By Elena King and Denise McGuire

Ever notice how difficult it is to maintain balance in your life? With so many priorities to juggle, living a balanced existence presents a daily challenge. A key to meeting this challenge is having awareness of when you are both in and out of balance. Being aware is the first step in changing some part of your life. You cannot change what you are not aware of. The same principle applies to golf. Optimal golf performance requires balance in the mechanical, mental and emotional aspects of the game.

MECHANICAL

Pre-Swing: Being balanced at address establishes a solid foundation.

Tip: Get grounded by keeping your center of gravity low. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed (left to right and front to back).

Backswing: Your body is always trying to find balance in any motion that you make. For example, during your back swing if your weight is out on your toes, your arms, hands and club will tend to swing more “inside” (or behind you) to counterbalance your weight.

Tip: During practice: swing with your feet together to stay centered; use balance discs or swing standing on one foot.

Swing: To swing in control you must create a balanced finish.

Tip: Take a practice swing and find your perfect balanced finish and assign it a 10 on 1-10 scale. The goal is to re-create this balanced finish while hitting your shot. This is a great playing focus to take to the course; it does not involve mechanical thoughts.

Putting/chipping: Balancing the length of your stroke back and through will give you better consistency and distance control.

Tip: Use a yardstick to measure the length of your backswing and forward swing. In addition, holding your finish will create good balance with your putts and chips.

MENTAL

Decision-making. Optimal decisionmaking requires using both hemispheres of the brain. The left side tends to analyze details such as yardage, target selection, and mechanics. The right side concerns visualization, emotions and the feel of your swing.

Tip: When consumed by swing thoughts or your score, engage the right side of your brain by visualizing to connect with your target right before pulling the trigger.

Attention and focus. It is important to balance your attention or focus between broad and narrow in order to sustain focus for an entire round. It is not helpful to grind yourself mentally about shots during the entire round.

Tip: Between shots take a mental time-out to broaden your focus. Hum a song. Look at the horizon. Think about something fun.

EMOTIONAL

Nerves. When you are nervous or feeling too “pumped up” after hitting a great shot, it can create an imbalance in your nervous system. Experiencing too little intensity can also affect performance.

Tip: Use deep breathing, which has an immediate effect on your nervous system, to restore balance so that you can perform from that optimal state.

|By Elena King and Denise McGuire

Do you feel like you need to have swing thoughts in order to hit the ball well? Does it feel like you need to force your body to do something correctly? Do you ever wonder why you can sometimes hit really good shots without having to think so much?

We often observe students getting so hung up on mechanics that they lose complete sight of the object of the game…getting the ball into the hole!

For instance, in a recent coaching session Elena observed a student getting very frustrated as she continued to try and make her body rotate during the swing without success. She asked the student to shift her focus completely to the target and immediately her body rotated just as she had wanted it to. The student’s comment to Elena after just a few balls was, “It’s just unbelievable how well I am hitting the ball without thinking any mechanical thoughts. I’ve never swung the club so freely. This is the best I’ve ever hit it!” What was so different? By shifting her focus from trying to make her body do something to focusing on the target she was able free her mind and allow herself to swing the club and move her body freely and naturally.

We tend to believe that we must tell the body what to do. However, research in the performance field has consistently shown that the type of thinking that most golfers do over the ball is actually detrimental to good performance. The left side or analytical part of the brain actually should be quiet during the few seconds right before we start the swing.

Quieting the analytical part of the brain is different from “blanking out” the mind or trying to not think about anything, which is difficult if not impossible, to do. The key is to engage a different part of the brain in the critical few moments right before you start your swing. Regardless of your skill level or handicap, you can improve your performance by learning to engage a part of your mind that will allow you to be fully in the present, trust your instincts and stay focused on what is most important in that moment…the target!

Here are a few suggestions for becoming more target oriented:

• During your pre-shot routine, take a long look at the target and do so with a soft gaze. Do not squint or strain while looking at it.

• Visualize the flight of the ball going to the target or the ball rolling into the hole.

• Maintain your awareness of the target as you are about to start your swing or stroke. Stay connected with the target even while you are not looking at it.

• Commit to where you want the ball to go.

At the end of the session Elena asked the student, “What would you need to do to hit the ball like this on a regular basis?” Her response was, “If I clear my mind I can trust that I know how to swing the club and not always feel like I need to fix something.” A powerful learning experience indeed! Good golf is about playing with a free and clear mind and allowing the mind and body to execute without interference. The freer the mind the freer the swing!

When I hear golfers say, “I can hit the ball really well on the range, but I can’t seem to take it to the course,” I usually ask questions about their practice habits: “How often do you practice?” and “What do you spend time doing?” The answers are very revealing. They say things like, “I hit over 200 balls a day!” or “I’m out there every day until dark!”

What you do during practice develops associations. It’s an opportunity to engrain either bad or good habits. If you are doing the old “scrape and hit” form of practice, while feeling increasingly frustrated, you have just engrained the habit of hitting mindlessly while feeling frustrated. That’s not exactly the formula for success on the golf course.

One of the keys to transferring good practice habits to the course is to view practice time as an opportunity to blend your mental and emotional skills with your mechanics. When asked how to practice for optimal performance, Michael Murphy, a human-performance expert and author of Golf in the Kingdom, said, “Focus on teaching them to get in the zone. You practice the swing mechanics with the mind mechanics. If you don’t do them together, the practice might make you worse.”

One way to establish an integrated practice approach is to incorporate intentionally those skills into your practice routines. I’ve written previous articles about the importance of pre-shot (May 2008) and post-shot routines (Fall 2007) for optimal performance. To master the mental and emotional skills, it makes sense to practice these skills just as much as you practice your swing mechanics.

Here are some suggestions for integrating mental, emotional and technical skills into your practice:
• Spend at least 50 percent of your practice time completing a pre-shot and post-shot routine for every shot.
• Have a specific practice intention, such as staying focused on the target.
• Adjust your practice routine to fit your personality. If you have a short attention span, take frequent breaks.
• Pay attention to how you are thinking and feeling about your shots. Make a habit of shifting from negative to neutral or positive.
• Practice feeling pressure or nervousness. Imagine yourself stepping up to the first tee during a tournament.
• Practice being 100-percent committed to your shot and swinging with confidence.

Another issue is that many golfers practice in ways that have little to do with actually playing golf. Unlike basketball, football, soccer, baseball and many other endeavors, golf is one sport where the players don’t practice on the actual playing field. How is hitting one tee shot after another simulating a round of golf? When actually playing golf, you rarely use the same club twice in a row, so why would you want to practice hitting the same club repeatedly?

To bring your practice-range swing to the course, you must simulate a round of golf during your practice time. This allows your mind and body the opportunity to rehearse for playing situations.

Here are some additional tips for creating good practice habits:
• Practice playing holes on the practice range. Imagine playing the first three holes on your home course. Start with your driver and then iron shots. Select different targets. Engage your brain in decision-making for each shot.
• Practice making up-and-down shots (a chip and one putt) by using only one ball. Set it up as a par two, and see what your score is for 18 shots.
• Practice putting with only one ball, and putt until you hole it.
• Play a round of golf with the intention of practicing a specific skill. For example, you might want to practice hitting high shots or draws. Select a specific focus for three holes and switch focus. Make notes about your observations and performance.

Of course, there is a time and place for mechanical practice, too. This is especially true if you are making significant swing changes because you need to spend time ingraining the muscle movements necessary to develop a habit. Be clear with yourself about the intention of your practice time, and structure it accordingly.

By  Denise McGuire, Ph.D.

Denise McGuire, Ph.D., founder of Get In the Zone, uses mind-body techniques to train golfers of all levels.  Contact her at denise@ getinthezone.net or 303-902-5008.

5/14/08

By Elena King and Denise McGuire

You’re out on the course playing with friends or maybe playing a practice round. You’re relaxed, hitting good shots, sinking putts and scoring well. The very next day you’re playing in a tournament and everything seems different. Your swing feels off, you can’t seem to find the fairway, you are thinking more over short putts and missing putts you were making just yesterday.

Does that sound familiar? What changes from one day to the next? What interferes with your ability to perform under pressure? Are you curious as to how you can change this?

Most people believe performance is all about skill level, hard work and possibly even luck. Even though we tend to believe that, there are other elements that can produce good performance and help us reach our potential.

Learning and enjoyment can be the foundation for better performance.

As in the scenario above, your mind tells you that tournaments have more significance than your practice rounds. You start to think more about results and what you are doing instead of allowing your body to make the natural, free-flowing swing that you are capable of.

You often play best when absorbed in what you are doing and enjoying yourself. Without enjoyment golf can begin to feel like work. When you are playing and really in the moment, you are not as likely to be distracted by score, rankings, college coaches, parents’ reactions or making mistakes. Golf provides many opportunities for learning. Even when we make “mistakes” we can learn from them.

Do you enjoy playing golf? What makes it fun for you?

Here are some tips for making golf more fun:

• Ask your coach for tips to make practice fun and challenging. Practice with your buddies. Learn from each other.

• Manage your expectations.

• Give yourself credit for the things that you do well. Do this every day.

• Be fearless! Swing without fear of the outcome

• Use time in between shots to give your mind and body a break. Talk to your playing partners, laugh.

• Play golf for you!

• Learning the game involves more than just the technical aspects. The more you know about your tendencies the better equipped you are to coach yourself.

• What are you learning about yourself as you play golf?

• What distracts you from playing your best?

• Who are you trying to impress?

• How would you play if you approached every round of golf as an opportunity to learn more about yourself, your game and to get better? Do you think you’d feel less pressure?

Here are some ways to emphasize learning through golf:

• Commit to being a lifetime learner or student of golf and life.

• Become aware of your tendencies. You can’t change what you don’t know.

• Be willing to let go of what you think you know in order to allow something new to take its place.

• View learning as an experience. You can learn something new about yourself every time you practice and play.

• Keep a performance journal.

• Focus on the process of becoming an excellent golfer and not as much on outcomes (scores, rankings, etc). Results will naturally occur.

By Denise McGuire

Say you’ve never broken 80, and you usually shoot around 83. But one glorious morning, you start your round with three consecutive birdies. You’re feeling pretty good. At the turn, there’s a 36 penciled next to your initials. You think ahead—not just to breaking 80, but possibly to shooting in the low 70s. You think, “This could be my lowest round ever!” You feel excited and probably a little nervous. Maybe you start to think about playing conservatively to “protect” your score. You start to think more about each shot and don’t want to make mistakes. From this mindset you will most likely start to play below your potential. You end up shooting a 44 on the back nine. You’re right back where you think you deserve to be.

This familiar debacle is a result of you being out of your comfort zone—the subconscious mind’s idea of what we are capable of achieving, scoring, possessing, being and so on. This zone exists in all of us and governs every aspect of our lives whether we realize it or not. For instance, we all have a comfort zone for our income. We may say that we want to earn $100,000 a year, but if we unconsciously feel like we don’t deserve to have that much money or we worry about how it will affect our relationships with others, we will likely find a way to continue to earn the amount of money our comfort zone allows.

The subconscious or unconscious mind exists outside of our awareness, so these hidden beliefs can sabotage what we consciously say we want. In the sports-performance arena, the comfort zone acts like a thermostat to keep us in the range we believe we belong. One way the comfort zone shows up in golf is through one’s score. Just ask a group of golfers what they shoot, and you generally will hear comments like, “I shoot in the mid-80s” or “I’m usually in the low-70s,” even though some part of each of them usually believes they could go lower.

Most of the time the comfort zone applies when we are playing better than expected, but it can also work in the opposite direction. You shoot a 45 on the front side and say to yourself, “I can play better than that,” and shoot a 37 on the back nine.

The irony is that a comfort zone is not a true reflection of your ability or potential. It’s nothing more than a belief system you have developed and proven to yourself over time. You can consciously reinforce it by saying things like, “See, I knew I couldn’t break par,” or you can look at where you’ve set your comfort zone—and expand it.

Here’s an exercise that might help illuminate your own circumstances. Think about everything you are currently doing to improve your golf game. Draw a circle and inside it write down all of those things. You might include taking lessons, the amount you practice and play, your workouts with a trainer and so on. That circle represents your comfort zone.

Next, draw another circle around the first one. The larger circle represents personal growth and change as well as your dreams or ambitions. This circle contains those things you wish you could do or achieve, but haven’t. In the space between the two circles write the word fear a few times. Most of us pull back into our comfort zone as soon as we experience fear. Examples of such fears include feeling awkward or uncoordinated while making swing changes, or feeling anxiety about setting big goals and committing the time and energy necessary to achieve them.

However, the most successful performers continually push themselves out of their comfort zone and face their fears in order to realize their potential. A perfect example of this is Annika Sorenstam. Early in her career, her discomfort with public speaking resulted in her intentionally finishing second or third to avoid having to face the crowd as the winner. Her coach, Pia Nilsson, asked Annika to practice a speech until she felt comfortable making it. Pia later said, “Annika has given herself permission to be great. It shocks some people, being so bold. But it’s crucial that you see yourself doing something exceptional so that when the time comes you don’t bail out. Because you feel you belong there, you stay in the zone.” ag Denise McGuire, Ph.D., founder of Get In

By Denise McGuire and Elena King

You have made hundreds of putts on the practice green, but when it comes to sinking that three-footer to win a bet or to make a birdie, everything suddenly feels very different.

Being aware of what is happening in your body is the first step toward improving your putting, especially under pressure. It’s a well-known fact that muscle tension interferes with a fluid putting stroke. When under pressure, we often experience doubt and fear and say things like, “I hope I don’t miss this putt.” Negative thoughts create fear and physiological changes such as holding your breath, and excessive tension in your hands, forearms, and shoulders. This tension inhibits the ability to make a fluid, relaxed stroke—which, in turn, causes the putter to decelerate and you to leave the putt short.

Another common putting challenge is distance control. Although you may think that misjudging distance results from poor touch or feel, an inconsistent stroke is more often the cause. In order to create the most repeatable stroke, you need to remove all unnecessary body movement during the putting stroke. The more repetitive the stroke, the easier distance control will become. You can then rely on your eyes and intuition to guide you.

Integrating the mental, emotional and technical components of golf is a highly effective approach to improving performance. Students learn how these aspects seamlessly come together to produce increased awareness of their tendencies and give them tools to help correct mistakes without becoming bogged down with mechanical thoughts.

One of the more popular and effective exercises is the putting progression. This exercise will improve centeredness of contact, distance control and the fluidity of the stroke—all of which will ultimately make you a more consistent putter!

Start in the middle of the green approximately 25-30 feet away from the fringe with three balls.

For each step in the progression, putt three balls to the fringe.

Be sure to repeat the previous step(s) as you add on the next one.

After each step observe your results to see if your ball grouping has improved.

Take note of anything that you sense is different, such as changes in contact, sound, the way the ball rolls, tension level, tempo and rhythm.

STEP 1. Before starting, take a few practice strokes without the ball and rate your grip pressure on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the loosest and 10 equaling the tightest. Determine what your optimal grip pressure is and assign it a number. Now putt three balls to the fringe while keeping your optimal grip pressure consistent. Benefit: Promotes a more fluid and repetitive stroke.

STEP 2. Lower your center of gravity by grounding your feet and feel your weight balanced evenly front to back and left to right. Benefit: Keeps lower body quiet and evens weight distribution.

STEP 3. Place a dime or ball marker directly under the ball and keep your eyes focused on that spot after impact. Benefit: Stills head and eyes.

STEP 4. Hold your finish for a three-second count with the putter head low to the ground. Benefit: Maintains posture and spine angle.

STEP 5. Exhale before starting your stroke to release tension in the hands, arms, and shoulders. Benefit: Creates a more fluid and consistent stroke.

STEP 6. Putt with your eyes closed. Benefit: Increases awareness of feel and sound of contact. Blocks out most mechanical thoughts and the ability to follow the putter head during the stroke.

By Denise McGuire and Elena King

Like many highly successful athletes, three-time major winner Nick Price owes his success to a preternatural ability to focus. “The more I focus, the less I worry about pressure and everything else,” he once said. “My mind is totally and completely into the target.

Some people choose to worry about hitting out-of-bounds, some choose to think about their swing, but when I’m looking down at the ball, I actually see the target.” Good focus allows you to be in the moment to accomplish the task at hand. Visualizing your target is a good example of focusing on what you want to create and not on what you want to avoid. But what are some other aspects of the game that will allow you to focus and play better golf?

A successful approach is to break down focus into these four categories—external, internal, broad and narrow:

External/Broad (EB): The entire hole, hazards, pin placement, distance.

External/Narrow (EN): Specific target such as a blade of grass, specific landing area, clock dial on cup.

Internal/Broad (IB): Nervous, bored, frustrated or how you are feeling emotionally

Internal/Narrow (IN): Grip pressure, heart rate, self-talk, tempo.

The external factors are perhaps the most obvious to consider as you decide which shot to hit or club to use. However, the internal factors will also affect the quality of the shot.

For example, you might be consistently making good course management decisions, but are unaware you are nervous, which leads to a change in tempo that interferes with making the best swing.

Another example is that you may be good at staying broad in your focus but neglect to go narrow. By narrowing your focus you give your mind and body the most precise information about what you are intending to create.

For example, imagine that the hole looks like a clock dial and visualize the ball going in the hole at 4:00. With a chip or pitch shot narrowing the focus would allow you to zero in on a specifi c landing area instead of looking at the whole green.

The Pre-Shot Three-Step

The next time you play try to incorporate some of these tips into your routine as you approach the teeing area.

Before pegging your ball, practice EB focus. Stand alongside the teeing area and note the overall hole layout and determine your line of attack. Now switch to IB focus. Achieve a neutral or positive emotional state. Let go of any frustration or elation over what happened on the previous hole. Focus only on the shot at hand.

After teeing the ball, step behind the markers and begin your pre-shot routine, Thus begins the narrow focus; internally, pay attention to your heart rate and breathing; externally, gauge the weather conditions and confi rm your club selection.

As you step up to address the ball, take a practice swing, training your internal focus on grip pressure and tempo. Externally, narrow your focus on exactly where you want to hit the ball—not where you don’t want it to go.

Jack Nicklaus once said that he Never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a sharp picture of it in his head. “It’s like a color movie,” he explained. “First, I ‘see’ the ball where I want it to finish, nice and high and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I ‘see’ the ball going there: its path, trajectory and shape, even its behavior on landing.”

Visualization, or mental rehearsal, is one of the most common psychological techniques used by sports professionals. The idea is that you can create a mental image of something you want to accomplish—like a golf shot—replay that image repeatedly and then perform the action in a manner consistent with the image.

There are essentially two types of visualization. In the first type, a golfer watches herself performing as if watching a movie. In the second type, the golfer rehearses his performance as if he were actually competing. Research suggests the latter strategy is more effective in most situations. Furthermore, the most successful athletes break down their performances into very specific details and engage all of their senses in imagining how they will feel and react in, say, a sudden-death playoff. They see the putt go in, hear the crowd roar and feel the trophy being hoisted overhead.

How does simply thinking about a future performance actually influence performance on the day of the event? Brain research using electroencephalogram (EEG, which measures electrical impulses in the brain) and electromyography (EMG, which measures electrical impulses in muscles) equipment sheds some light on this process. Psychologist Richard Suinn tested a group of downhill skiers using EMG equipment and found that the brain sent the same electrical impulses or instructions to the muscles whether the skiers were simply thinking of a particular movement or actually carrying it out.

Some scientists believe mental rehearsal works much like “priming the pump” by creating neural pathways necessary for actual performance. The brain and body work together on creating an outcome, increasing the likelihood of producing that result when you are actually performing.

However, many golfers I work with tell me they cannot visualize their shots, especially with the clarity of Jack Nicklaus’ visualizations. There are numerous reasons golfers might struggle, including not understanding how the brain and body communicate, having unrealistic expectations about the time it takes to develop and maintain neural connections, having skepticism about its effectiveness, and not willing to take the time to practice this skill. It’s also worth stating that some people just don’t have the natural ability to visualize as a way of processing information and will do better using their sense of feel or hearing in the image.

To improve visualization skills, try the following:

• Buy a visualization CD such as Golf Mastery to introduce you to the process.

• Be specific about what you want to accomplish (for example, playing well under pressure).

• Start by using focused breathing to center yourself and clear your mind.

• Use as many of your senses as you can to enhance the image. The more real the image feels, the more deeply engrained it becomes.

• Spend 5-10 minutes every day rehearsing the image off the course. Doing so will strengthen your ability to use it on the course and under pressure when you need it the most.

• Consult with a professional who teaches visualization to design a program specifically for you.

Denise McGuire, Ph.D., founder of Get in the Zone, uses mind-body techniques to teach golfers of all ability levels to optimize performance. Contact her at 303-902-5008 or denise@getinthezone.net.

Like many highly successful athletes, three-time major winner Nick Price owes his success to a preternatural ability to focus. “The more I focus, the less I worry about pressure and everything else,” he once said. “My mind is totally and completely into the target. Some people choose to worry about hitting out-of-bounds, some choose to think about their swing, but when I’m looking down at the ball, I actually see the target.”

Good focus allows you to be in the moment to accomplish the task at hand. Visualizing your target is a good example of focusing on what you want to create and not on what you want to avoid. But what are some other aspects of the game that will allow you to focus and play better golf?

A successful approach is to break down focus into these four categories—external, internal, broad and narrow:

External/Broad (EB): The entire hole, hazards, pin placement, distance.

External/Narrow (EN): Specific target such as a blade of grass, specific landing area, clock dial on cup.

Internal/Broad (IB): Nervous, bored, frustrated or how you are feeling emotionally.

Internal/Narrow (IN): Grip pressure, heart rate, self-talk, tempo.

The external factors are perhaps the most obvious to consider as you decide which shot to hit or club to use. However, the internal factors will also affect the quality of the shot.

For example, you might be consistently making good course management decisions, but are unaware you are nervous, which leads to a change in tempo that interferes with making the best swing.

Another example is that you may be good at staying broad in your focus but neglect to go narrow. By narrowing your focus you give your mind and body the most precise information about what you are intending to create.

For example, imagine that the hole looks like a clock dial and visualize the ball going in the hole at 4:00. With a chip or pitch shot narrowing the focus would allow you to zero in on a specific landing area instead of looking at the whole green.

The Pre-Shot Three-Step

The next time you play try to incorporate some of these tips into your routine as you approach the teeing area.

Before pegging your ball, practice EB focus. Stand alongside the teeing area and note the overall hole layout and determine your line of attack. Now switch to IB focus. Achieve a neutral or positive emotional state. Let go of any frustration or elation over what happened on the previous hole. Focus only on the shot at hand.

After teeing the ball, step behind the markers and begin your pre-shot routine, Thus begins the narrow focus; internally, pay attention to your heart rate and breathing; externally, gauge the weather conditions and confirm your club selection.

As you step up to address the ball, take a practice swing, training your internal focus on grip pressure and tempo. Externally, narrow your focus on exactly where you want to hit the ball—not where you don’t want it to go.

By Denise McGuire, PhD and Elena King

Dr. Denise McGuire, Licensed Psychologist, and Elena King, Class A LPGA T&CP Member, partner to design performance development programs through Get In the Zone, LLC. Contact Dr. Denise at 303-902-5008 or denise@getinthezone.net. Contact Elena at 303-503-0330 or E_King3@comcast.net.

How many times Have you hit a bad shot, stormed up to your ball determined to redeem yourself with your next swing-only to hit another lousy shot?

Golf is not a game of perfection. Even during your best round you are likely to hit some shots that disappoint or frustrate you. It’s normal to react negatively, but it’s not effective for playing your best golf. Your reaction to your shot can happen as soon as you initiate your back swing. Not everyone is as disciplined as Tiger Woods, who will stop in the middle of his swing if he’s distracted by, say, a bird chirping. If we notice something doesn’t feel right or if a playing partner distracts us, we go ahead with our swings anyway, usually with disastrous results.

For many of us, our reactions to our shots start as soon as we make contact with the ball and see its trajectory. We immediately decide if it’s a good, bad or indifferent outcome. Typically, thoughts lead to emotions, which our bodies then feel. The sequence is fairly predictable: negative judgment (“That was really stupid!”) leads to negative emotion (anger), which the body experiences as muscle tension and shallow breathing, similar to a stress response. It’s important to note this whole process happens within a split second and is nearly impossible to stop. Many of you already know you shouldn’t hit a shot while feeling angry and tense, so what are you to do?

Here’s when a post-shot routine comes in handy. A good, consistent, post-shot routine will allow you to stay in the present and let go of bad shots more quickly than anything else I know. The following are important steps for the post-shot routine:

• Give yourself a brief period of time (5 seconds) to feel your emotions and react.
• Breathe deeply (5 seconds in and 5 seconds out) to let go of the tension in your body. Depending on the intensity of your
reaction, it may take several breaths before you start to feel the release.
• Replace the negative emotion with a neutral or positive feeling by focusing on something else, like the fact you are playing golf and not at work!
• Take another swing, and visualize the ball going to your intended target. Let that be the image and feeling you take with you to the next shot.
• As you walk to your next shot make sure you have completely let go of the negative thoughts, emotions and physiological reactions to the previous shot.

Do a body scan and see if you are still feeling tense. If so, continue to breathe and refocus yourself. Find something you can actually feel positive about.

If you can discipline yourself to do this after every shot, you will see positive results in a short period of time. Better yet, you’ll be more fun to play with.

By Denise McGuire

Denise McGuire, Ph.D., founder of Get in the Zone, uses mind-body techniques to teach golfers of all ability levels to optimize performance. Contact her at 303-902-5998 or denise@getinzone.net