Key areas for successful golf

‘A mind that is relaxed and calm gives off a relaxed calm feeling throughout the body’

As mentioned earlier, on a round lasting up to four hours or more, you may only be actually hitting the ball for less than 5 minutes, With so many of these extended periods in between shots where you do the thinking and walking; if you are to avoid walking off a course feeling absolutely shattered both mentally and physically, you must be in control of your thinking whilst relaxing your mind and body.

Relaxation is important because of the mind/body connection. There is irrefutable evidence that our thoughts influence our physical responses. When your body is tense, your muscles are tense and lead to tight, jerky, uncoordinated movements. If you take a moment to think now of the best golf that you have played  -  the chances are there was no evidence of you being tense, nervous, anxious!

Concentration/focus

It's vital to just focus on the present shot, and not be influenced by distractions around you…this is a really key point. You’ll lose your effectiveness once you start thinking of your last bad shot, your next hole, the score card and so on.

In Depak Chopora’s book ‘golf for enlightenment’- a fantastic quote was:

‘You and the ball are one….Find the now, and you will find the shot…..Let the game play you’

Our thoughts shape our reality, so the more you think about positive outcomes, the more your mind moves you towards to them and shapes your reality to deliver them. Imagine saying to yourself, "Don’t land in the sand…don’t land in the sand”…what key messages are you sending to your brain and body? Are they positive or negative thoughts? …and what state of emotion do you create in yourself by saying those things? Do you feel relaxed or a little tense as a result? Chances are you’re not in the calm, relaxed, free flowing state you’d want to be in. So think positive thoughts and what you want to happen, and let your mind and body create more chances to let that happen. The mind can't process ‘don’ts’, so your subconscious is been given an instruction (as far as it understands) to aim towards the sand which inevitably will affect your shot, but more importantly your mental state and physiology. So my advice is to keep it simple, just focus on one particular positive outcome at a time.

Visualisation

This is a key skill to learn to increase effectiveness and success. Research shows that the act of ‘Imagining’ fires up the identical parts of the brain that would be activated if you were actually playing a stroke. The neurons used in the brain are the very same ones that would be used if you were actually playing, so some of the actual muscles involved in the shot experience tiny movement. You effectively practice just by the act of visualisation.

Removing negative thoughts

I’ll say one thing here….'remember our thoughts shape our reality', so think of what you want to happen. Umesh’s use of NLP, Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy is very important here as the language we use determines our behaviour. ‘Change the language…change the behaviour’. What do you notice inside if you say “I should be able to putt that”, or “I hope to putt that”, versus, “I can putt that”. You should notice a difference inside yourself?

Confidence

Confidence comes from recognising past successes and having a relaxed, easy attitude to your golf. The aim here if to make practice as close to reality as possible, so when faced with a game or tournament, you already have to confidence to succeed.

So as a MIND FACTOR Coach, how does Umesh pull all this together? By using his four quadrant approach applied in any sporting field.

Before the game

Focusing on:

·         Addressing belief systems within a player to ensure their core beliefs are strong and aligned with the player within them

·         Finding the keys to motivation

·         Language patterns

·         Goal setting is achievable, realistic and deliverable using the SMART framework

·         Practice is realistic, and as challenging if not harder than the game itself.

During the game

Focussing on:

·         Remaining focused

·         Avoiding distraction

·         Remaining calm and centred where appropriate

·         Relying on your natural instinct to ‘just play'

In-between the game

Focussing on:

·         Remaining focused

·         Releasing negative emotions quickly

·         Avoiding distractions such as ‘time travel’, crowds, other players

·         Remaining calm and centred where appropriate

·         Relying on your natural instinct to ‘just play’

After the game

Focussing on:

·         Learning from success, for future events

·         Releasing negative emotions quickly

·         Accepting ‘there’s no failure, only feedback’

·         Self healing and easing pain from injury or fatigue

 "Working with Umesh on the mental side of golf has undoubtedly unlocked and removed many barriers surrounding my game - I can't believe how big an impact it has had transforming my game, giving me the belief....I can win and perform consistently at the highest level". Steve Mulraney PGA Pro.

Nowadays, its not uncommon for many of the worlds leading golfers to employ the services of a sports psychologist, mind coach or hypnotherapist (or all three!)…Darren Clarke, Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood….are just some of those who’ve found the competitive edge through the mental side of the game.