I particularly like the concept of sitting in your office or at home rehearsing all the unpleasant things you’re going to say to yourself when you’re out on the golf course. If that sounds utterly ridiculous, then why do so many of us talk to ourselves so badly when we hit a bad shot? If one of our playing partners said the same thing, we’d probable decide then and there not to ever play with them again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So praise yourself for every good shot you hit and learn from and release any bad shot before you start getting abusive. You’ll enjoy your golf more and play better.

So today, I’m going to describe a simple technique for taking yourself into a safe, light and relaxing trance. Using it will help you in getting the most out of the golf psychology ideas included in my other articles, newsletters and posts. You can also use this technique to calm and relax yourself at times of stress and anxiety, like taking an exam, meeting the boss, first-tee nerves or standing over an important shot on the golf course.

As you’ll soon realise, this "Finger Breathing" technique does need a bit of imagination, but you must already be pretty imaginative if you’re looking to use golf psychology to improve your golf!

Finger Breathing

Step 1: Start by finding a peaceful location, it can be in the middle of a crowd or on the golf course, just as long as you can quietly ignore what’s going on around you. It doesn’t matter if you’re standing up or sitting down and you can have you’re eyes open or closed. What’s important is to be as comfortable as you can be wherever you are.

Step 2: Quietly take a few slow deep breaths while noticing how the air you’re breathing in is cooling your body and calming your mind and the air you’re breathing out is releasing all the tension from your body.

Step 3: Now, this is the bit where you need to use that imagination of yours. As you’re inhaling, start imagining that you’re breathing the air in through your fingers and noticing how the air seems to cool your fingers.

Step 4: With each subsequent breath in, imagine that cooling feeling slowly spreading up through your hands to your wrists, forearms, upper arms, shoulders, neck and on up to the top of your head; relaxing all the muscles as it goes. And once it gets to the top of your head, let it continue down over your face and into your upper body as you continue breathing in.

Step 5: Once the cooling sensation and relaxation spreads through to your upper body, start noticing how the flow continues on each out-breath down through your lower body and on through your thighs, knees, lower legs and ankles into your feet with each subsequent breath. Learn how each out-breath cools and relaxes the muscles until it finally seems to flow out of your toes leaving a slight tingling sensation there.

Step 6: Now imagine that the cooling and relaxing air flowing out of your toes as you breathe out seems to flow back in through your fingers as you breathe in again. Notice how your breathing just seems to be a steady rotating cycle with the air simply flowing in through your fingers, continuing through your body, exiting through your toes and then back in through your fingers again.

Step 7: Just continue with this cycle of breathing until you’re feeling calm and relaxed and ready to tackle whatever golf psychology technique or challenging situation you’re undertaking now.

Wow, I’m feeling so relaxed just writing about that. I expect you are too, whether you’re reading it or simply running through it in your mind. It’s much simpler to remember than it is to read or write down.

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.

Nowhere is this more true than with putting, the game within the game of golf. Putting is the great equalizer in golf and we all have the opportunity for success, regardless of age, sex, build, health and level of fitness. Putting also accounts for approximately a third to a half of our total score. The lower your handicap, the larger the proportion of your score will be putts.

Golfers typically take as many as thirteen other clubs with them when playing golf, and yet it’s rare to see anyone take more than one putter. In addition, most of those other clubs are pretty similar to everyone else’s. My 3-wood is unlikely to be substantially different from your one in terms of length, loft, size, shape or weight and the same is true for every other club in the bag – apart from the putter. How many times have you played in a fourball and every player has had a similar style of putter, let alone the same model. Do you often come across mallet-headed drivers, centre-shafted woods, broomstick sand wedges or long-irons with two-thumb grips?

You’re also likely to see much greater diversity in how people stand, grip and swing their putters than you ever see with the rest of the clubs. That’s probably why Dave Pelz, one of the leading short game experts, can take 387 pages in his Putting Bible to explain the complexities of the "flat stick."

So it should be no surprise that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to putting psychology – any good work here needs to be interactive and iterative. To demonstrate what I mean, here’s my reply to a single-figure handicap golfer who wrote in to tell me about how his putting Yips was driving him away from golf after more than 20 years of enjoyment.

I know what you mean about having the Yips. I remember having putting problems like that back in my younger days when I was playing off a handicap of 2. I still can’t believe that for over 25 years as a category 1 player, I averaged around 35 putts per round. I can even remember going round in 1 over par with 38 putts! Thankfully, that was before I got into golf psychology and things have improved quite a lot for me in that area.

So what can I suggest to help you overcome the yips? Well, it would help to know a bit more about how they started for you and what you’ve tried in your quest to get rid of them. Working face to face or even on the phone, I could soon develop an approach to help you. Now, in the absence of that information, here are a few ideas to consider:

1. Putt while looking at the hole or your target spot, rather than looking at the ball. The separation of the conscious task of looking for the result and the unconscious task of swinging the putter certainly helped me when I used the technique.
2. Relax yourself in a comfortable location and recall some good putts from your past or imagine what they would have been like. Just imagine you were hitting those putts again. It may help to do this after listening to my golf hypnosis recording. You don’t have to listen to the full 25 minutes, just listen for about 10 minutes and then do some putting visualisation in your mind. When you are physically practicing your putting or out playing, imagine the putt you are about to hit and "see" the ball rolling along your chosen line and falling into the hole. Then just step into the shot and let it roll.
3. When you hole a putt, replay it in your mind both at the time and later when you review your practice session or round. If you miss a putt, just imagine that you holed it and replay the imagined successful putt in your mind.

Another, possibly even weirder, approach is to use a technique called EFT. Some people say it’s like a version of acupuncture, except you tap the meridian points with your finger rather than uYsing needles! For me it works like hypnosis, in that you consciously have to focus on the tapping sequence while you unconsciously think about the problem you want to correct – the Yips.

I’ve already documented the process in a series of four articles I posted on my blog back in March. The process requires you to use a "Setup Statement" that’s explained in Part 3. I would suggest that you start out using a simple setup statement such as "Even though I have this putting problem, I completely and utterly accept myself." Now I know this sounds a bit daft, even though it works wonders!

The four articles on EFT for Better Golf are:

• Part 1 – So what is EFT
• Part 2 – Let’s Get Tapping
• Part 3 – Tapping it all together
• Part 4 – Tapping for Golf Success

So, there are a few suggestions to be going on with. If you would like me to give you some more specific suggestions, then email me some more background information or give me a call.

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.

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?

I was talking to an old golfing friend of mine about his round of golf. I’d like to stress that he’s not a client and just isn’t interested in talking to me about golf psychology – he’s still a good friend, though. Anyway, he was moaning about the condition of the course that day and how on every shot he just seemed to have a worse lie than he expected. If he was on the edge of the fairway, the ball was nestling against the edge of the rough. If he was in the bunker, it hadn’t been raked properly. If he was on the green, there was always a pitch mark just in front of his ball. He just went on and on about his bad luck and how bad he felt about it. And he wished he hadn’t played at all that day. I wasn’t surprised to hear that he’d had a bad round and hadn’t enjoyed himself and the company of his golfing friends

Earlier that day, I’d heard a story about Justin Rose that put my friend’s experience into sharp contrast. Now I don’t know if you are aware that one of the US golf networks is experimenting with equipping caddies in PGA tournaments with microphones. The idea is that we can better hear the exchanges between caddie and player. This certainly sounds interesting and could well provide some support for the ideas I’ve included in my “Your Own Virtual Caddy” golf hypnosis audio programme. This programme is free when you sign up for my Golf Hypnotist Ezine – there’s a subscription form to the right of this article.

So coming back to the Justin Rose story, apparently Justin had been having an “unlucky” day, just missing fairways and greens and bouncing into bunkers – the sort of experience that would have driven many of us, including my friend above, to distraction. Anyway here’s what Justin was heard to say to his caddie, “you know, this lie’s not at all bad, look at that rough over there that I could have been in, it’s much worse.” The whole way round, he turned his perception of bad luck into good luck and got on with the job. Now I don’t know if he enjoyed himself, but I do know he scored well that day and I wouldn’t mind betting he enjoyed overcoming the “rub of the green” that day. I’m sure that he felt better after his round than my friend did.

Next time you get a bad lie on the golf course, remember to reframe it positively. Think how much worse it could have been and the shot you have to play won’t seem so difficult. You may find you enjoy your golf more as well.