.

Start tapping into the power of making a decision and commitment to practice using your mind in ways that support your game instead of being a victim of it. You have this power…use it!

Greens and fairways,

Craig

“Many of life’s failures are because people did not realize how close they were to success, when they gave up.”

Thomas Edison

Golfers up here in the North are excited to begin a new season.  They just watched a fantastic Masters tournament that fuels the passion for getting out there and smelling the grass, hearing the announcer call your group to the tee, the laughs of your buddies, the feel of a perfect shot coming off your driver, the joy of sinking that 20 footer for birdie!!

Everybody starts off with such high hopes for a fresh start and like when we follow our favorite professional sports we declare to ourselves…”THIS is the year when I break through to my personal best!”

And yes, that is all good…do that. Do it often! And…I want to do you one better to help you actually achieve that…

It’s been my experience that the biggest hindrance to keeping that momentum and continuing to improve is in how you handle your bad rounds and screwup holes.

Too many golfers take those deep inside them and it eats them up. It gets in the way of future progress.  The chokes and misses become like a cancer that grows inside you throughout the season.

Here’s the real truth about improvement….it occurs in an irregular fashion.  It’s never a straight line.  You take 3 steps forward and then 2 backward. You should expect that.  You should go into every game with a curiosity of HOW you are going to take those 3 steps forward when you are feeling most down or disappointed about a particular hole or a few bad rounds in a row.

Prepare yourself for this right now.

Tell yourself that you will never give up, never give in, that you are now on a never-ending continuous mission to improve yourself….AND YOU WILL!

This sounds sort of simplistic, I know. Sort of like something you would tell a 13 year old kid about his sports participation right?  I get that.

But you have a 13-year-old kid inside of you as well.  Because you once were one.

John Wooden, the famous basketball coach once said:

“Players with fight never lose a game, they just run out of time”

It’s the same thing with golf.  You’ve got to look at your game with a longer-term or bigger perspective and never give up on that.

I don’t care if you play for the fun of it or competitively, it’s the sheer thrill of watching yourself improve your game that keeps you coming back…or at least the hope of that.   Take advantage of that…it’s goood…very good!

I make mistakes in golf and in life. AND…I keep telling myself that I learn from everything and everything makes me better and I am constantly improving a little bit at a time.

Don’t try to force improvement either…just open yourself to it and do the actions that you believe are the keys to getting you there, whether it’s working out a swing flaw, refining your preshot routine like I teach,  doing the guided visualizations, putting on your carpet at home, or whatever.

3 steps forward, 2 steps back will get you where you want to go. It’s so much more fun to play with the belief that you are always improving.  And I know you love challenging yourself too, don’t you!

Greens and fairways,

Craig

The Europeans have won the Ryder cup this year and it came down to the last match between Graeme McDowell and Hunter Mahan. On the 17th hole of their match, under tremendous pressure, Mahan flubs his chip and can’t make the next long putt from off the green while McDowell gets a conceded par.  The key, though, is how McDowell made a pressure-packed birdie on 16. No doubt, this played huge in Mahan’s mind.

Long story short, one golfer stepping up under pressure and the other folding.

Now, Mahan has won 2 tournament events this year but McDowell won the US Open. Every golfer has his boiling point for how much pressure he can handle and it seems that McDowell had the edge having won a major, the pinnacle of golf.  Can you imagine how much more pressure there would be on you when you have a team of golfers counting you at the end of the Ryder Cup? For your home country?

Golfers need to continually work on increasing their tolerance for pressure…prepare for it, practice it in their minds before they ever get to the course. Do you remember, as a kid, pretending to play professional sports and imagining you hit the winning home run at the bottom of the ninth, or you score the winning goal as time runs out, or you sink that 30 foot putt to win the Open?

What creates the feeling of pressure? It’s your thoughts…your representation of what is going on as experienced by your unconscious mind and it sends signals to your nervous system to give you the feelings of pressure.  Those feelings ultimately turn into interference of our find muscle motor movements and destroy the golf shot, especially little touch shots like Mahan had on the 17th.

What’s the solution?  Well, ultimately, it’s to find ways to be able to control your thoughts and therefore, your emotions. You have to either

make change at the unconscious level through either:

1. repetitious conditioning -continual and increasing exposure to pressure in reality or in your mind and perceiving that it turns out ok (such as what McDowell experienced having won the US Open)

or

2. unconscious communication -  clearing the interference to a direct rapport with your unconscious mind. The centerpiece of this would be self hypnosis or meditation, whatever you want to call it.

Here’s a quickie that will certainly help you the next time you feel pressure and it’s too late to work on either 1 or 2 above:

The next time you feel pressure on the golf course, embrace it. Tell yourself to “bring it on” “I love pressure” “Let me have some more of this feeling”

because I can feel pressure AND sink this putt…

It’s an AND world

Greens and fairways,

Craig

LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTEAK PATTERNS Part 1

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I GUARANTEE that if you reduce your playing mistakes by just twenty percent you can lower you typical scores by at least five shots per round. Skeptical? Good! Read on. Without changing a single thing with your swing, you can significantly improve your scoring. How? Simple…by becoming aware of, preventing, and recovering quicker from mistakes.

One cornerstone to good playing is minimizing mistakes. It has been said by many golf pundits that those who play well are those who make the least number of mistakes, least severity of them, at the least crucial times, and recover most quickly from them. Years ago, I created the “cake” metaphor for good scoring. Great shots and pure hits are merely the frosting on the cake. However, consistency is the cake itself. And one way to improve consistency is by controlling mistake patterns.

In any round of golf, there is a plethora of possible pitfalls. On any given shot, there are so many things that can go wrong–mechanically, physically, rhythmically, mentally, emotionally, and tactically. In fact, there seems to be a least ten times as many things that can go wrong than can go right. No wonder so many of us are basket cases!

When we become aware of what can possibly go wrong, we tend to become more tentative and even defensive in both thinking and executing. It is, indeed, a self-fulfilling prophecy that the more we attempt to prevent errors the more we actually ensure them occurring. (Remember your “Don’t hit it right OB” admonition? And where did that shot go?!) However, we can’t ignore their reality either. Inconsistent play, blowup holes, and even giving up are grounded in such ignorance. Clearly, in order to play smart golf we have to better understand and channel our personal error patterns.

Think about it, what is the first thing you remember about the most current round? Mistakes. You think about the number of “shots left out on the course,” the big blunders, the missed opportunities, the dumb choices, and even the outright chokes. The more you reflect on your mistakes the more aware you become that you have made similar ones before. Just as there are patterns to your optimal play, there are also patterns to your mistakes.

Now, think about this: no mistake is ever made in isolation. Mistake patterns have components that are mental, emotional, and/or tactical. Even a blatant mishit is grounded in your mindset as you set up over the shot. From twenty-plus years of playing sessions with golfers, it has been my experience that in every double bogey there was at least one shot that was a dumb play.

Click the image to get your head right and get Mind Links.

Realize that there has NEVER been a perfectly played round. Even at the height of his powers, the great Ben Hogan admitted that in any given round he only hit about seven shots purely or, as he said, “as I intended.” If the great Hogan said he only hit seven pure shots per round, how come you expect to hit every shot perfectly?
Also, in the early days of the golf handicapping system, Walter Hagen equated players’ numbers to about the amount of major swing errors they typically committed per round. There is a lot of wisdom in his concept.

In fact, I have expanded Hagen’s theory to include mental, emotional, shotmaking, and course management mistakes as well. Here is my ratio: ALL GOLFERS MAKE MISTAKES AT LEAST TWO TIMES THEIR INDEX NUMBER. Hence if your current index is 12, you will make over two dozen little mistakes per round. Think about your playing patterns before you accept my ratio. It is nothing about which to become discouraged. You see, only after we fully accept something can we then do something about it.
Golf is just a darned difficult game. And mistakes are an inherent part of the game. Accept the fact that you will make mistakes. Give yourself a break and be easier on yourself. This is the first mindset to establish in playing better and more enjoyable golf.

To be continued next week…

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“They Keep Lying And You Keep Buying”
Aren’t you tired of missing 3-footers? They not only cost you the hole, but it costs you your cool and about 5 more holes right after…Yeah, that little train-track putting gadget you bought really saved your butt under pressure there didn’t it?

Did you know that recent machine tests have been done that prove that an old persimmon wood (yep, you read that right, the kind your grandfather used to play) hits the ball the same distance as all those fancy new metals of today?

And yet, with larger sweet spots, with all those gadgets, all those swing instruction programs, all those new high-tech fancy clubs, all those new golf ball polymers, all those perfectly manicured courses and even GPS units that tell you exactly how far your next shot is…Average Golfer Scores Have Not Dropped Since Steel Shafts Replaced Hickory!
Why is this?

The mental game…

Craig Sigl – The Golf Anti-practice expert

Dr. Tom Kubistant, sports psychologist has worked with world-class athletes since 1971. He is the most experienced psychologist on the mental game of golf on the planet!! To take advantage of his decades of golf wizardry, Get
Mind Links now!

Author of “Performing Your Best, Links Golf, Mind Pump: The Psychology of Body Building, business and sales training audios, over 280 articles for magazines and now………Mind Links – The Psychology of Golf.

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If you want to read part 2 of this article, go to:

Golf mistakes