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Playing Golf In The Zone

Whenever I ask players to describe their mental state during their best rounds, they all say very similar things, such as:

Feeling confidentNot having expectations or worries about scoreA sense of freedomBeing in the present momentBeing alert and focused, with no distractionsNot thinking about or trying to control swing mechanics, instead having full trust in their skillsRelaxed and calm, yet highly focusedA sense of optimism and fulfillmentBeing emotionally balanced

The state of mind that these players are describing is synonymous with “the zone” or “Flow State”, which I’m sure you’ve experienced at least once. Ironically, it happens when you least expect it to.

But what usually follows this description is the question: “How can I feel like that more often?” Most of us just accept that this optimal state of mind for golf is something that only happens at random and we can’t do much about when it shows up.

Although we can’t “try” to get into the zone, we can train ourselves on and off the course so that golf in the zone can be accessed more readily and more frequently. In this article I’ll give you 5 simple ways to do it.

“Flow is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than we were.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

1. Have a daily morning routine

How you start your day has a big effect on what you achieve during it and how much you grow. Every day is precious and your morning routine can remind you of the importance of it. Most of the world’s most successful people start their day early enough to go through a daily morning ritual which sets the tone for a great day. If you think you “don’t have time” to spend 30-45 mins to practice meditation, visualization, gratitude and set goals for the day, then think again as it’s worth every minute of the time spent (and you more than get the time back with increased focus, energy and a positive attitude). Create the time by going to bed an hour earlier, so you can get up an hour earlier. Instead of reaching for your phone as soon as you wake up and exposing yourself to whatever news and communication might await, get your mind ready and prepared for making it the best day possible.

2. Define your success for the day and honor that commitment to yourself

Long-term goals are your dreams and your short-term goals are the daily and weekly attainable goals that take you closer to them. Achieving your short term daily goals gives you a hit of the feel good chemical Dopamine which increases motivation and effort. It’s important that you feel this sense of accomplishment and progress at the end of the day as it builds momentum.

Unfortunately, too many people don’t, because of the way they set their daily goals. From my experience, I think that daily input goals are better than output goals. With a huge list of tasks to do each day and success being measured by completion, it’s easy to feel like you underachieved. Instead, set goals by time spent, rather than the outcome. E.g. If you are writing a book, instead of setting the goal of “completing chapter 1” today, you set the goal of “writing 500 words”.

Try to do the same things at the same time each day e.g. My first task of the day is to check and respond to emails (and I try to limit email communication to this time). Routine makes tasks easier to do each day (as they become habits) and require less effort and energy, meaning you have more for being creative. Train your discipline each day – it will help you build self-trust, a factor of confidence.

3. Become more focused

Following on from #2, better focus should be an intention for each day. Studies prove that multi tasking only works for a very small percentage of people. To get the best out of yourself requires being able to stay focused on a task despite all the external and internal distractions that will be trying to get your attention (for most of us that comes from our phones). Make 2021 the year of self-control and spending less time being distracted. Build trust in yourself by knowing that you can resist the temptations of more pleasurable things to do during the time you’ve allocated to a task. If you don’t you’ll burn valuable time and energy by having to refocus and the quality of the output will not be as high. Being aware of what your distractions are will help you avoid them. By improving focus, you’ll notice that you can get better at staying immersed in a task (not distracted or thinking about the outcome of the task), which is synonymous with the “Flow State” and high performance. Developing this skill will help you stay calm, think clearly and focus on what you need to in the pressure moments on the golf course.

In this week’s lesson, I’d like to show you how my competitive players mentally prepare using an effective pre round mental routine.

The game doesn’t start on the first tee. By the time you get to hit that first shot, you should already be in your best competitive mindset and ready to play. You don’t want to wait until you’re several holes into your round to find it.

This is what a pre round mental routine can help you with. It’s about using mental game triggers to:

· activate your “optimal performance state”

· get you feeling confident and believing in your abilities

From my experience there are 2 types of golfer – the ego golfer and the mastery golfer. These golfers represent 2 different mindsets and approaches to practice and play.

One of the biggest differences between the ego and mastery golfer is their perspective on nature vs nurture. An ego golfer is more likely to believe that their talents are inherited and part of who they are, whereas a mastery golfer believes that talents and skills can be developed with effort, over time.

Because they believe that their skills are part of who they are, Ego golfers derive self-worth and their identity from their scores. To an ego golfer, their results make a statement about who they are as a person. Better scores prove to themselves and to others that they are a better person.

A mastery golfer is more humble, and values the experience and learning opportunity from each round more than they do the end result. They can detach themselves as a person from their scores and don’t need validation from others. Professor Carol Dweck who has done a lot of research on the effects of mindset, calls these 2 mindsets: Fixed (Ego) and Growth (Mastery) mindsets.

Because an ego golfer’s identity is tied to their score, they feel a lot of pressure to play well. If it goes well they feel great, if it doesn’t go well, they can quickly get frustrated, flustered and down on themselves.

I’ve called this article “The Art of Putting”, because if you want to get better at it, it’s important that you become more of an artist and less of a technician on the greens.

In this week’s lesson, I’d like to show you how you can become a great putter by engaging more of the intuitive, “athletic mind” and less of the analytical, critical, ego-driven mind.

This is a key skill for putting well under pressure and lowering scores.

SWITCHING ON THE “ATHLETIC MIND”

The ball being stationary in golf can be both a positive and a negative. It’s a positive in the sense that you get time to consider the situation in front of you and figure out the best shot, but it can be a negative in the sense that it can open up a window of time for you to think before and during your stroke. Athletic motion is optimal when the mind is quiet – you’re not thinking – you’re using your senses to connect directly with your environment and using your “mind’s eye” to see (and feel) what you intend to happen. You are deeply focused and at one with your target and your intention.

Making the right length and speed of stroke and squaring the face to your intended start line (once you’ve set up and aligned correctly) requires you to have your “athletic mind” switched on and your “thinking brain” switched off. This is something that takes practice.

Mental skills for golf can be worked on with every round you play.

20 years ago, it was generally considered that the mental game of golf was something that you were born with, or not. But thanks to scientific research and growth of the field of sport psychology, we know that it’s something that can be trained and learned to improve a player’s performance.

One of the reasons that mental skills for golf are often overlooked is because they are invisible. A swing or equipment change can have visible effects immediately. Although mental skills for golf are less measurable and more intangible, they are essential if you are to access your best skills during your rounds and tournaments.

In this week’s lesson, I’d like to 1) identify the mental skills for golf necessary to play your best, 2) show you how to assess and measure your skill level and 3) how to improve your mental skills so you improve your scores and performance. Just like you do the technical reps each week to work on your swing, you’ll need to do mental reps to work on your mind.

7 Essential Mental Skills For Golf

When I start working with a new student, as part of their mental game assessment, I have them score themselves (out of 10) for the following mental skills for golf. I will also have their coaches do it (for the student) and compare the results. By doing this exercise yourself, it will help you get a better understanding of your mental game strengths and weaknesses.

Performance anxiety in golf is the biggest difference between the range and the course. On the range, with no consequences, the swing is free and fluid, the mind is quiet and focused on the target. When performance anxiety kicks in, focus on the target is often replaced by focus on the trouble and the swing, which gets tense and quick. Timing and coordination gets compromised.

If there’s a gap between your performance in practice and tournaments, then performance anxiety in golf is the likely cause.

That said, everyone that plays golf experiences performance anxiety. Biofeedback devices tell us that our heart rates are always higher in a tournament round than when we are practicing. If you care about what you are doing, then your nervous system will become “activated” to get you ready for action. You might have felt this as butterflies, or in some cases, your heart pounding, your mind racing, sweating, shaking and tension in your muscles.

If you are going to succeed in pressure situations, you’ll have to learn how (to quote psychologist William James) “make the nervous system your ally, not your enemy”. In this week’s lesson, I’m going to share 10 ways to do it.

What is performance anxiety in golf?

Performance anxiety is our body’s response to fear of danger in the future. It’s a primal survival mechanism inherited from our early human ancestors. By certain changes happening automatically in the body and mind, it increased their chances of survival in the face of a serious threat to their lives, such as encountering a large predator. To prepare for this, the “fight or flight” response evolved – the heart beats faster to pump blood to the muscles which tense up and get ready for action, senses become heightened and the mind goes blank limiting us to the simple options of fight or flight. Even though we’ve evolved in many ways since then, our response to fear has stayed the same. Instead of it being a large predator that we fear, it’s more emotional, social and psychological danger.

Your ability to focus on what you choose – when you want to – is the single most important factor in your performance and your progress. Improving focus for golf is something that you take seriously if you plan to become as good as you can be.

Too many of us are under-performing, losing time, productivity and dealing with more stress and anxiety because we are losing the ability to focus every day. Buddhists call it not being able to control the wandering “monkey mind”.

Recent studies suggest that our reliance on digital technology is the main reason the monkey is wandering more today than it ever has. In today’s world, we are rarely in the present moment – focused on just one task for long enough to get the best out of ourselves. Instead, we are constantly distracted by our phones, messages and social media feeds.

Scientists are hired by companies such as Facebook specifically to develop algorithms to keep us clicking, watching and swiping for as long as possible. How many times do you start a task, see a notification, and then spend 5 minutes away from the task before you realize it?

We are spending more and more time being impulsive and less time being intentional. The effect of it is weakening our ability to focus with every minute we spend doing so, and it’s even worse for our kids’ developing brains.

Follow these steps in your pre-shot routine to increase your chances of success for every shot you hit.

Step 1: Switch On Your Golf Brain

You’ll need to make the transition from broad focus (in between shots) to narrow focus during shots. Whatever conversations or thoughts you were having in between shots need to be put aside and all your attention must go to the shot at hand.

Step 2: The Thinking Phase

The thinking phase is where your thinking about the shot is done. It’s important that it’s done here and not over the ball, where your mind will need to be quiet. The purpose of the thinking phase is to pick the optimal shot given:

The challenge ahead of you (the golf course layout and weather conditions)The risk reward of each possible option and your confidence level in each

Thinking phase questions:

“Where is the good and bad miss?”“What is the lie like and what’s the wind doing?”“What are the options available to be?”“Which is the shot/target with the greatest reward that I feel at least 75% confident I can execute?”

Once you feel confident about your type of shot, you need to prime your body and mind to execute it.

Here’s your 10 minute mental game warm-up to increase your confidence and prepare you for a strong performance in your next round. Do this shortly before you leave the house for the course. Find a place where you won’t be disturbed for 10 minutes and put your phone away.

If you prefer audio to reading, please click the play button or “listen in browser” below.

Your Winning 10 Minute Mental Game Warm Up

Step 1: Relax (3 mins)

Sit down with your back straight and your hands in your lap.

Start with some deep breaths to calm down your body and mind. You will probably be nervous before a round, which is perfectly normal, but in order to perform well, you will need to make sure your mind is quiet and your body is relaxed.

Inhale through your nose until your belly goes out and exhale fully through your mouth. As you breathe, notice where your mind is and how your body feels. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to your breath.

After a minute or so of deep breathing, return to your normal breathing and scan your body to notice any tension. Start with your face, noticing any tension in your facial muscles and jaw. If you notice tension, breath into it and soften it. Move slowly to your neck and shoulders, all the way down your arms, to the wrists and fingers. Bring awareness to the sensations in each individual part of your body. Feel the chest and diaphragm moving with your breath. Move down each leg, into the ankles feet and toes. Be aware of exactly how you feel and use your breathing to release any stress and tension.

“I never learned anything from a match that I won.” – Bobby Jones

Golf is an inconsistent game by nature and scores will always fluctuate, but what’s guaranteed is that every round is a learning opportunity for long-term improvement. Too many golfers don’t spend enough time reflecting on their rounds, to highlight the things that they did well, or to look at situations and shots in the round that exposed their weaknesses. This often comes back to mindset – an ego oriented “fixed” mindset is more concerned about results, placings and how that result made them look and that’s all that matters. Mastery or “Growth” mindset golfers look deeper into the performance to find out what was learned and what can be improved. A proper post round review process can help you nurture a growth mindset, increase your self-esteem as a player and learn from every round.

Using A Performance Journal

Studies show that writing things down in a journal is a highly effective way to reflect and learn from an experience. It gives you the opportunity to make sense of what happened during your rounds and what you were feeling in different situations. This can help you identify what about your process is working, what areas of your game needs work, and it will allow you to reconcile with the round so you can move on.

Even though writing on paper is most effective, most of my students use an online performance journal that shares their entries with me. Entries can be written down on paper and uploaded as a photo or typed directly into the app. But most importantly, it’s about what you write down after a round. In this module, I’d like to share the template that my students use.

A Simple Post Round Review

“There’s no such thing as failure, you either succeed or you learn.”

Click “listen in browser” to listen to the audio

What you say to yourself drives your performance on and off the course more than you would think. Positive self-talk is a force that we must harness to keep getting better.

Do you remember the interview with Brooks Koepka before the PGA Championship last year (which he won) where he told the world that he was a “big tournament player” and that he found them easier to win than regular tournaments because most of the field couldn’t handle the pressure?

Some might have thought that it was an arrogant and overconfident thing to say. Saying things like that can often blow up in your face and make you look silly. But from a sports psychologist’s perspective, it’s clear that he’s been making these statements to himself over and over again, which has made it his belief and identity as a player and helped him win an incredible 4 majors in 2 years.

Self talk can not only influence how you think, feel and behave in a particular moment, but it can change your beliefs and behaviors in the long-run. The best performers in any field are able to use the voice in their head to become more successful everyday.

Why does self-talk work?

On a basic level, it’s fairly obvious. It is always going to be better to talk to yourself in a positive way than a negative way. Telling yourself how bad you are at something or how likely it is that you will fail is always going to work against you. I’m sure that when anyone tells you how well you are doing at something it feels good and gives you a lift, so it’s only logical to do the same with your self-talk.

To listen to the audio, click “Listen in browser” below

1. Get Into A Daily Routine

We are all having to deal with less structure in our lives and being cooped up at home. To look at this situation positively, it’s a good time to develop skills – one being time management. All high achievers have strict daily routines. Routines become habits – meaning that after a while you do them automatically with less effort. Start by going to bed at the same time each night and get out of bed at the same time each morning. Block out chunks of time during which you do certain tasks each day. E.g. limit emails and messages to certain times of the day. Block out time for writing, reading and exercise. Your body and mind will get used to doing the same tasks at the same time each day, and with less thought involved, you’ll be more productive.

2. Make Your Bed

The first thing that you should do as soon as you wake up, is make your bed. This represents far more than the simple act of making your bed. It might seem trivial, but making your bed will make you feel that something has been accomplished immediately and it will create a sense of order and control over the day. A messy bed during the day, often represents a messy life.

3. Drink Water

Before you have your morning coffee, drink a glass of water. The longest time you go without water is when you are asleep, so it’s important to hydrate first thing in the morning. Studies show that drinking water first thing makes you feel more alert and it gives your metabolism a boost.

4. Meditation and gratitude

Learning how to be more present and focus the mind is an important skill to have, especially when you are feeling stressed or under pressure. Starting your day with 10 – 20 minutes of meditation is not only very calming, but it will also help you get better control of your thoughts and focus in the long-term. After meditating, you’ll have a clear head to make better decisions about what you are going to do with the day. Using a guided meditation app such as Calm, is an easy way to get started. After you’ve practiced focusing and calming the mind, spend a few minutes being grateful. Thinking about things you are grateful for (e.g. family, friends, happy memories, etc.) immediately releases “feel-good” chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine into the bloodstream. This can be a good antidote to fear and stress and a great start to the day.

5. Exercise in some way

Not only does exercise have health benefits in the long-term, but on a daily basis it gives your body energy, releases feel-good chemicals (endorphins) and makes you feel more accomplished. Exercising first thing in the morning (going for a walk or run) is also a great time to plan your day.

To listen to the audio, click “listen in browser”

Whether it’s on or off the course, it’s important to know how to relax and calm down in times of stress. The Covid-19 pandemic is causing everyone’s stress levels to go up from being cooped up inside, not being able to see friends and family, no sports to watch or play and nothing but bad news coming in. As I’ve been saying in my recent emails, let’s use this temporary setback as an opportunity to learn skills that are going to help you succeed when the season starts up again. To help you do this, here are 7 relaxation techniques for golf to help you deal with stress on and off the course.

1. Breathing

Experts on anxiety tell us that breathing is the best stress management tool we have.
When we are feeling stressed, our breathing becomes shallow, quick and erratic, meaning there’s less oxygen going to the brain and focusing the mind becomes harder. The mind can start racing in a negative loop which worsens anxiety.

Whether it’s for better performance in golf or greater well-being in general, proper breathing and relaxation techniques for golf should be used to get control of your physiology and your mental state when you are feeling stressed.

When we deepen and slow down our breathing, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system), which counters the activation in the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response). When we are able to get control of our physical state, we have more control over our mental and emotional state – the mind calms down and we are better able to choose our next move instead of following our thoughts.

Breathing techniques to lower stress

This week, we’re going to look at the power of Mental Imagery for golf, which is supported by scientific evidence to:

Increase confidence and reduce doubtChange your mental and emotional stateImprove motor skill learning (i.e. making swing changes)Change behaviorImprove motivationHelp you prepare for any situation

Let’s take a look at 5 simple exercises you can do to improve performance using mental imagery.

You can do these visualizations at any time, but I prefer doing them after my morning meditation session after quieting the mind.

Step 1: Visualize your success

Research shows that people with goals generally go on to become more successful than those who don’t. Creating mental images of those goals being achieved is proven to be more powerful that verbal statements of your goals for the following reasons:

Whether it’s a long or short-term goal (visualizing the day ahead or yourself 5 years from now), seeing yourself be successful creates a positive association with that goal in your subconscious mind (that part of the mind which triggers your feelings), so when you are in those situations for real, you’re more likely to feel more confidence and less fear. Tony Robbins says that mental imagery for goals is an important daily exercise as you get to experience the emotions of achieving that goal before it’s happened.When you visualize the outcome that you are working towards, you can get deeper into why you are on that path and what about the endeavor will fulfill you. Goals will only be achieved with motivation, and that will be lacking without a clear purpose.

Step 2: What are the obstacles and skills you must develop to achieve your goals and what behaviors do you need to change?

It’s not enough to visualize the positive outcome at the end of your journey. Research suggests that doing that alone can reduce motivation as your mind starts to believe that you have already achieved it. Any goal worth working towards is going to require change in behaviors and overcoming many obstacles over a period of time. The next step of your mental imagery for golf practice is to take a look at those things that are currently holding you back and visualizing how you are going to change and overcome them.

Being able to get the best out of your game on any day has a lot to do with how well you can activate and maintain your “best performance state”. What I mean by that, is the mental, emotional and physical states that when combined, give you the best opportunity to play well. 

Sports psychologists use the term: “Activation”, to describe strategies that help a player trigger their best performance state. Finding the best activation techniques for a player requires ongoing reflection and work with the player, but in this week’s lesson, I’d like to give you some ideas.

What does your best performance state look like? 

Whenever I start working with a new student on mental coaching for golf, I ask them to think about times they’ve had success and how they would describe themselves (mentally, emotionally and physically) in those moments. The words they use can be very helpful in putting together an activation strategy. 

I was speaking to a new student this morning, who told me that when she had her 3 wins on Tour, she was “cocky”, “determined” and “walked with a swagger”. She said that she was definitely more intense than relaxed.

Many frustrated golfers reach out to me each week in search of solutions for what they describe as “the yips”. If cures for the yips aren’t implemented, it can destroy scores, enjoyment and a player’s self-esteem.

But help is at hand…

In this article, I’d like to take a deeper look at what the yips is and what solutions are available so you can enjoy the game more and improve your performance.

What causes “the yips”?

In 90% of cases, the yips is more mental than it is physical. Mostly occurring in the short game and putting, It’s caused by a mental interference between what you want to do (the shot) and the muscles required to do it. The effect of it can range from not being able to start the back-swing to a flinch causing thin and fat shots.

In practice, a player with the yips can often perform well, which makes it even more frustrating when that same game doesn’t appear on the course. During the comfort of the practice area, a quiet mind allows them full access to their skills. On the course, with the pressure higher, playing partners watching and their score at stake, their mind is agitated and the pathways which take the information about the shot to the muscles are blocked by fear and overthinking.