Better golf without practice

Here's a full posting of my 'Quick and Easy' minicourse on how you can improve your golf score:

Lesson 1: How/Why it's possible to improve without practice
Lesson 2: Play golf with your subconscious mind
Lesson 3: Accelerated learning techniques for golf
Lesson 4: Don't waste time on what won't help your game
Lesson 5: Hypnosis for golf...Just like Tiger Woods
Lesson 6: 15 ways to cut scores next round, without practice
Lesson 7: Discover NLP for golf...like Ian Woosnam did

Let me introduce myself to you. I'm Craig Sigl. I pronounce

my last name like the word "wiggle" except with an "s." I was born in 1963 and I've been playing golf since I was 11 years old. To make this short, for years I was so frustrated with this game and could not improve to save my life.

I had taken lessons and practiced for years at the range for days on end with no results. At one point, I actually gave up trying to get better as I reached my mid-30's and started a family and a very demanding job. Everything changed for the better for my game when I discovered what I'm about to reveal to you in this series of emails.

Over the next week, I'll going to give you these secrets that very few golfers know about and even less use for their game. I have helped golfers all over the world improve their scores with this information and I hope it does the same for you.

So let's get started with Lesson #1:

First I want to clear up one misconception:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MUSCLE MEMORY!

I bet you're asking yourself, What is this nutball talking about? Of course, there is such a thing as muscle memory! Great golf instructors have been teaching this concept for years.

Well, you're not wrong about those pros. For generations, golf instruction has always taught us that to become a better golfer, you must learn a "correct" swing and then practice it over and over until you can repeat it without thinking and minimal effort. That's all true and and it works, however, the memory of that "correct" swing that you spend countless hours perfecting does not reside in the muscles. Instead, it's in the brain. Muscles cannot "store any memory." In fact, they can only do one thing: CONTRACT. (2 if you count growing as doing something).That's it, and no more. They do this from signals given by the nervous system which includes the brain.

Everything our body does, from breathing to healing itself to playing games like golf, it accomplishes from coded instructions in our brain. And those instructions (example: to hit a golf ball solid and straight) are nothing more than a specific pattern of neuron (brain cell) electrical firings.

So if we can find ways to send the same or similar neuron firings, we can get some of the same benefits we get when we spend hours knocking balls on the range or working on our short game at the practice green. REally!

The study of our brains and how we learn is called neuroscience and it has taken huge leaps in the last 50 years in understanding how we as humans operate. Scientists and psychologists have uncovered many techniques to enhance and improve learning, memory, and physical and mental performance on demand.

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Jim Flick, one of the greatest golf teachers of our time said: "Golf is 90% mental...and the other 10% is mental too"

From Arnold Palmer - "You probably have heard that playing good golf is mostly mental, and it is."

And one of the greatest physical athletes of the 20th century, Michael Jordan, he said: “The mind comes into this game so much. It comes into basketball, too, but sometimes your skills can overcome the mind a little bit. But in golf, if your mind’s not in it, then you can forget it.”

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In addition to this under-used resource for our game that you will read more about in coming emails, there are so many little things we can do that when all put together, add up to reducing strokes in our game without practicing.

For instance, we all know that flexibility is a requirement for a good golf swing right? Well, how do you improve on that when you don't have the time to join a yoga class or a gym? The next time you are driving to work, if it's safe to do so, take one of your hands and press the tops of your fingers slowly against the dashboard or a part of the steering wheel and hold it for 10 seconds. You will be working on your golf game by stretching some of the muscles and tendons that are used in your swing! Simple, easy and it takes no time. This is just one tiny example.

My fingers are cramping from all this typing so I'll get with you next time.

Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game

In today's lesson #2, I want to tell you that to play good golf it is necessary to play it with your unconscious mind!

What! Now what is this guy trying to tell me? That not using my mind is the way to go? I hear you loud and clear but hang in there with me for a minute o.k?

First off, it is absolutely necessary to understand that our mind operates in 2 different main ways. We will call these ways the unconscious and the conscious mind.

The unconscious mind is the stored instructions for how to do things without trying to think about them. Like breathing, the correct heartrate, healing, dreaming, growing etc.

Our conscious mind is what we use to make decisions with, think with, take in information with. It's power is basically the difference between us and the animals.

Most of us play golf with our conscious mind. We attack golf just like we operate at our job or vocation. AT our job, we are given a task to do. We have resources to put toward that task, and then we use our conscious mind to apply the resources to accomplish this task.

In playing golf, we have a task (send the ball to a target). We have resources (clubs, knowledge of how to play, etc). And we use our conscious mind to apply the resources and direct our body to perform a specific set of movements. Unfortunately, this method doesn't work consistently for golf (you ever have a problem with consistency?) because our conscious mind cannot process too many things at once. It then starts injecting tension, tightness and nervousness when it is overloaded (all big swing killers).

Now, our unconscious mind, on the other hand,is VERY GOOD at doing complicated things consistently and with repeatability. Have you ever had the occasion when you got in your car to go to work or some other destination and when you get there, you don't even remember the trip? You didn't have to think about anything in order to get there? That was your unconscious doing the driving. You see, it already had all the instructions it needed to get you there from past trips to that destination. You just told it to "go to work" and it did!

Now for some magic for our golf game... Many people are able to tell themselves that they want to wake up at certain time in the morning...AND THEY WAKE UP right at that time without fail! (This is always a good idea when relying on hotel wake-up service as a backup!) This is the power of your subconscious mind at work!

All top golfers do this without exception. When Sam Snead was asked what he thinks about when he swings he said: "Nothing." (as have many other top pros since then)

So, you can do the same thing for your golf.

On your next round, start telling yourself (your unconscious mind) to play this next shot the way it knows how. Tell it to hit the iron or wood you have in your hand the same way it was last successful with that club. Bring up the vision of the last time you hit that club perfectly so as to give your subconscious a clear picture of what you want just like when you had a mental picture of your work destination. If you've hit a good shot with each of your clubs, there is absolutely no reason you cannot do it again, at will!

In the next lessons, I'll write about ways for you to enhance this easily learned skill.

Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game

Today is lesson 3 day. We are going to start getting into how you can actually start working on utilizing your subconscious mind a lot more to hit better shots more consistently. A little background first:

In the 1960's and through the 1970's, the then Soviet Union and East Germany Olympic teams dominated both the Winter and Summer Olympics. Do you know why? No, it wasn't because of steroids. It was because these and other Communist bloc countries were seriously deep into studying mental performance. They were way far ahead of any Western countries in applying these concepts to sports and they kept this knowledge secret for a long time thanks to the closed nature of their societies.

They first were using what they learned to teach people how to learn languages. Normally, a student could learn about 50 words a day with standard methods. They were able to increase this to over 500 words a day by using a system that was centered on...are you ready for this...Music and relaxation!

It's absolutely true. They found that if they were able to slow down the body's rhythms (mainly heartbeat which runs faster than the brain's) to match the brain's, and inject music, that it opened up whole new parts of the mind to the learning experience and allowed a far greater potential of information to be stored. They also found that the stored information was much more easily retrieved in the future when needed! Starting to sound like something we can use for our golf?

This began to evolve into numerous branch-offs but it all comes under the heading of "Accelerated Learning" techniques. One guy, a Dr.Raymond Abrezol from Switzerland, started to get in on this field of study and began to mentally train Swiss athletes for skiing. And the SWiss ski team started to win more medals than a country that size should ever be able to.

So one day in my mid-30's, I stumble across a book about all of this that had been in my garage bookshelf for years from a college course I took. I re-read it and started to apply the principles to my golf game.

I didn't have any time to practice my lousy game anymore since I was working 2 jobs and we just had our second child. I still wanted to golf whenever I could squeeze out a few hours so I had nothing to lose by trying it out in my in-between times at home.

Well, lo and behold, within a year, I had broken 80! The name of the book is called "Superlearning". If you want to do your own research, just type "Accelerated Learning" in any search engine and you'll get a lot of information.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about getting the most improvement for the least effort.

Greens and fairways

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game

Today is lesson 4 day. Right off the bat, I want to give you one of my best secrets to releasing your scoring potential.

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Not all golf instruction is good for your game!
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What? Yep, I'm not kidding. Once I fully realized this, it freed me up to begin to start playing my best. Not Tiger Woods best or Annika's best, but Craig's best. You see, I was a fanatical golf magazine reader and I was always asking for tips from playing partners to help me with parts of my swing when I'd hit a bad shot.

I was so twisted up in knots about golf advice that I never had a chance. In fact, it was when I literally gave up "trying" to improve that I made my biggest gains. I took every tip I saw or heard, work on it at the range for awhile, and then proclaim to myself that I have now found the answer to my golf swing troubles! That would last for all of about 2 holes before I would give up on that idea as I continued to spray my shots. Were these bad golf tips? No, top pros created them and used them on their students in their lessons with much success. The problem for me was, I wasn't in these lessons! (By the way, if you have no idea how to swing a club, then a set of lessons or ONE and only ONE instruction program should be your first move).

You can't transplant a chicken leg to a one-legged human patient and expect the person to then walk! There are so many different theories on not only how to swing a golf club, but also in how to TEACH how to swing a club. Much of it actually contradicts or is completely opposite from one teacher to another. On top of that, we have all sorts of different body types, muscle strengths, flexibility levels and on and on that make for many different (and now here's the kicker) SUCCESSFUL golf swings!

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I am here to tell you, right now, in print,
that for most of us:
Your swing is good enough!
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Even one of the greatest golf teachers of our time, David Leadbetter stated that "there is no definitive method" to a golf swing. This leads me to the heart of today's lesson. And that is, The Pareto Principle. If you've never heard of it, it has also been called the 80/20 rule (or 90/10 rule) and it basically means that if you work on the 20% most important items first (for whatever you are trying to achieve), you will be 80% effective! In other words, you want to get the most results from the least efforts. Especially if you're a busy person with little time to work on your game.

You know that the whole golf industry is geared toward selling you new equipment each year and teaching you how to get "the perfect swing" (which doesn't exist anyway). Don't get me wrong, improving your swing is not a bad thing. But it is not necessary for you to get quick, time-efficient score-lowering gains. The proof of this lies in the fact that there are countless top professionals that win at the highest levels with unorthodox swings! Look at Jim Furyk, who won the U.S. Open. And he has a huge LOOP in his swing. Look at Allen Doyle on the Champions Tour, he looks like he's hitting a hockey puck! Spend some time watching the Champions Tour and you'll see all sorts of wacky swings.

Forget about the pros for a minute. How many times have you seen a senior at your local course hit the ball straight down the middle nearly every time without hardly making any turn in his swing. While you blast drives 60 yards by him he destroys you on the scorecard. Do I need to remind you that it's only the final score that matters in this game?

Stop working on your swing and start working on SCORING! There is no prize for the prettiest swing. Shoot, even though I am still tempted, I now actually force myself to ignore any swing instruction that I see in a magazine or book and just keep on with the basics of what I learned while striving for a REPEATING SWING, and not a perfect one. You can always work on your swing later after you tackle the 20% most important stuff.

Tomorrow, I'll write you about another tool (hypnosis) that you probably already use, to help you work on your game when you can't make it to the range.

Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game

Today is lesson 5 day. O.k., I thought I was going to be the one to break this next secret to you but the cat has already been let out of the bag with the June 2005 issue of Golf Magazine. I'm sure it's been written about in other articles and golf books before but this was the first time I'd read one about a non-pro golfer using a hypnotist for his golf game.

I know, I know, now you really think I'm a looney bird right? Well, in case you didn't know, Tiger Woods has been using hypnosis for his game for years as have many other top pros. This is starting to get big let me tell you. Especially for the weekend golfer.

So what the heck is hypnosis I'm sure you're asking? Well, what it isn't is a stage act where a guy in a black coat and spinning watch can "make" people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do while "under his power." This is all fun and games and good entertainment but it is not hypnosis.

Dr. James Braid was the first to use the word "hypnosis." He later tried to change the name to Monodeism which means: "to focus on a single thought." That's really what hypnosis is. For practical purposes and for our golf, it can further be described as a state of heightened suggestibility. Remember when I wrote you about your subconscious mind and how you want to play golf using it? Well, that is what hypnosis can help you do.

In case you're thinking that this hypnosis thing is a bunch of hippies on drugs or something crazy like that, I should tell you that both the American and British Medical Associations have recognized hypnosis as a valuable tool in medicine and psychology. You may have heard that people get hypnotized to lose weight or quit habits like smoking or chewing their fingernails. But did you know that it is used in surgical procedures and childbirth for pain instead of anesthesia? Yep, it's true, go check it out on the web, the info is all out there.

Basically, for golf, hypnosis is used to help get your conscious mind out of the way when you're about to swing. And it is also used off the course to help send messages down into your subconscious that will come back out and let you play at your optimal mental state when on the course.

A couple of other things about hypnosis: 1. You cannot be "hypnotized" unless you want to be. 2. You are never under anyone else's control 3. You will always be able to become fully awake at any time, whenever you want. 4. Most everyone has already been in some form of hypnotic state. A good example is when you stare at something for no apparent reason and your mind just kind of stops thinking for a short time.

Bottom line here for hypnosis for golf...

You can learn some very good concepts about how your mind works that can be put to use on the course for emotional management and playing golf with your automatic subconscious mind.

To get you started, I am going to give you my free ebook: "How you can play better golf using self-hypnosis". Just click here to go to the download page.

O.k., I think I've blown your mind enough for today. The next lesson we'll come back down to earth a bit and I'll give you some solid, quick-hitting tips to cut your score on your next round. Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game

Today is lesson 6 day.

We're going to lighten things up a bit here and I'll just rattle off a bunch of tips one after another for your use on the course YOUR NEXT ROUND that don't require any practicing!

1. Always always warm up by hitting some balls on the range before you start. Don't go through the usually-taught routine of starting with your wedges and working your way up to the driver. That's practicing. Just do some stretches and get a swing weight or use 2 clubs together to get your muscles going. Then, hit shots on the range like you will be playing on the course. Pretend you just got to the course with no time for warmup and have to go straight to the first tee. Get rid of those first few bad holes before you get to the first tee.

Start right off with the club you will use off the first tee, probably driver. Hit your next shot based on how well you hit your first shot and what the hole demands. SIMULATE ACTUAL PLAYING CONDITIONS on the range. This is what you would do if you showed up late right? And it takes a few holes before you get to scoring well right? Doing the old standard warmup routine of hitting 5 shots of each club is nothing like you will be doing on the course. But this will mentally prepare you to play!

2. Understand that you CAN hit the ball well while nervous. Those first tee jitters happen to even the best pros. Use some loosening movements, like shoulder shrugs, and then just tell yourself that you are going to accept your nervousness and still hit the ball well. Tommy Bolt said: “stomach butterflies are ok as long as they are flying in formation”.

3. From here on out, you are done berating yourself for bad shots. If you were playing a best ball or scramble with partners, and they hit a bad shot, would you tell them: "that shot was sorry, boy you stink at this game"? NO you wouldn't because you know it would only hurt their confidence and their game and you need them to play well. So why in the world do we do that to ourselves when the same results come from talking bad to ourself?

4. Did you ever notice that you play better when you are on vacation? Or right after hearing some good news? This isn't a coincidence and you can put yourself back in that place at any time and get the same benefit. Just spend some moments during the round remembering some great events in your life. Force yourself to smile more often. You cannot have negative thoughts while honestly smiling.

5. Spend some time learning the rules! I guarantee you that you have left strokes out on the course because you didn't know about a rule that would have helped you. I'll be passing some good ideas for you in future emails about this.

6. Forget your score. Don't even look at the scorecard. Have a partner do all the scoring from now on unless of course you are in a tournament and you need to know for strategic reasons. But even then, you can turn that over to your caddy. All you're going to think about from now on is THIS NEXT SHOT!

7. Control anger and frustration. Turn it into FOCUSED ENERGY! Sam Snead talked of playing "Cool Mad". When something gets to you at work, you usually can't cuss and yell and so you are able to control it at work. Use that same skill you developed there on the course. Playing angry is like adding a stroke to every hole, and I know you've experienced that!

8. Whenever you are waiting to tee up, you should be chipping. It's perfectly within the rules. Chip to specific distances you have paced off. Pay attention to the lie you have and the reaction off the club for that lie. Get your 10 yard chip down COLD because you will use it this round and it WILL save you strokes.

9. Whenever nobody is behind you and you finish up a green, you should be putting a few more times to get the feel, speed and read of the greens of that round. Again, within the rules.

10. Drink more water! Yep, there is no easier way to reduce your score on any given round. Lack of water will simply make you tired and lethargic. You will lose focus. One moment of low concentration can equal one bad swing that can easily turn into a double, triple or worse bogey.

11. When in doubt, use more club. If you feel you are in between clubs, take the higher one and grip down a half inch. Keep the same swing and tempo, don't slow the swing down to adjust.

12. From here on out, once you decide on a club or a specific shot. Don't look back. Commit to it. Confidence is far more important according to all the golf psychologists than making the "correct choice." Brad Faxon said: “It’s more important to be decisive than correct. As far as I’m concerned if you’re decisive, you are correct. The closer to the hole, the more valuable that philosophy becomes”

13. Change your mindset from "How many pars and birdies can I make today" to: "I will have zero balloon score holes today". I know you've done this. You finish a round, go to the 19th hole, tally up your score and then kid yourself by saying "I played pretty well today except for that triple on #8 and double on #17". I hate to tell you this, but, those holes count too. When playing for zero balloon scores, you will be playing a lot smarter. More on this coming emails.

14. Forget that old school teaching that says you have to "identify your weaknesses." You know darn well what holds you back in your game. Start focusing this round, for every shot on what you do well. ON WHAT WENT RIGHT! Build a storage of good things you are capable of to come back to time and time again. When you do something bad, quickly analyze it for what can be learned AND THEN FORGET IT! FOREVER!

15. For putting, you can solve most of your problems with this one tip: Always hold your finish. Hold your putter in the air, pointing at the target after you stroke the ball. If you do this, it is necessary that you had to have had a smooth, controlled stroke and didn't jab at it. This is big and it works for every putting style. Do it!

Allright, I don't know what time it is where you live now, but I have to get to bed, I'm beat. I'll see you again in email tomorrow. Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game.

Today is lesson 7 day.

So have you heard of a great golfer by the name of Ian Woosnam? He's one of my heroes! Why you might ask? Well, there's 2 reasons. ONe of them is because he is only 5 foot 4 inches tall and outdrives most other pros. (See there's hope for us little guys!). But more importantly, in the beginning of his carreer, he won many big tournaments, including the Masters in 1991. But an interesting thing happened after that. His game then severely deteriorated for some years until he made a dramatic comeback.

What happened to spark his comeback?

He started working with a practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP for short)! If you've never heard of that before, you're probably thinking that I've now completely lost my cookies right? Well, that's why I am telling you about a world-class pro who discovered it and uses these techniques even today to "bring back" the game he had in his early years when he won regularly.

So what the heck is this NLP stuff?

The best common-sense description I can give is this: a bunch of psychologists spent a lot of time studying people who were very successful at different things including money, sport, and relating to people. They then found that these people had specific ways of thinking and running their brain that most people do not. They then took these "techniques" and taught them to average folks and found that they worked, better than expected and with very little effort on the subject's part.

This is obviously a simplification

as many have spent years learning and applying what has been discovered in NLP since it's discovery only a couple decades ago. But, in case you missed it, I'll mention again that NLP has been used very successfully to increase performance in many sports. Is there a sport out there where you must use your brain more than golf? I don't think so and this is why Ian Woosnam and many others are now just "discovering" what NLP has to offer.

Here's the bottom line to how NLP can help you.

We've all had good shots with each of our clubs before right? AND, on top of that, we've watched others have good shots with their clubs right? Well, certain things are happening to your body and mind when you are performing well, that's a fact. And if you know what to look for and pay attention, then the next time you want to accomplish the same thing, you must do EVERYTHING like you did that time you were successful. Most importantly is that you must take direction in running your brain instead of just being a like a leaf in the wind and having your emotions take you every which way as you sometimes struggle through a round.

Here's an excellent quick tip

that is an NLP principle called "Associations" or "Linking". Try to remember back to the last time you had a great round or even a good string of holes. What was going on in your head? Did you have a pleasant thought running through your mind like maybe a song you like? Or maybe a dream about winning the lottery? Or maybe you just actually got a raise the day before. You can now "link" that thought or song to playing outstanding golf. Now, I wouldn't immediately go out every round and and try to always think that thought or sing that song to myself because you will not always play well while using that link and then it will slowly lose it's linkage to that great round you had. Instead, wait another time or two for when you play well, even if only a few good shots. And THEN bring that thought back up.

You see, what you will be doing is "CHARGING" that thought or song up with your optimum performance state. And when you really really need to release some of that "charge" and call up some good golf like in a pressure situation, it will be there for you and your body will respond just like Pavlov's dogs did to the dinner bell by salivating.

This is just one small example of how we can use NLP to help our game. Many books on NLP have been written and if you want to read one specifically for golf by Ian Woosnam's coach, it's called "Masterstroke, use the power of your mind to improve your golf with NLP" by Harry Alder and Karl Morris.

I am in the process of studying NLP today and will be taking certification courses for NLP practitioner in October 05.

Stay with me and I'll keep giving you some more of this mental magic in future emails.

This is the official end of the 7-part series. I'd like to continue giving you more information like you've seen so far. If that's o.k. with you, do nothing and you'll keep getting more good info. IF you'd like to unsubscribe, there is a link to do so at the bottom of every email.

Greens and fairways!

Craig


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game


Craig Sigl was an average Joe recreational golfer struggling for 27 years to break out of his scores in the 90's. At the age of 38, he finally accomplished his golf dream and scored a 79 on a regulation course and now plays to a 6 handicap. His newest audiobook and membership program, Break 80 Without Practice, is a complete guide to score improvement for those with little time to work on their game