One of the most common problems I hear from golfers is that they
swing perfectly in practice and not as well on the course.

Or, that they do well on the front and then blow it on the back 9 or
vice versa.

Or, they do well in fun rounds but seize up and choke under pressure.

Their golf nerves get the best of them.

These problems all stem from the word “expectations.”

At the heart of what I do for golfers and athletes is to give them
PERSPECTIVE and then help them replace those old programs in their
unconscious minds.

The perspective is the antidote to expectations and calming those golf nerves.

What is perspective anyway?

First of all, there’s no wrong or right about it. Have no judgement
about the way you should or shouldn’t think about anything! One
person’s worst idea is another person’s gold mine.

If you’ve been reading my work for any amount of time, you realize by
now that there is no one way to swing or one way to think in order
for all golfers to play their best.

If those scenarios above are causing you to get nervous or get tense, or
get the yips, then it’s likely that you have created a program that
says this is one of the most important things in life that I can do
and therefore, the feelings of stress come up in order to “prepare”
you to do battle.

You see the problem now? Your body goes into a mode that is no
different than if you were fighting for your life.

Having said all that, let me give you some general principles to
bounce off of that can help you to gain a perspective that can sink
into your unconscious mind.

Here’s some
suggestions to help counteract this response right when it’s
happening at the course.

1. It’s not your life, it’s not your wife, it’s just a game

2. We are fragile beings and can die tomorrow. How does this putt
compare to that?

3. What if you were able to float your body out in space and watch
the spot on the earth where you are golfing…while connecting to
your higher belief systems…up there, at that moment

4. Will the legacy you want to leave your loved ones be affected by
this shot?

5. Does this round have any relevance to your overall purpose/mission
for being alive on the planet right now?

6. Wow, this tension, stress, tightness feels a lot like being
excited and energized doesn’t it?

Those thoughts kind of make the next shot pretty insignificant now
don’t they? How does that change your response? Your state?

Maybe you can pre-live these pressure situations and give yourself
those 6 thoughts and then experience a calmness that follows before
you ever go out for your next round…

Golf is supposed to be fun!! Decide that that is your main objective
and then you will just naturally play to your potential. And then
when you get up to that pressure putt or back 9, then you can be calm
as a monk. That’s how it works….

Greens and fairways,

Craig

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, SCAREDY-CAT?!
Dr. Tom Kubistant, CSP
Recently, within one week, I had two of my golfers and three of my other athletes separately bring up a performance theme which has been plaguing each of them.  It is a theme which not only derails individual performances, but also sabotages ongoing progress.  It is a theme which is devious in its nebulous nature.  It is also a theme that when the athlete grabs a hold of it, can transform their improvement all the way to the next level.
The performance theme is fear.
Especially on a golf course, there is really very little to fear for our safety (unless I am over on the left fairway going through one of my bouts with the shanks!).  Although a very small degree of fear might enhance performance in that it stimulates motivation, it very quickly crosses a fine line where it increasingly inhibits efforts.
Most fears are personal.  Although you may physically feel the fear in your gut, fears are psychological and emotional.  We allow little fears to creep into the recesses of our minds.  These fears soon bind together until they start influencing entire motivations, thoughts, actions, and even sap the joy from golf.
THE SHADOWY NATURE OF FEAR
Fears are devious.  They hold their power over us in that they operate just under the surface and behind the scenes.  Many years ago when I was a practicing psychotherapist, I learned that whenever I could not put a finger on what was going on with a client, I always asked myself this stock question, “What is she afraid of?”  I then asked myself the subsequent questions.  “What is he afraid of doing?  …of changing?…of losing? …of becoming?”   Once I thought about it, there was usually some combination of fears at the heart of the client’s problems and reluctances.  Only when we talked about fears were we able to make progress.
Way back in the dark ages of wooden racquets, I was a professional tennis player.  Back then, there were no such helpers as sport psychologists or mental coaches.  While I thought I was coping with all the pressures, at the root of them was fear.  It wasn’t until well after I retired that I realized that I had a fear of success which I allowed to hold me back.       You see, it was much easier for me to try hard, play gallantly, but lose the last set of a long match.  This self-sabotage was really more comfortable for my fragile psyche.  Here is the logic:  if I dug down and won that match, there would be more pressure of me to repeat the performance and win the next match.  And so on.  Deep down, I knew that I would eventually fail.  This inevitable failure would be more devastating to me.  It was much more comfortable for my ego to fail at lower levels than to extend myself and cope with the pain of inevitably higher level failures.
Of course, all of this makes perfect sense when I had the distance of time.  I used this awareness when I started helping athletes and performing artists.  I would have them talk about their fears. Many of them were initially reluctant to do so.  They were afraid of talking about their fears!  It is almost as if admitting that they had fears would weaken them or let an uncontrollable  “genie out of the bottle.”  However, they all learned that talking about and admitting their fears were the only ways to control them.
The ancient samurais had a wonderful saying which went, “Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”  You can control and transform your fears.  Here’s how.
THE SYSTEM OF OVERCOMING YOUR PERFORMANCE FEARS
Over the years from working with literally thousands athletes, performing artists, and business people, I developed a proven formula to address and transform personal fears.  We’ll expand on it later, but it is simply revolves around you asking, and answering, these three little questions:
1. What am I REALLY afraid of?;
2. What is the absolute WORST thing that could happen if this fear came into reality?; and
3. “And THEN what?”
That’s it!  That’s the system.  It is as simple–and profound–as that.
Let’s go through each question in more detail.
1. “What am I REALLY afraid of?”  I am a great believer that if you can specifically define what you are really afraid of, you are halfway there to overcoming it.  Remember, fears hold their power over us in that they operate behind the scenes.  Bringing them out into the light empowers us to confront them.  Awareness, admission, and acceptance of or specific fears deflate them.
Ask yourself this first question repeatedly.  Your goal is to specifically define those fears which are holding you back and even governing you.  Indeed, there may be multiple fears.  The better you can differentiate each the better you will be able to address them.  Sometimes, the core fear may not appear for a while.  Some performers have even found value in writing or even drawing their fears.
Ask yourself these related questions.  What are you afraid of changing, losing, and even becoming?  You might be surprised just how many fears you possess and how tangled they have become.  Actually, the process of asking yourself these diagnosing questions is almost as valuable as the answers you discover.
Here is some help.  In my first book back in the early 1980s, Performing Your Best, I presented four general types of fears.  They are:  (1) the fears of failure and success; (2) the fears of risk, rejection, ridicule, embarrassment, and discovery as a fraud; (3) the fear of change; and (4) the fears of the unknown as well as the known.  Now, there may be some overlap between a couple of these, but one of these will be at the core.  Dissecting your fears is frequently like peeling away layers from an onion.  Use these four basic categories to help you identify and narrow down your specific fears.
It has been my experience that most athletes and performing artists at one time will experience the fears of failure and success.  These two fears are intrinsically linked.  Many times, the fear of failure is actually a smokescreen for the fear of success.  Whereas the fear of failure may apply to individual performances, the fear of success applies to one’s overall career.  Detail your different fears of failure and success.  This can be a great help
Your goal in this entire assessment process is to specifically define your personal and performance fears.  Pay attention to the specific words you use.  The more specifically you define each fear the better you can subsequently address it.  Remember, if you can specifically identify your fears you are really halfway there to overcoming them.
2. “What is the absolute WORST thing that could happen if this fear came into actuality?”  After you specifically define fears, the way to assert control is to ask yourself this question.  You see, attached to each fear is the apprehension of what might happen if this fear materialized.
Answer this question to each fear in as much detail as you did in defining it.  Really dramaticize and even catastrophize your responses.  Go ahead, blow them out of proportion!  Let your imagination run wild of what would happen and how your life would change if this fear came into being.  Such as, “If I choke coming down the stretch of this round, I will lose the tournament.  I will then lose the opportunities presented to me if I won.  I will never have these opportunities  ever again.  All the work I have done would have been useless.  I would become devastated.  I will let down all my loved ones, teachers, and friends.  I will be ashamed of myself.  My dog would even growl at me!  I would lose it all.  I would then become lost.  If I miss this last putt, I might as well quit the game.  My life, as I know it, will be over.”  Ugh!
The more you catastrophize the answers to this question, the more you will become aware of how absurd these responses truly are.  By blowing them out of proportion the more you will see just how silly this fear is.  You will then reassure yourself that these things won’t happen.  As Mark Twain penned, “I have known many problems in my life…, but most of them never occurred.”
It seems strange, but to be able to accept and control your fears, you first have to let your thoughts run wild out of control.
3. “And THEN what?” Huh?  This is the kicker.  You see, many of us catastrophize fears and leave it at that.  By asking and answering this final question you become aware that life always goes on.  No matter what you do, there will always…always…be future options and decisions.
Even if the worst things occur (which they won’t) you will still have alternatives…if you allow yourself to consider them.  Granted, you might be disappointed and even discouraged.  But life always goes on.  The answer to this question revolves around the fact that you will go on.
So you might say, “If my fear comes to reality and these horrendous things occur, I will be disappointed AND I will go on.  Life does not always unfold as dreamed or planned, and I will adapt.  I will play the hand I’m dealt.”  But wait a minute…this stuff won’t happen.  The best way to ensure those fears will never materialize is to do the things I can control and play to my strengths.  Relax, have fun with the game, and laugh at the absurdity of my fears.  Whew!  And then what?  Let’s go on to the next tee.
Ask and answer these three questions.  This process might take longer than you think.  After you have developed your answers actively confront your fears.  Without putting yourself down in the process (such as, “You such a scared wimp”), address them.  Keep on repeating your answers to the above questions.  Shrug your shoulders, say “What the heck,” and throw yourself into the next performance.  Even laughing at yourself is a way of confronting and then releasing your fears.  Indeed, it is an essential battle of who has control over you:  your fears or yourself.
As you learn how to control, channel, and transform your fears,
might become amazed at how much energy you were diverting to feeding those fears.  You will discover how quickly these fears dissipate.  You will also then free yourself up.  Playing within yourself, staying out of your way, and true confidence are all grounded in transforming your fears.  Indeed,  there is true personal power in being in control of your fears.
What are you afraid of?  What’s the worst thing that can happen?  And then what?  Stop cowering and answer these questions.  You will then become like the metaphorical swashbuckler who places his hands on his hips an laughs at his fears.  “Ha!  Bring ‘em on!”

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“Do you really want to listen to someone who actually makes sense about this crazy game? Tom Kubistant is almost a reclusive man, but golfers who find him are always rewarded by his complete system of the mental game, his practical applications, and his everyday wisdom. Tom has been a regular contributor to my radio show since 1997. I am continually surprised at how much he knows for every playing situation. He just makes so much sense. Doc is also one of the few in his profession who strictly maintains his professional ethics regarding confidentiality with his golfers. So he cannot say who he works with. But I can! I have seen him work with his golfers at tournaments and have even interviewed a couple of them for my show. He is their secret weapon”

Vince Mastracco – Host of the nationally syndicated radio program: “Golf Talk”

Dr. Tom Kubistant, sports psychologist has worked with world-class athletes since 1971. He is one of the most prolific writers and speakers on the mental game of golf on the planet. To take advantage of his decades of golf wizardry, visit Mind Links

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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I have developed a self-assessment of golfing mistakes. No, it is not just for masochists! Here are the most common patterns of mental and playing mistakes. Which fit for you? Please take three minutes and answer the following questions. Write down a number after each question of how many times per round you typically commit this type of error. Now, they may not occur in every single round, but they are definite patterns. Go ahead…you very well may be surprised at what you discover.

Okay, now please add up the grand total of how many typical mistakes you make. You will probably be surprised–or even shocked–at how many mistake patterns you have. In finalizing this article, I had seven women on a university golf team with whom I have been working answer the above questions. Their results may surprise you. Their totals ranged from a low of 26 to three of them admitting to well over 200! And these are all fine elite golfers.

As you become more aware of your mistake patterns you will realize that one pattern opens up others. This is why the above number can grow so high.

You may commit multiple mistakes on the same shot. I call these “situational mistake patterns.” For example, when I have lost my patience, I may rush my preshot routine so I do not acquire a specific target nor am really ready to hit the shot. I then allow my frustrations to take hold and try to force a cute shot. I will typically swing too hard, become even more angry, and “mail in” the rest of the round. Whew…no wonder I go nuts with this game!

Upon reflection of these questions you might be left with the feeling of how you can possibly execute any good shots at all! Your specific answers to these questions can be quite revealing. You see, it has been my experience that if you can accurately define the problem, you are halfway there to resolving it.

Here is how to make sense from your responses. In each of the above 30 mistake patterns if you admitted to more than three per round, you have indirectly identified a factor you need to address. Look back at your answers and give a priority to the three most frequently reported categories.

Then with each of these, detail a specific plan of how to overcome them. So for example, if I discovered I committed too many errors due to looseness, I would plan to concentrate more on layup shots and better feel my rehearsal swings. Or if I admitted that I tended to swing too hard, I would better tune into key rhythm cues and keep using my centering techniques. Or if I became aware I had little fears inhibiting me, I would ask myself “What’s the absolute worst thing that could happen?” and then throw myself into the shot. Awareness of mistake patterns is good, but implementing a game plan to overcome them is better.

Resolving, or just minimizing, your unique mistake patterns can be quite liberating. In order to allow good efforts emerge and flow, you first have to eliminate the mistake “dams and bottlenecks.” Once controlled, you can then rechannel these patterns into more fluid performances.

Click the image

Even though we plan to consistently hit fairways and greens, we are not robots. We have variations and we make mistakes. However, mistakes can actually be seen as methods to spice up the game. One of my mantras I continually verbalize to my golfers is that, “there are many ways to score.” Recovering from mistakes–tactically, emotionally, mentally, and shotmaking–actually provide opportunities to expand your game. You see, making a mistake may not be the sin. Repeating it and not quickly recovering from it ARE the sins. When you have made a playing mistake, your first response is to remain calm. That shot is gone. There is nothing you can do about it. Then positively and purposefully devise a solution to your situation. Seen in these lights, recoveries can be one of the most satisfying elements of playing golf. Recovering is as much as an mental process as it is a mechanical one. Forgive yourself, accept your situation, and concentrate on creating the appropriate response.

Reflect now on some of your best performances. I would bet that somewhere in these rounds you recovered wonderfully from mistakes. These recoveries not only salvaged the round, they were springboards to heightened efforts. Recovery is redemption. And this has its own rewards.

So here is the bottom line. 1. Accept you will make mistakes. When you make one, be like Walter Hagen who passively chalked it up to one of his allotted ones. And then play on.

2. The best way to minimize errors is to miss shots in the right places. Granted, always be positive and committed in decision making, but also factor in that if you miss the shot, where that might be.

3. When in a tough situation, learn to “take your medicine.” Pitch back to the fairway or chip beyond the tucked pin to the fat part of the green. In these ways you can cut your losses. The golf gods frequently reward such discipline…sometimes during the same hole.

4. Recovering is as much of a matter of attitude as it is shotmaking. After a mistake be positive and even eager with the prospects of the next shot.

5. Listen and honor your intuitions. A big part of minimizing mistake patterns is awareness. Resist your greedy temptations. Even if do no know why, immediately do the opposite of what is tempted.

Keep on learning about your playing patterns. Good play is smart play, not only with pure shots, but also with poor shots. Accept that mistakes are an integral part of The Game. These are not only tests of your game, they are also tests of your character.

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“Kubi has done so much for me and my team that words are hard to use to express it. I met Kubi last year. He did a group session for our women’s and men’s teams together. He talked to them about pressures, expectations, successes and how they are created, and seemed to roll everything into life. That session left my team motivated and energized for their first event. We traveled to Arizona’s tournament with no practice as we were under feet of snow last February and still finished better than anyone thought we would.

Kubi coaching the team and myself on our mental thoughts and attitudes has helped me to learn more than I could have ever dreamed of. He knows so much and relates so well with all of us that I couldn’t do this job without him.

Judy Dansie, University of Nevada Reno Women’s Golf Coach

Dr. Tom Kubistant has been called “The Master of the Intrinsic.” He maintains the entire bibliography on the mental game of golf…and has read it all! Nobody is more experienced than Tom. He continues to work with professional and average golfers every day.

If you want to get your game to the next level, click here to 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.

LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTEAK PATTERNS Part 1 (or how to get better after you choke in golf)

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. Everybody has a choke round here and there. It’s inevitable.

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, Eliminate the choke round, 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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Playing Your Own Golf Game

My sister, who is a very fine golfer in Chicago, gave me a call the other day and said, “Guess who showed up on the course today? Me’ This may seem like an odd thing to say, but ask yourself this How many times does your best and most natural self show up on the golf course?

Playing your own golf game and staying within yourself during a round are a couple of the classic maxims of properly playing the game, but relatively few of us honor these precepts. Only after making critical mistakes during a round do we reflect on what we should of done by saying such phrases as, “I tried way too hard out there:’ “I pressed too much’ “1 tried to force things to happen:’ and “I wasn’t myself out there.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20, but just how can we apply our best selves into a round? One of the fascinating aspects about golf is that it constantly tempts us away from ourselves. The pressurized situation, worrying about the score, fears about the consequences of the outcomes, competing with others, greed and even ego and pride all pull us away from being ourselves.

In order to play our own golf games, we first have to become aware and then prevent those personal tendencies that can take us away. For example, -whenever I feel the temptation to swing hard and force a shot, a little alarm bell rings in my head. I know when I have these feelings I need to do Just the opposite; that is, swing easy and release the club.

Being aware of and reversing my own greedy tendencies has saved me many strokes .and good sleep that night! In order to play your own game, you must start with what not to do. The next step is to become aware of just exactly what to do. A good way to accomplish this is to do this little exercise of mine. It’s called “Play (your name here)’s Game? Especially when I want to _ play really well, I say to myself beforehand, “I m just going to play Tom’s game

I have become aware of all those key qualities and elements necessary to play my own best game. I constantly remind myself and expand on them. Currently for me ,this list is more than 20 elements. So when I say “Play Tom’s Game,” this represents all of these elements. Spend some time now and list all of these elements, processes and qualifies essential for you “Playing (your name here)’s Game?

You might be surprised at all the ones you discover. I am a great believer that the best human performances are based on building on your strengths. Both consistency and improvement are grounded upon emphasizing what you do well. I have found that the more you emphasize your strengths, the more your weaknesses take care of themselves.

Or at least, you are then in a much better position to address your weaknesses. For example, the more my full swing rhythm is easy and fluid, the more all of my improper mechanical positions improve on their own.

This is the foundation for “Playing Tom’s Game.” I emphasize the strong elements of my game, not trying to do things I don’t do well. So I will emphasize consistent ball striking, great putting and, most importantly, my deep concentration. I do not care if my playing partners bomb their drives past mine, hit three clubs less into a green or flop lob wedges. Good for them. I will continue to play Tom’s Game. In the end, I will do just fine.

Play your own game. It is then familiar territory to do the strong things you are used to doing. Playing your own game is particularly important when you are under pressure. This is precisely the time to stick to your guns and play to your strengths.

Multiple PGA Tour winner Jerry Kelly says, ‘If you change your persona coming down the stretch, you change your game.”

A big part of playing maturity is to be true to the good things that got you to this point Beyond any specific swing techniques, fancy shots or hot putting, consistently good golf is being true to your essential self “To thine own self be true” is as valid today as it was five centuries ago.

Avoid the temptations presented during a round and tap into your strengths. By playing your own game, you just might show up on the course.

Cheers!

Tom

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So how’s your game been? Are you happy with it? Still taking lessons and thinking it’s all about the swing huh? How’s that been working for you?
When you are ready to actually start going where your low scores are and getting them, you’ll be ready for Dr. Kubistant. Nobody on the planet knows more about how the human mind operates in this game of golf….nobody.

Craig Sigl – The Golf Anti-practice expert
Hypnotist and Master Practitioner of NLP

Dr. Tom Kubistant, sports psychologist has worked with world-class athletes since 1971. He is one of the most prolific writers and speakers on the mental game of golf on the planet. To take advantage of his decades of golf wizardry, visit Mind Links

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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Create Your Own Menu for C.A.L.M. to play your best golf

“To be a bundle of quivering nerves under control is to be capable of greater things.”
- Bernard Darwin, 1931

WHETHER IT IS ON THE FIRST tee at the U.S. Open, Q-School, your club championship, or just at your local muni with some strangers, you should be nervous! If not, you are not really ready to play good golf. This may not make sense to you, but read on. Everyone gets golf tension!

Controlling your performance stress and tension begins with understanding it. You see, the goal for managing your quivering bundle of nerves is not to get rid of them. You are just eliminating preciou8 energy you can use. Instead, the goal is to channel this energy to enhance your efforts. As the great actress Helen Hayes is originally credited with saying, “The goal is not to get rid of the butterflies in your stomach. The goal is to teach them to fly in formation.”

Granted, we all want to play well in important rounds, but many times these good intentions actually create more self-induced pressure. The net result is that we get in. our own ways inhibiting natural performances from coming out. Perform-ing well under pressure is a learned skill based on awareness and experience. I devoted a couple major chapters in my upcoming book, Golfing Your Roil: The Psychology of Playing Golf~ to the issues of channeling performance stress.

The core strategy revolves around centering. Cen-tering is much more than physical relax-ation. It is the process that connects relax- ation, concentration, self-statements, mental imagery, intuition, and even spiri-tual dimensions. Centering unifies and co-ordinates performances. In essence, centering is that metaphorical valve which channels the flow of our efforts.

All of the golfers with whom I work develop personalized approaches of channel-ing their performance energies especially during pressurized rounds. From a state of centering, a common tactic most employ is how they can become and remain calm. “Calm” is such a nice word. It connotes feelings of both ease and assuredness.

“The goal is not to get rid of the butterflies in your stomach. The goal is to teach them to fly in formation.”

Calm can serve also as an important reminder of playing from center. Most of my golfers have taken these concepts a couple of steps further in using the word CALM as an acronym of their key playing emphases. When they think the word “calm” they immediately know what they need to do and be. Some players even write out the word on their score cards, on their personalized reminder cards, even on their golf balls.

This is an interactive article. If you agree with the importance of remaining calm, you may want to further define just what it specifically means to you. There are so many components we can include in the acronym. Here are just some of the more common ones my golfers have used.

C: centered, cool, connected, concen-trated, committed, and creative. A: aware, allowing, accept, affirmative, absorbed, and attentive. L: loose, languid, laugh, love, and lower. M: mellow, motivated, mental, and me-ticulous.

Use a combination of the above empha-ses now as a menu to create your own personalized acronym of C.A.L.M.

C______________________________________________________________

A______________________________________________________________

L______________________________________________________________

M______________________________________________________________

Creating your own CALM is important, but it is useless unless you refer to it during a round. Develop ways to remind (lit- erally, “re-mind”) yourself of how you can remain calm on the course. You might just become amazed at how well your little ac-ronym helps you stay in charge of your game. Deep down within you, you inherently know how to perform your best. Employ-ing a little reminder likeC.A.L.M. keeps you in touch with what . . .and how . . .you need to do. So the next time you are feel-ing pressure, just remember your mother’s advice and CALM DOWN!

Cheers!

Tom

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“Tom, Love the Mind Links cd set. Extremely handy for the car. Plenty of choice rather than this or that dogmatic set of instructions and fun to listen to. By being very conscious of the need to relax I have been able, most of the time, to achieve a reasonably relaxed state over chips and pitches and, on recent rounds, have been able to swing in the Dave Pelz mode as a consequence. The walking idea is very practicable: being left-handed I am walking like Phil Mickelson which to me means walking purposefully. I repeat, your writings and the Mind Links materials have helped me to be calmer. Hope springs eternal!!!”

Alan Rutherford, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Dr. Tom Kubistant has been called “The Master of the Intrinsic.” He maintains the entire bibliography on the mental game of golf…and has read it all! Nobody is more experienced than Tom. He continues to work with professional and average golfers every day helping them eliminate tension and stress in their golf game.

If you want to get your game to the next level, click here to 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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How did I swing so fluidly on the range 10 minutes ago, but now, on the first hole, I chop at the ball like a lumberjack?

This is one of the greatest frustrations most golfers face. We’ve proved to ourselves that we can swing well on the practice range, but transferring these feelings, the rhythm and confidence onto the course is quite a different challenge.

The ability to transfer your golf game from the range onto the course is one of the essential mental skills to be mastered. This mental skill can be learned and improved. Just like any teaching professional worth his or her salt better be able to cure a slice, any golf psychologist better be able to help golfers take their games from the range to the course.

To effectively transfer your golf game over, there are essential mental perspectives to apply. First, the 7-iron you hit on the range is entirely different from the 7-iron you might hit on the first hole. They are two separate situations that involve quite different mental processes.

Most often, we feel good about our swings on the range after we have repeated the same shot. We feel our swings are “grooved.”

But during a round you only get one chance at each shot. Second, When warming up prior to a round there are myriad swing factors to which you may be paying attention – posture, alignment, takeaway, hand positions, rotation, swing plane, tempo, plus any swing cue that has been working for you. Trying to do all of those things over a shot during the round will probably lead to a mental meltdown. Forget about all these isolated mechanical issues and perform integrated swings. This is where mind and body come together.

Third, on the range you’re in a ball orientation, but during a round you need be in target and process orientations. During warm–up, you are focusing on striking the ball and maybe seeing how it flies through the air. There, the golf ball is the end.

But during a round the ball is a means to other ends. Once you step onto the golf course, you have to focus on a target, whether it be the hole or a spot in the fairway. These three mental perspectives are critical to performing at your best during a round.

During your warm-up on the range, you must gradually and consciously shift your thinking from a practice mentality to a playing mentality~ The best way to do this is to follow what Ed Grant advised back in 1981:

“If you want to play more like you practice, you must star to practice like you play.”

From your practice sessions to you warm-up sessions, everything you do should be done in the way you would like to do them on the course. Pick out a precise target, follow your preshot routine and commit yourself to the shot. If you’re hitting more than two balls per minute, you’re going too fast.

Granted, there are times to do drills or work on specific mechanics, but the last half of every practice session should be used to replicate the kinds of on-course performances you seek.

1. GO THROUGH YOUR RELAXATION sequence and settle into
yourself as you stretch. Good players do this before theyhit balls and even just before theywalkto the first tee.

2. ALTERNATE YOUR SHOTS on the
range. Hit a 9-iron and then a 6-iron. -Yes, you might not feel cdmfoi~table doing this,but it is more akin to what you will be facing on the course.

3. PICK OUT VERY SPECIFIC
TARGETS. Aim for dead grass or a drain. Get used to focusing on a target.

4. HIT THREE-QUARTER SHOTS
and work the ball. Let’s face it, perhaps only half of the shots you hit during a round will be your standard full swing on a flat stance with the ball sitting up. Get a feeling and confidence on the range for your creative shots.

5. REHEARSE KEY SHOTS you’ll be
hitting in the first three holes. For example, I believe the first hole at Graeagle Meadows is the most demanding opening hole in Northern California. It’s a 440-yard dogleg left around trees with water on the right. On the range, Iwill practice drawing a three-wood. I imagine myself on the first tee with each of these shots I take.

6. FEEL ThE RHYTHM. The last
3rd of the balls you hit should be rhythmical swings at 80 percent full power. Think and feel rhythm. You can carry this to the course.

7. MAKE TIME FOR SHORT-GAME
PRACTICE – putting, pitching and chipping. I believe that if you only have time for either full swings or chipping, you should choose chipping.

8. TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF
before you walk to the first tee. Complete your mental transitions, yawn, shrug your shoulders and say hello to the course.

If you’re aware of these mental orientations, warm up properly and employ some of the above techniques, you’ll become more effective in transferring your golf game onto the course. You’ll truly be ready to play.

I hope I have been worth my salt.

Cheers!

Tom

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“It’s a fact that a person can acquire a complete mastery of the skills needed to succeed in golf. Yet, this same person may not be able to perform in a consistenly winning manner. As a highly regarded sports psychologist, Dr. Tom Kubistant has made a difference when it comes to unlocking the mental barriers that may keep us from success in golf.”

Jan Usher – PGA, Lakeridge Golf Course

Dr. Tom Kubistant has been called “The Master of the Intrinsic.” He maintains the entire bibliography on the mental game of golf…and has read it all! Nobody is more experienced than Tom. He continues to work with professional and average golfers every day.

If you want to get your game to the next level, click here to 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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Stay Out of Your Own Way

Over the last couple of years, this title phrase has become a:cliche. Even golfers who haven’t the foggiest idea of the components of good performance know enough to at least say that they have to stay out of their own way. And they’re correct – staying out of your own way is one of the top preventive strategies for solid efforts.

But what exactly does this phrase mean?

Most of us want to perform so well that we try too hard, become too intense and complicate things too much. The importance of the occasion, plus our good intentions add up to too many thoughts at once.

We think about specific swing mechanics, remembering the latest swing cue, course management, the stance and the lie, the 17 steps of our preshot routines, visualizing the shot, coping with the pressure, targeting, and-oh yes- concentrating. With all of that going on, it’s no wonder our brains become overloaded and shut down.

The path to discouraging golfing performances is paved with these good intentions. Reflecting on his stellar year of 1998, Mark O’Meara stated, “As soon as I got out of my own way, didn’t put as much pressure on myself, I was able to perform better.” One of the cornerstones of human performance is – as Lily Tomlin’s character “Edith Ann” said – to “try softer.”

There is a time to think and plan, but there is also time to let go and do. The first step to getting out of your own way is to analyze exactly what this concept means to you. The problem with such cliches is that we mistakenly believe they mean the same thing to everybody. As you reflect on how specifically you get in your way, some answers become obvious in just doing the opposite. For example, if you discover that you are too deadly serious about the game, the answer is clear – have more fun. Or if you become aware that you are thinking about too many possibilities for a shot, the answer is easy – commit yourself to one choice and go with it.

This whole issue essentially is composed of two separate phases -how to prevent you from getting in your way and, if you do, how to recover from it. When I was preparing this article, I went through notes on my golfers over the last couple of years to see how we got past them staying out of their own way .I came up with no less than 37 techniques! I chuckled and said to myself, “Great, Tom, you’re going to give golfers 37 suggestions to simplify their games!”

Actually, I’ll boil them down to three strategies:

PERSPECTIVE.
No single shot you ever take will ever make or break a round, a tournament or even a career. It is just one shot. Even with the disasters of Doug Sanders at the 1970 British Open and Tony Jacklin 1972,it is still just one shot … unless you make something more of it. Remember, there will always be other shots, other holes and other rounds. Sure, commit yourself to the shot in front of you, but it is just one shot. Failure with this shot is not the end of the world. If you have read my articles in these pages over the years, you know one of my cornerstones of golf performance is this a round of golf is a series of individual performances, separate unto themselves. This is a perspective to accept before a round. It is also a perspective to remember during a round, particularly coming down the stretch when you are starting to feel pressure.

CONTROL There are so many specific elements to the golf swing and game itself that it’s hard to try to control all of them, much less be aware of them. Good golf (as well as mental health!) is grounded in being aware of -what we can controL Over a putt, the only thing we have control of is putting a good stroke on the ball. We do not have 100 percent direct control whether or not the ball goes into the hole -grain, wind, footprints, ball marks and worms sneezing can all influence the outcome.

A consistent preshot routine can be an aid to putting yourself in a good position to better control your swing. However, don’t complicate your preshot routine by trying to micromanage everything. The greatest value of a preshot routine is that it allows you to make the transition from thinking to doing. Have, at the most, one swing cue. It almost seems mystical, but the more you give up trying to control everything, the more pure control you attain. Play, mentally rehearse and commit, but let all of this go when you are over the ball.

BE WITH THE SHOT: The best way to stay out of your own way is to throw yourself into the process of executing the shot, immersing yourself into the here-and-now where the ball, target and your performance all merge together. Don’t worry about outcomes or consequences. Even in pressurized tournaments, the real fun resides in executing the shot. All your thoughts, plans and routines merely put you in a position to perform. The goal is to immerse yourself in the shot situation, let go of conscious control and let your best effort emerge.

Cheers!

Tom

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“I am on of those unfortunate souls who has the ‘full swing yips.’ After playing for over twenty years, I was close to abandoning the game I loved. Playing partners and pros alike were dumbfounded; nothing I tried or they offered could fix it. Tom did not offer quick miracle cures. Rather, he helped me establish a ‘toolbox’ of techniques that I have been able to adopt as my own–how to relax, trust myself, commit to targets, and allow my swings to emerge. Moreover, his can-do attitude and eternal optimism are contagious. I have found my confidence returning and with a renewed spirit and love of the game.”

Joan Promwell, senior golfer

Dr. Tom Kubistant, sports psychologist has worked with world-class athletes since 1971. He is one of the most prolific writers and speakers 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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