One of the things I enjoy about being a golf writer is vetting marketing claims that sound, well, crazy.

It could be a miracle cure for a slice or a tee that, shockingly, will give you five more yards. Finding the voodoo behind these magic elixirs for what ails you brings me, for lack of a better word, joy.

So when Bridgestone says its Mindset golf ball-marking system can help you shave three to five strokes off your game, I get kind of excited. Not in a weird way or anything. I just really enjoy digging into this stuff to find out whether it’s bullshit or not.

Imagine my combination of glee and disappointment to find that there might actually be something to this Bridgestone Mindset business.

The important part starts with understanding what this combination of arrows, circles and a dot is and then learning how to use it.

Bridgestone Mindset: What is this thing?

Before we get to that, let me tell you one thing it’s not.

Mindset is not an alignment aid.

Bridgestone Mindset is a visual cue to help you think, and then not think, about each shot.

OK, now that I write that out, I can see it needs some explanation.

“Printed golf balls started popping up in 2018-2019, like Truvis or PIX,” Bridgestone Marketing Director David Vogrin tells MyGolfSpy. “Customers started saying we should jump on that trend. We weren’t going to do a printed golf ball just for the sake of doing a printed golf ball. We weren’t going to put tacos on it and call it ‘printed.’”

According to Vogrin, for Bridgestone to go printed, the printing would have to be purposeful.

“We looked at all kinds of ideas. Could we create a printed technology that enables the right swing path? Could we create a printed technology that increases swing speed?

“Where we ended up was with a printed technology that improves people’s focus.”

After a couple of years of experimentation with various patterns, Bridgestone came up with a circle-circle-dot system to narrow a player’s focus over the ball. What happened next was one of those get outta town coincidences that somehow made the whole plan come together.

The two Jasons

By 2020, Bridgestone was testing its three-dot system and experimenting with different patterns and colors. They also tested it against other markings such as Triple Track.

“Triple Track is purely an alignment aid,” says Vogrin. “It’s a good tool but you can start to doubt what you’re looking at. We found people made better strokes when they’re not focused on perfectly aligning the ball, when they’re a little freer.”

What Bridgestone didn’t know at the time was that Jason Day and his mental coach, Jason Goldsmith, were working on almost exactly the same idea.

“We realized Jason Day’s process was all about focus and separating analytical thoughts from athletic performance,” Vogrin explains.

“For most people, the misunderstanding is that they need to think more to be able to perform,” says Goldsmith. “The reality is they need to think less.”

That’s the golf equivalent of Crash Davis telling Nuke LaLoosh: Don’t think, Meat. Just throw.

What is this process?

Did you watch Jason Day during the Masters? CBS did a pretty good job of getting some close-ups as he prepared to hit shots. He starts by closing his eyes.

“He’s doing his analytical process at the front end,” says Vogrin. “Goldsmith calls it gathering information; we call it identifying your target. That starts the whole process.”

The red outermost Bridgestone Mindset circle is there to remind you to gather the info you need before you even think about addressing the ball. You determine target and distance, what the wind is doing, what club you’re going to use and the type of shot you want to hit.

The yellow circle cues you to visualize the shot you want to make.

“People do this in many different ways,” Vogrin says. “Jason closes his eyes and visualizes the swing and imagines the ball flight. Some might think of something like a shot tracer, while others are kinesthetic; they feel things. They might make some mini-practice swings to sort of rehearse the feel of the shot they want to hit.”

According to Vogrin, as important as all that info is, it can’t be cluttering up your mind once you address the ball. That’s what the final green dot is for.

“You wipe away all those analytical things and become an athlete. You stop thinking and focus your eyes on the green dot while your mind is on the target. Free your mind to make the swing you’ve imagined, shot-traced or rehearsed.

“If you’re thinking of anything else, step out and start over.”

In other words, Don’t think, Meat. Just swing.

Wait, I need colored circles to do this?

Everything described above can be covered under the age-old umbrella term “pre-shot routine.” Seriously, there’s nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking to be found here. However, we all know golfers (or we may be that golfer) who spend way too much time standing over the ball, thinking.

All too often, bad stuff happens.

“As golfers, we think we can think our way through a golf swing,” says Vogrin. “But instead of thinking, we need to free our brains up so we’re able to perform.”

What Bridgestone Mindset does is provide you with a prescribed process and visual cues to remind you to do it on every shot. It is, after all, printed on the very thing you’re trying to hit.

If it helps, think about that round of your life or that stretch when you were in that happy place known as the Zone. At address, were you thinking of making sure you transferred weight from your right heel and instep to your left heel? Was your mind swirling with negative thoughts like Don’t hit it out of bounds, dummy?

Doubtful. Most likely, you had a blank mind. When the shot landed, you thought, That was awesome. How’d I do that?

A clear mind is a happy, athletic mind.

“It’s about focusing and being an athlete,” explains Vogrin. “Trying to be perfect can get you off track. Once you’re over the ball, you want to be an athlete. You don’t want to be thinking.”

Again, to quote baseball Zen master Crash Davis, “Don’t think. It can only hurt the ball club.”

Bridgestone Mindset: Breathing through your eyelids

The connections between Bull Durham and the Bridgestone Mindset aren’t just lame attempts at glib humor. There’s a clear connection between a focused, uncluttered mind and athletic performance.

“One of the most athletic positions in sports is shortstop,” explains Vogrin. “Do you think the shortstop mechanically goes through the process of fielding the ball and throwing a runner out at first while he’s doing it?”

Bridgestone Mindset is the golf equivalent of breathing through your eyelids like the lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands (you could look it up). In the first two steps (the red and yellow circles), you gather all the important information and then visualize or rehearse your shot. Then, as you address the ball, your mind should be on the target and your eyes on the green dot. If there’s another thought in your head, like my wife’s mad at me, or do I have the right club?, step out and start again.

Practically speaking, you can only see the Mindset marking on the tee and on the green (Interestingly, Bridgestone put arrows on the Mindset marking because early testers still treated it as a putting alignment aid). The rest of the hole is a crapshoot. However, just because you can’t see Mindset doesn’t mean you can’t go through the steps. That’s where discipline comes in.

“It’s a practice, like yoga or meditation,” says Vogrin. “You’ll never be able to perfect it for a full round. But it is a visual cue to remind you. You can still be in the process even if you can’t see the aid.”

About that three to five strokes thing …

This is where the skepticism comes in. Can using the Bridgestone Mindset ball marking system really save you as many as three to five strokes per round?

Not on its own, no. That’s up to you and the effort you put into practicing your pre-shot routine. Bridgestone conducted a performance test with dozens of golfers ranging from scratch to 20-plus handicaps. Players submitted scores from their last five rounds and were then taught the Mindset process. They then played five more rounds at the same courses to remove variables. The results were startling.

Eighty percent of the golfers in the test saw their scores drop an average of three strokes. What’s more, golfers who shot over 90 in their previous five rounds improved by five strokes. Lower-handicap golfers saw smaller improvements.

“The over-90 golfer likely never had a consistent pre-shot routine,” Vogrin explains. “It was I knew I was going to do that versus visualizing the shot he wants to hit. Give that guy a positive visualization, a new idea for that golfer, it’ll help them. Better players already have a process. They may just need a reminder and are helped by a visual cue.”

Is the Bridgestone Mindset for you?

The bottom line? Bridgestone Mindset isn’t some mind-control, hypnotic marketing mumbo jumbo. It is what it is: a visual cue to follow a pre-shot routine. You don’t need Mindset-marked golf balls to create and follow a process, but the visual cue helps, as do Bridgestone’s YouTube videos on the practice.

“At some point, you have to let feel take over,” says Vogrin. “Your body knows what to do. Don’t let your brain get in the way.”

As golfers, we spend a buttload of money on lessons, new sticks and hope. Bridgestone adds the Mindset markings to its Tour B series and e12 series golf balls at no extra charge. Since you have to buy golf balls anyway, that raises the obvious question:

If you could cut three to five strokes off your game without spending a dime extra, would you?

Of course, there’s work involved. You can’t buy this kind of performance. You have to learn it and earn it. It’s also important to understand that the idea of freeing your mind and having a repeatable, positive pre-shot routine has been around for decades. Bobby Jones famously said we play golf on a six-inch course, the one between our ears. Less famously, he said you swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about.

That’s the point of Bridgestone Mindset. Gather information, visualize the shot, clear your mind and swing. After all, the world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.

Don’t think, Meat. Just hit it.

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