What can golfers do when they cannot get out to play for whatever reason? Do you just put the clubs away and forget all about the game until the opportunity to play returns? Just because you are injured, or haven't got the time to play golf doesn't mean that you can't be doing something productive with your golf game.
What can you do? How can you brush up on your game of golf? The one most important, most vital thing all golfers can and should be doing is improving upon your mental skills. What do I mean by this?
You sit in your favorite chair, you feel nice and warm and peaceful, you close your eyes and relax; and as you relax you picture in your mind's eye a putting green, picturing the putting surface, its color, its contours, and the pin placement. You see the ball lying there, round and white, and you imagine yourself lining up the putt, assessing the distance, feeling the putter in your hands, taking your practice strokes and then stepping up to the ball, taking a final look at the hole and then you stroke the putt. You see the ball run smoothly along the line that you chose and at the perfect pace so that it just rolls over the lip and into the cup - fantastic! You just made a great putt and it feels great too.
Do you think you could carry out this very simple task? Do you think it would take much time or effort to visualize great putts in this way, just whenever you are cozy and comfortable at home? And would it make you feel good to see all those putts in?
There is an extra benefit. Not only does this type of visualization give you a great feeling, it's also creating MUSCLE MEMORY. Every time you VIVIDLY IMAGINE something your brain produces the SAME electrical activity as it does when you do that thing in practice, indicating that it is strengthening that neural pathway, thereby building your belief that your putts will roll in, creating an EXPECTATION that your putts will drop, making sure that you believe that you are a good putter.
You are also creating for yourself a great mental pre-putt routine, honing in your visualization skills, teaching yourself to "see the putt in"; And if there is one thing that is true in putting is that if you can't see the putt in, it won't go in, because golf balls do what YOU TELL THEM to do. Sixty seven percent of your brain is devoted to hand and eye skills - to hand-eye co-ordination - and your hands don't know what to do with the putter unless you can firstly see where you want the ball to go.
You can learn to visualize in this way easily and effortlessly, and you can practice putting in this way no matter where you are. I promise you that as you learn to see those putts in you'll be stroking closer to 29 or 30 putts a round instead of 36 and that's a seriously easy way of dropping your handicap.
"Your mind is a garden for your thoughts - if you plant flowers, you'll get flowers. If you plant potatoes, you'll get potatoes. If you plant nothing you'll get weeds" RICHARD WILKINS
There have been several well-documented studies worldwide, covering golfers of all abilities, which have shown that mental putting practice of this type is in actual fact MORE EFFECTIVE than actual practice. What can be simpler? You sit in your armchair, close your eyes and visualize putt after putt dropping into the hole. Practice, in this way, really does make perfect.
And this very simple mental skill can be used for every shot, not just putting. You can mentally rehearse the perfect tee shots, short shots, bunker shots, trouble shots...the list is endless.
Three catch phrases to remember in your golfing game are:-
"Where there's a will there's a way"
"What the mind can perceive, the mind can believe and the mind can achieve"
"Whatever you imagine you create".
These three truths, which also relate to life in general, should become your golfing mantras.
"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are probably right" HENRY FORD
I've only scratched the surface here with regards to the mental preparation you could be doing during an enforced lay off from the game of golf. You'll see from my web-site just how many mental skills there are relating to playing golf well and in mastering this great game. Visualization is just one skill amongst many that a good golfer needs in their golf-bag. Golf hypnosis makes the learning of these mental skills very easy and has the added benefit of taking little time.
If you find it difficult to direct your own visualizations effectively, then you'll find listening to a relevant golf hypnosis download is an easy way of setting the ball rolling in the right direction, so to speak. The key is that you must visualize what you want to happen, not what you don't want to happen - remember, whatever you imagine you will create!
Roseanna Leaton, specialist in golf hypnosis cds and hypnosis mp3 downloads.
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