Mental preparation and golf

Improve your game without hitting a ball.


The effect of mental preparation


In 1980, the Winter Olympics Soviet Team was split into 4 groups:

- Group 1 did their normal physical training

- Group 2 did 75% of their normal physical training and 25% mental work

- Group 3 split their training 50/50 in terms of physical and mental work work

- and Group 4 did 25% of their normal physical training and 75% mental work

At the Olympics Group 4's performance was most improved, followed by group 3,2, then 1.



Pre-game visualisation

In addition to the above example it's been shown that just by visualising yourself doing something successfully you improve your performance by up to 25%!

A combination of visualisation and practice can result in an improvement of 40%!



Visualisation and putting

Take 5 minutes a day to visualise yourself getting putts and playing well. Think of someone like Tiger Woods. Notice how he is focused on the hole but relaxed. Look at how balanced and settled he is over the putt. Now imagine how he feels as he slows down his heart rate around the green.

The next time you are playing imagine that you are Tiger. How would you approach this putt if you were him? In a calm way where you not only wanted to sink it, but where you also saw it going in before you hit it, right? So, just pretend that you are him!

It might seem simple but this is powerful. Studies have shown that your thoughts have a strong influence on your success.

A group of students was asked to imagine themselves as professors then answer some trivial pursuit questions; they got 56.6% right.

Another group was asked to imagine that they were football hooligans - they got 42.6%. They two groups had the same ability.

And yet their thoughts were the difference between success and failure.