This new “Anger Management for Better Golf” programme is available in MP3 format for download, with the three golf hypnosis sessions, each running for around 25-30 minutes, and a 15 minute NLP session. I developed the individual sessions on similar lines to the “Your Own Virtual Caddy” programme, so you’re getting more than three times the hypnosis from each programme. I have outlined the purpose of each track later in this email.

I will also be publishing a further 5 more new Golf Hypnosis MP3 audio programmes over the next couple of months. As with the other new programmes, I will be including 3, and in some cases, 4 new hypnosis sessions in each programme.

Although the programme names may change a little before release, here is the full list, for now:

• 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 “Anger Management for Better Golf” Hypnosis Programme all about? 

Anger management is often the initial reason for clients approaching me for help with golf hypnosis. I’m pleased to report that it’s often one of the most straightforward and quickest problems for you to overcome. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given that NLP and hypnosis are primarily about giving people choices and what the angry golfer lacks is choice. It’s acceptable to be annoyed and frustrated when you hit a bad shot, but it’s disastrous if you’re still annoyed, frustrated or worse when you hit your next shot.

Now people bring anger with them to the golf course for a wide variety of reasons that go beyond the frustrations and difficulties of this sometimes challenging game. Apart from any anger you may bring with you to the course, the main causes of anger in golf are from players’ reactions to the bad and unlucky golf shots they hit, the anticipation of those shots and other fears, the things their opponent does, any outside distractions or interference, real or imagined, the condition of the course, other individuals, crowds, outside agencies, etc. The list is endless.

So what does all this mean for your golf? Well, ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you never lost your temper, never gave yourself a hard time, always developed a strategy before you hit the ball, and always played within your own capabilities.

And what’s included in “Anger Management for Better Golf” I hear you ask? 

Well, I’ve included three powerful freestanding golf hypnosis sessions and an NLP session to help you to:

• Systematically release, eliminate the things that make you angry
• Control your anger habit by defusing all your past anger experiences
• Plan for a wonderful anger free future for your golf
• Automatically soften your reaction to all the things that make you angry out on the golf course.

Release and Eliminate your Anger – This is a very long and powerful hypnosis session that you should use exclusively for your first few weeks or at least until you are starting to notice some results. The session starts by building a strong resource of confidence and calm before systematically taking you through all the things that used to make you angry and releasing and eliminating all the bad feelings you used to associate with them. all about.

Control your Anger Habit – Once you’re getting some positive results from “Release and Eliminate Anger”, it’s time to start using the second golf hypnosis session, “Control your Anger Habit” to upgrade your unconscious programming to change your old automatic reaction to all the things that used to make you angry. It’s ok to feel angry for a few moments after a bad shot, that’s natural, but it isn’t ok to carry it forward to the next shot.

Enjoy Anger Free Golf – You can use this third golf hypnosis at any time throughout your use of this programme, as it’s all about choosing the right path away from anger and experience a more enjoyable and increasingly rewarding golfing future.

Anger Management on the Golf Course – In addition to the three hypnosis sessions, this special NLP session uses an equally powerful NLP technique for collapsing the old anchors that used to trigger your anger. It captures that trigger and automatically uses it to fire off good feelings of comfort and confidence that overwhelm and replace the old explosive feelings of anger.

Go to the “Anger Management for Better Golf ” page at the Golf Hypnotist Store for more information about this exciting new golf hypnosis programme, including some of the stories behind the individual sessions. You can buy “Anger Management for Better Golf” here for instant download and start to Release and Eliminate Your Anger and Play Better Golf .

I’ve been out of the office a lot this week and without the means of posting on this blog. The good news is that I’ve had some time to think about golf and the general trend of my posts here.

One theme that comes up a lot in my thoughts and in my writing is the idea that one of the main reasons for most people playing golf is the pursuit of enjoyment, both for ourselves and the people we play with. As a golf psychologist, this is also my primary motivation in my working life and it’s reflected in my mission, as a hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner, of helping people to do things better and get more enjoyment out of the things they do in life and in golf.

What about the professional golfer pursuing fame and money from golf success? Well, I suspect that the pursuit of enjoyment played an important part for them when they started out and it probably still features high on their list of priorities as a professional. The top 50 players in the world are probably sufficiently well off that money is not their only motivator. Just remember the look on Phil Mickelson’s face after that duel with Tiger Woods at the 2009 Masters. The fact that he didn’t win didn’t seem to outweigh his euphoric enjoyment responding to the challenge. It’s a shame that we don’t so often see that clear enjoyment coming from certain other golfers when they aren’t playing their best. In recent posts here, I’ve talked about these failings from Colin Montgomerie, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia.

All this talk about enjoying golf got me thinking about what specifically we all enjoy about golf. That led me to recall what Timothy Gallwey wrote in The Inner Game of Golf about the triangular link between enjoyment, performance and learning – the three main parts of everyone’s experience of golf. Although I agree with Gallwey’s idea, very few of the clients I work with seem to think about anything but their golfing performance.

In my first meeting with new clients, I tended to ask questions about what they want to achieve from working with me, what their definition of success in golf is and how will they know when they have achieved it. When I first started out as a golf psychologist, I had expected the answers to be about things like enjoyment, confidence, concentration and consistency. Instead, I tend to hear about things like how to stop their slice, get out of bunkers, avoid hitting the ball in the water on a particular hole or avoid three-putting.

More recently, I’ve expanded my initial questions to include asking new clients about why they play golf and what I can do to help them achieve that. This usually provides me with a much more constructive starting point to improving and much more importantly enjoying their golf.

If I look at my own reasons for playing golf when I started at the age of 18, they were relatively sensible. I was looking for a sport that

• I could play, given reasonable health, for the next 50 years or more
• would give me a complete mental break from work
• offered a modest amount of regular exercise
• was challenging and competitive
• allowed me to develop some good friendships
• breaks down social and business barriers
• and would give me something I could enjoy doing.

Given those reasons, why did I spend the next 30 years, until I got into golf psychology, beating my head against the wall of lowering my handicap? Why did I spend all the hours I could spare and more beating balls on the driving range? Why did I spend all that money on golf lessons, books, magazines and practice aids? Why did I have all those days of frustration and anger when I didn’t quite play to the level I wanted? The answer to all those questions is "that’s why I first got properly interested in golf psychology."

So if you’d like to get more enjoyment from your golf and play better, why not write down your list of the real reasons why you play golf. Then you can make sure that whatever you strive for in golf will help you to address those reasons you listed.

What about the top professional golfers? These are the men and women who have the sorts of swings we mere golfing mortals dream of having. They also hole a lot more puts than many of us and they have access to the top coaches and golf psychologists whenever they need help. What about financial security? Well, unless they have serious behavioural problems, they have more than enough money stashed away and the prospect of earning and winning more.

So, do the professionals enjoy their golf? Well clearly some do and clearly some don’t – a picture of Colin Montgomerie just zoomed into focus in my mind’s eye. No, he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself, whatever he’s saying to the press recently. And what about the people around him? His playing partners all cringe and look away, his caddy appears to hide behind the bag and the spectators feel uncomfortable – apart from the ones who enjoy watching his discomfort.

So what about you and your golfing friends? I know that there have been times in the past when I’ve been very unhappy on the course and I suspect I have impacted the enjoyment of some of my playing partners – thinking about it, I know I have, because a couple of them have told me about it.

Now I’ve devoted a huge part of my life to playing and improving my golf over the last 40 years. Even at one round per week, that would be 2,000 rounds or 36,000 holes and it would have taken at least 55,000 hours at 3 hours and 45 minutes per round. And then there’s all that practice, lessons, reading books and playing CDs and DVDs. And of course, there’s the 19^th hole to consider as well. I wonder how much of that time I really enjoyed. At least it‘s probably more than Monty has!

I’ll be writing more about this issue of golf enjoyment and how you can enjoy your golf more in a in a future edition of my Golf Hypnotist Ezine, so I’ll leave you for today with a couple of my favourite quotes on enjoying your golf.

"If you can’t enjoy the time between golf shots, then you are going to have a pretty difficult life because most of your life is the time spent in-between."
Peter Jacobsen

"Achieving a certain level of success in golf is only important if you can finally enjoy the level you’ve reached after you’ve reached it."
Anon

"He enjoys that perfect peace, that peace beyond all understanding, which comes at its maximum only to the man who has given up golf."
P.G. Wodehouse

And finally, one of my many favourite quotes from Bob Hope:

"I get upset over a bad shot just like anyone else. But it’s silly to let the game get to you. When I miss a shot I just think what a beautiful day it is. And what pure fresh air I’m breathing. Then I take a deep breath. I have to do that. That’s what gives me the strength to break the club."

You only have to look back to this year’s Masters to see what they’re talking about. I used to agree with them, before realising that this may be a part of his anger management technique for releasing a bad shot. It may upset the golfing public and his playing partners, but it doesn’t seem to have any long-term affect on him. Although he’s clearly in hypnosis while he’s hitting the ball, he appears to come out the moment he completes the swing. If it’s a good shot, he calmly moves on to the next shot. If it’s a bad shot he cusses and again moves on. He’s certainly calmed down before he hypnotically plays his next shot, so his bad shot and his temper don’t have any lasting effect.

I’m sure I’m repeating myself here, but here’s a very telling quote from Tiger that supports my analysis, "The person who can control his state can control his world". There’s seems to be no doubt in my mind that he’s the master of State Management

Now, if only dear old Colin Montgomerie had some of Tiger’s anger management skills and the ability to control his state. He could still be just about as unbeatable as Tiger. I’ll be talking more about Colin in a future post about enjoying your golf – no surprise there then. Colin tells us that he does enjoy his golf, but who’s he kidding?