MIND GAMES
THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING A CLEAR HEAD
Bob Rotella is the world’s foremost sports psychologist and author of the best-selling sports psychology book of all time; Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect. He has worked with the likes of Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, and Rory Mcilroy to deliver more than 300 PGA Tour titles and more than 70 Majors.
The key to better performances, he says, is to control your fears and doubts and quieten the mind. “I believe that it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of the mind in golf,” he explains. “Despite what you will have heard, there is no such thing as ‘muscle memory’, because your muscles have no capacity to remember anything. Memory resides in your head, so no matter how long you practise and no matter how skilled you become, your muscles alone can’t remember it and execute it when the need arises out on the golf course.
“Your mind controls everything and if your head is filled with bad thoughts, your scorecard will be full of bad strokes. People play well when they have their head in a very quiet, very clear place. Here are five key ways you can quieten your mind and find better focus.”
1 BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
You need to take inspiration from Major winners such as Tom Kite, Padraig Harrington, and Pat Bradley. The game came to them very slowly, and they had to deal with people questioning why they ever thought they would be great, but piece by piece they figured the game out. They are proof that if you keep believing in yourself, even if no-one else believes in you, then you can build your confidence one brick at a time and eventually succeed. This is the same for all golfers of all abilities.
2 PICK A SMALL TARGET
I like my players to aim at a small target that is off the ground. That target should be small enough that you have to narrow your vision, but not so small that you have to squint or try hard to look at it. Your eyes are like an automatic focus lens on a camera. When you look at a small target they narrow and it is a beautiful thing. So before every shot, I would like your eyes and your mind to be narrowed in on where you want the ball to go to the exclusion of all else.
3 ACCEPT YOUR MISTAKES
Accepting mistakes is a big part of the puzzle, because if you dwell on your errors and get upset about them, eventually you are going to start fearing them. This is a big problem because knowing how bad each mistake makes you feel leads you to start trying harder, which in turn leads to you messing everything up. Overcoming this is a heck of a challenge, but improving your short game and studying the top professionals will help. I tell people to get really good at the short game, because it means you can make all kind of mistakes and still score. And I tell them to watch the top players, because they miss their fair share of shots, fairways and greens, but they still manage to get the ball in the hole. No matter where you end up, you have to have confidence in your ability to get the ball in the hole.
4 BE HONEST 5
When it comes to the mental side of the game, golfing dishonesty comes in two forms. The first sees people lie to themselves about their ability to hit the shot and is easy to fix. If you can’t hit a pitch shot, your mind cannot help you. You have to go and develop that skill. The second sees people lie to themselves about their inability to hit a shot and is a little more complicated. A lot of golfers lie to themselves in the negative when they don’t have confidence. I see this happening all the time on tour. A player will hit a shot 15 times in a row on the practice range and then pretend they can’t hit it on the course. It is a fascinating mental position, and the only way to overcome it is to think positively, then let go of conscious control and surrender to your subconscious. Which means look at where you want the ball to go and then just let it happen.
LET YOUR MIND GO
To really get to the point where golfers want to be, mentally, you need to be so lost in your own little world that you are unconscious about what you are doing. It’s very much like playing a musical instrument. Yes, you can be competent while thinking consciously, but to really make beautiful music or perform your best on the golf course you need to let go of conscious control and just look and do. This is not easy to achieve, but if you can get comfortable with a quiet mind, it will give you a huge advantage on the golf course.
‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MUSCLE MEMORY. YOUR MIND CONTROLS YOUR MUSCLES AND IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING’