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.

Now, whatever Ian does in today’s second round doesn’t matter, he’s made it back to the game he loves – and in a classy way. That said, seeing him make the cut and have a good result at the weekend will be wonderful for him, and the world of golf. I’ll be glued to the television this evening to give Ian my support.

Come on Nick Faldo; don’t let Ian beat you in the comeback stakes. We like to hear you both as commentators, but we’d much rather hear your clubs do the talking.

So where does that good swing go when this happens and do we literally forget how we were swinging? Well, one thing’s for certain, we don’t lose the memory of the shot. Although you may not consciously remember them all, every shot you ever played and the muscle sequences used for those shots remain in your unconscious memory for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, so does every swing thought you’ve ever had, every golf tip you’ve ever read and every piece of golf instruction you’ve ever received.

So how do we get the good swing back? Well all you have to do is to access the memory of your good swing by recalling the precise set of triggers that fire off that remembered action. Your golf swing is no different from all the other unconscious processes you’ve learned like shaking hands, driving a car, riding a bicycle or simply reaching down and taking the ball out of the cup when you hole a putt.

These things just happen automatically when you encounter the appropriate set of triggers. If someone approaches you and starts to extend their hand towards you, you automatically start your unconscious handshake programme – a very complex series of muscle movements – without even thinking about it. And you always do it right and you don’t need to practice it and think of the mechanics, now do you. It doesn’t matter how tall the person is, how big their hand is or how far away they are, you unconsciously adjust to those things and many more. Sounds like a typical golf shot, doesn’t it?

So how do I find my swing again? Well, ideally the first thing is to stop thinking consciously about changing your swing – it was working fine earlier. And the best way of stopping thinking consciously about something is to focus consciously on something else – that’s what golf hypnosis and self-hypnosis are all about.

The best thing to focus on is the shot I am about to play. Firstly, decide on the type of shot you want to play and select the appropriate club. Now think back to a time when you played a shot like this really well or imagine what it would have been like if you had. Imagine that shot as vividly as you can, remembering every detail. What were you seeing at the time – see yourself hitting the ball, watching the shot fly and land perfectly? What were you listening to – perhaps the words of your playing partners. What were you feeling at the time? Were you noticing any particular fragrances – perhaps the smell of the fresh cut grass?

Now brighten up that image, boost the colours, jazz up the sounds and liven up the feelings. In a matter of moments, you will be reliving the time when you played a similar shot really well while your unconscious mind remembers how to do it again now.

Seve in his prime was one of the best exponents of the game of golf and he brought a totally new meaning to the ideas of golf confidence and enjoyment when he played. Not only did he get such an obvious thrill from every one of his cavalier shots, but so did his fans and fellow competitors. His enthusiasm for the game was infectious. He followed the original concept of golf to the letter in hitting the ball with gay abandon, finding it and then hitting it again. Wherever it came to rest and however the ball lay, he just got on with the task in hand and without complaint. There’s a lesson for some of today’s prima donnas.

He also epitomised the idea of playing every shot in the moment before accepting the result and releasing it to its proper place in the past. It’s wonderful that he seems to have regained that wonderful carefree attitude in these difficult times. His regular reports on the progress of his fight to recover from a brain tumour confirm his ongoing cavalier attitude to life as well as golf. You can read his own reports on his progress at his official website – www.seveballesteros.com.

Seve says he’s fit enough to take part in active sports like swimming, rowing and running and he also received a standing ovation on Sunday from the crowd at a football match when he went to watch Racing Santander play Almeria.

Here’s wishing Seve many more years of living life to the full and approaching everything he does with that special cavalier "In the Moment" style we all remember. Maybe he will bring that spark back to his golf one day.

When I think about this kind of phenomena, a couple of my early golfing experiences quickly spring to mind. Part way through my first year of golf, I had got my handicap down to 7 and I was playing in one of the club competitions at Brookmans Park Golf Club. Well, I started terribly and it only slowly got better. Starting from the tenth hole, I reached the turn in 48 shots, 13 over par! But by that time, my golf was improving and I was hitting the ball a long way. I started my second nine with two pars then had a run of eagle, par, eagle and I was now flying. I parred the par 3 sixth hole, before eagling the par 5 seventh and parring the eighth. I was on such a high that I really went for the par 3 ninth and birdied that to be back in 29, 7 under par and nineteen shots better than my first nine. I even had my handicap cut!

A few years later and I was playing in an open amateur event, the King George V Cup at Porter’s Park in Hertfordshire. Again I started badly and although I got better as the morning wore on, I scored 91, 20 over par and pretty terrible for a 2-handicapper. The improvement continued through the afternoon and I scored 79 – still not good, but getting better. The next day, I played in the Senior Trophy at Brookmans Park, my home club , and my golf got better and better resulting in a winning score of gross 68, 3 under par and 5 under my handicap.

So what’s there to learn from these examples? Well, at no time in any of these rounds did I have the luxury of defending a good score. I was just focussed on my ever improving game. I have many other examples where I started well, started thinking about my score and then got defensive. I generally went home unhappy on those days despite playing well.

I also remember a passage from my golfing "bible" back then, The Greatest Game of All, My Life in Golf by Jack Nicklaus. Talking about his win at the 1967 US Open at Baltusrol, Jack described how he panicked after bogeying the tenth hole in the final round. He calmed himself down by saying this to himself before going on to win in a US Open record score.

"Here you are, starting to get afraid of winning the Open. You’re leading by 3 strokes with 8 holes to go. You’ve obviously played well or you wouldn’t be in this position. You’re still playing well. You’re doing something you enjoy, so enjoy it".

When we’re scoring well, it’s easy to forget Jack’s simple message and start playing defensively rather than building on your golf confidence. You see it all the time watching those top professionals that aren’t used to winning yet.

I have to say that I was sitting there expecting Lucas Glover to hole his birdie putt on 18 and force a play-off. And I was expecting Sean O’Hair to win the sudden death. Now you may find that surprising given Sean’s capitulation to Tiger over the last nine holes at Bay Hill, just a couple of weeks ago. But I suspect that Sean learned a lot there and boosted his golf confidence significantly. Did you notice how he was looking really composed and quietly confident waiting for the play-off he was expecting? He wasn’t looking like a man in a state of fear.

Now it might have all been different if Sean had been paired with Tiger for the last round at Quail Hollow. Unconsciously, he would have been generalising back to the bad experience at Bay Hill and most likely repeating his capitulation there. If that had happened, we could have seen the end of Sean O’Hair as the great golfer he now is. As it is, the bad spell is broken and I suspect that he’ll now look forward to taking on Tiger in the last round. Tiger may beat him in the future, but he’ll have to play well to do so, as Sean won’t capitulate again.

The worst case scenario happened to Tony Jacklin back in the early 1970s after he had won both the British Open in 1969 and the US Open in 1970. When I played with Tony at the end June 1970 and he held both titles, it was obvious he knew that he was a winner and was going on to win many more major championships. But twice in quick succession, he got into the position to win major championships and failed. At Muirfield in 1972 Lee Trevino defeated him with an outrageous, some would say lucky, chip in. Tony couldn’t understand how he lost the first tournament, but he bounced back and got in contention for another one. The second time it happened, it completely knocked the stuffing out of him and, despite continuing to be one of the best ball-strikers of his era, he was never quite the same player again.

If he didn’t already know it, Sean O’Hair now knows unconsciously, where it matters, that he can win down the stretch against the best – even Tiger Woods. At his young age, with his undoubted talent and his generalising experience of winning, I’m sure that we’ll see a lot more success from Sean O’Hair.

By the way, Monday was a public holiday in the UK and I didn’t get up in time to post – I was a bit lazy!

If a golfer won’t tell you he’s using hypnosis, then what are the signs to look for to know he or she is? Well let’s take Tiger Woods as our first example. I’ve not heard him say that he uses hypnosis or read anything that confirms that he’s admitted it. However, just watch the controlled and methodical series of blinks he makes just before stepping into every shot. If that’s not a hypnotic trigger or anchor, I had better hand back my my Hypnotherapy Diploma and my NLP certificates. It’s clear to me that he’s using that trigger to enter self hypnosis once he’s decided on the shot he’s going to make. The self-hypnosis quiets his conscious self-talk and leave his unconscious golf programming to execute the shot.

Now Tiger must have learned this from Jay Brunza, his mind coach from the age of 13. From what I’ve read, Dr Brunza followed up his Ph.D. in Psychology with a long career as a psychologist with the US Navy including a period as a combat stress psychologist, before working as a sports psychologist. This brief extract from Golf Digest, in December 2002, appears to confirm Tiger’s training included hypnosis

"Woods’ ability to produce peak performance by ‘willing myself into the zone’ is unprecedented. And at age 13, Tiger began mental training with Dr. Jay Brunza, a family friend and psychologist. Among the techniques Brunza used were subliminal tapes and hypnosis. ‘The first time Jay hypnotized Tiger, he had him stick his arm straight out and told him that it couldn’t be moved, ‘Earl [Tiger's father] says. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t pull it down. [Tiger says hypnosis is] ‘inherent in what I do now.’"

Thinking about all this, I just wish a few other top golfers would admit to using hypnosis for golf improvement then I wouldn’t have to keep talking about Tiger Woods.

Come on Phil Mickelson, it’s obvious you’re using self-hypnosis; you couldn’t just keep smiling through adversity like that without hypnosis, now could you. Why not sit down, relax a bit more and tell us all about it. Now!

At the end, I was transported back in my mind to some of my own less elevated experiences of playing on tight courses and small greens. It brought to mind how much better I play in those conditions. One of the tightest courses I can remember playing on regularly was Blackmoor Golf Club in Hampshire. In my 20’s and early 30’s I used to just scrape into their open amateur tournament, the Selborne Salver. We used to play 36 holes there on the Saturday and a further 36 on the Sunday in the Hampshire Hog at North Hants Golf Club, home of Justin Rose, with a combined 72-hole competition, the Hampshire Salver. I notice that you now need a handicap of plus 2 just to enter – scratch players need not apply!

Anyway, Blackmoor is very tight with the fairways threaded through dense woodland to fairly small greens. I noticed that my golf improved when I played there and how I always took the increased accuracy and golfing confidence with me to the next few tournaments.

The small greens at Harbour Town also reminded me of playing to temporary winter greens at Brookmans Park Golf Club. That was where I started to play golf and like many beginners, I was a fanatic. I played in all weathers and conditions. Brookmans Park was a fairly damp course in the winters back then and we were often on temporary greens. I’m pleased to report that they’ve improved the drainage there over the last 40 years since I started there and it’s now a good venue all year round.

I remember two big improvements in my game playing to those temporary greens. Firstly with an 8-yard diameter green, my approach shot accuracy improved greatly and my chipping got better and better. When we got back on the main greens, my golf was much more confident and assured.

Now, I don’t suggest that you find a course where they use temporary greens a lot of the time. However, there’s no reason why you can’t imagine a narrower fairway within the confines of the real fairway and a smaller green, perhaps an 8-yard diameter circle around the flag, and imagine you are playing on a course like Harbour Town. The good news is that if you narrowly miss your imagined fairway or green, you may still be on the real one.