The “Own the Putting Green” golf hypnosis programme includes three powerful golf hypnosis sessions that address putting confidence, your belief in your putting and your trust in your instinctive green reading abilities. I’ve also included a very effective and imaginative technique for you to learn and take out to the greens to help you make the most of your unconscious putting abilities. The programme is available in MP3 format for download, with each session running for around 20-25 minutes. I developed these sessions on similar lines to the “Your Own Virtual Caddy” programme. You should already have downloaded that free after you signed up for the Golf Hypnotist Ezine. I have outlined the purpose of each track later in this email.

I will also be publishing a further 6 new Golf Hypnosis audio programmes over the next couple of months. As with “Winning Golf”, “Overcome the Yips” and “Own the Putting Green”, I will be including 3, and in some cases, 4 new hypnosis tracks in each programme. Although the programme names may change a little before release, here is the full list I’m working on:

• Winning Golf (Released 15 October 2010)
• Overcome the Yips (Released 30 October 2010)
• Own the Putting Green (Released 4 November 2010)
• Confident Golf – Free From Fear (Released 11 November 2010)
• Anger Management for Better Golf (Released 16 November 2010)
• Golf in the Playing Zone (Released 20 November 2010)
• Overcome the Shanks (Released 24 November 2010)
• Visualisation Skills for Golf (Released 2 December 2010)
• Better Golf with Less Practice: Practice and Play Golf in your Mind
• Learn Better Golf with Your Golfing Heroes

So what’s the “Own the Putting Green” Golf Hypnosis Programme all about? 

I’ve noticed that the older we get, the more us golfers tend to forget how easy putting really is. We also forget how good we used to putt, maybe when we were younger and more carefree. You often hear the golf pundits on television talking about how some up and coming young professional hasn’t yet learned how difficult putting really is. They sometimes go on to talk about how the accumulation of years of missed putts slowly frazzles the nerves and undermines the confidence of the older and more experienced golfers..

So is there any truth in this? Well yes there is and the good news is that for most golfers it’s all in the mind and that’s where golf hypnosis really can help. However, it’s not a good idea to tell anyone that it’s “all in the mind” after they’ve just missed a putt!

And what’s included in “Own the Putting Green” I hear you ask? 

Well, I’ve included three powerful freestanding golf hypnosis sessions that address putting confidence, your belief in your putting and your trust in your instinctive green reading abilities. I’ve also included a very effective and imaginative technique for you to learn and take out to the greens to help you make the most of your unconscious putting abilities.

Remember you’re a Great Putter - because just like Jack Nicklaus learned to only remember his good putts, this session helps you to do the same, as you unconsciously learn how to remember and imagine all your great putts, while at the same time systematically forgetting all those other putts you’d prefer not to remember. The session continues to build an unconscious shield to protect you from the putts you’d prefer to forget and build your putting confidence.

Believe in your Putting Stroke - regardless of how technically correct it is. Billy Mayfair has a fairly eccentric and very effective putting stroke, but the only problem he ever had with his putting was when he started listening to the so-called experts. This hypnosis session helps you to build that same unshakeable belief in your putting stroke, protecting you from your own doubts and the doubts of others.

Reading your Putts Instinctively - the third golf hypnosis session starts out by helping you to expand and develop your peripheral sensory awareness through your eyes, feelings of touch and balance and even your hearing. This allows you to unconsciously take in more of the information that’s available to you, as you approach and stand on the putting green. The second part of the session reinforces your trust in this unconscious awareness, allowing you to read the green instinctively, quickly and accurately, using your powerful unconscious resources.

Better Putting in your Unconscious Mind – The three golf hypnosis sessions in "Own the Putting Green" work primarily with your unconscious mind, building your putting confidence, your belief in your stroke and your trust in your green reading. Sometimes, especially in the early days of using this programme, you may need a bit of conscious help out on the golf course and that’s why I’ve included this technique for you to use consciously and conscientiously on the greens to give your unconscious mind the opportunity to participate more in your putting and reinforce the work of all the hypnosis sessions.

Go to the “Own the Putting Green” page at the Golf Hypnotist Store for more information about this exciting new golf hypnosis programme and the other products in the series. You can buy “Own the Putting Green” there for instant download and have the opportunity to become your own King or Queen of the Putting Green.

Now I’m not suggesting that Darren started doing that after he or one of his support team read about it in my ezine. However, it is obviously helping to overcome some of the “demons” that seemed to be afflicting his putting confidence in recent years. The six steps and his action of gripping left hand low and then re-gripping right hand low are clearly keeping his conscious mind occupied while he’s just trusting his unconscious mind to hit the putts. It certainly seems to be working for him.

Why not give it a try? You can still read that ezine edition here and subscribe to regularly receive my free Golf Hypnotist Ezine using the box on the right hand side of this page. The new edition of the ezine comes out later today and includes the opportunity to download a free audio recording of the Finger Breathing relaxation technique I’m always talking about.

So what are they thinking about when they hit the shot? Well, a lot of them are consciously thinking about some aspect of their swing mechanics and that doesn’t work at all well, because your conscious mind doesn’t work fast enough to control your golf swing.

Have you noticed how when you hit a really good shot, you can’t remember what you were consciously thinking about in your golf mind. You just trusted your unconscious mind and the shot just seemed to happen. If you were throwing a ball to someone for them to catch, I doubt if you’d start thinking about how you move your arm to throw the ball, you’d just throw it to them – unconsciously. You wouldn’t consciously do anything different if the receiver were nearer or further away or if they held their hand high or low. You’d just throw it towards their hand and that’s the target you’d be consciously thinking about.

Many more will be thinking about what they don’t want to happen, like don’t go in the bunker or don’t hit a bad shot. That doesn’t work at all well either, because your mind doesn’t know how to not think of something. If I say to you, "don’t think of a green snowman", you will automatically build an image in your head of a green snowman, whether you like it or not. As a result, you end up consciously thinking about going in the bunker or hitting a bad shot. Now if you remember that your unconscious mind is designed to deliver whatever you’re consciously thinking, then guess what happens. Yes, you got it, the ball probably goes into the bunker or you hit a bad shot.

A smaller number of golfers will be thinking consciously about a specific target when they hit the ball and if they pick the right sort of target, then they are the ones most likely to hit the shot they planned to. Some very well known golf psychologists, like Bob Rotella, will suggest that you pick out a directional target, such as a spot on the ground a few feet, yards or metres along your line or a specific point in the distance to aim at – maybe a building or tree behind your target. Some will even say that you should focus on a specific leaf on the tree or brick in the building.

Now I don’t agree with that approach any more than I would agree that someone throwing a ball should target a spot on the ground on the line to the person they’re throwing to. It would also seem rather odd to target a tree, a house or something on the wall behind them, now wouldn’t it. Once again, you’d target the hand of the person you’re throwing to.

So why not simply target the place you want the ball to finish and let your unconscious mind work out how to hit the ball there. Even better why not think about the route that the ball will take to get there including the way you expect the ball to fly, bounce and roll. If you’re doing the visualisation part of your pre-shot routine correctly, then you’ve already got the picture you should be thinking about when you hit the ball.

I can’t say how delighted I am to see Darren’s back competing in the 2009 US Open at Bethpage Black after qualifying as one of the top 15 in the European Money List last year. He’s only played in the US Open once, in 2006 at Winged Foot, since he pulled out at Pinehurst in 2005 to be with his wife who was seriously ill.

Moving back to Darren’s putting psychology problems, I was interested to hear that he has considered putting to be his Achilles heel for most of his career. I was also interested to read how hard he’s been pushing himself over the years to improve his putting. It’s interesting to note that Bob Rotella has tried to get him to go much easier on himself. In fact, Darren’s been quoted recently as saying "He says just go and play and let the results happen themselves." That sounds like good advice to me!

It’s intriguing how similar that is to what Bob’s been telling Padraig Harrington about his over practising and excessive focus on his swing changes. As I suggested in my earlier article, entitled Play your Best with Golf Psychology Before Changing your Unconscious Golf Swing, the destructive shots you hit are more likely to come from your conscious thoughts than from your unconscious golf swing.

If I was advising Darren Clarke "blind", so to speak, then apart from helping him to use golf hypnosis of course, I’d encourage him to build on a couple of mental golf approaches from the great Jack Nicklaus. Firstly, I’d suggest that before he strikes a putt he imagines "seeing" the line the ball will run on and "watching" the ball rolling along that imaginary line and dropping in the hole before popping back out and running back along the line back to his putter head.

Secondly, I’d help him find a way to remember every good putt he’s ever holed and to develop amnesia for every bad one. There’s a story I’ve heard about Jack Nicklaus that illustrates this perfectly.

Jack was giving a presentation to a group of eager and attentive golfers at his son’s university. During the speech, Jack makes the comment that he has never three putted on the back nine of a major championship or missed from inside of six feet on the last hole.

As Jack opens the floor to take questions, a man puts up his hand and says "Jack you say you have never missed from inside of six feet on the last hole in a major, but I was watching you last year in the US Seniors Open and that’s exactly what you did." Jack looked at the man with those piercing blue eyes and repeated what he had said. "But Mr Nicklaus," the man insisted, "I saw it, I have it on film, I can send it to you if you like." "No need", Jack replied, "I have never missed from inside six feet on the last hole of a major. Any more questions?"

Now, has Jack ever missed from inside of six feet on the last hole of a major? Of course he has! Does he remember it? Not a chance. And do you think he cares that he can’t remember? Some people would probably say that Jack is deluded in his thinking, that it is not based on reality. Well, we all create our own realities and Jack’s seem pretty good to me!

Here’s hoping that the weather clears and Darren has a good US Open at Bethpage.