The idea of using hypnosis as part of a swing coaching technique for golf is one of my pet projects. That’s partly because I meet so many golfers whose minds are full of swing thoughts that get in the way of their golfing enjoyment and their unconscious, instinctive abilities.

My second reason is that I believe that hypnosis and NLP can and should play a big part in the learning process for the golf swing. As I talk about in my “Better Golf with Less Practice” hypnosis programme, repetitions are key to ingraining swing changes, but only if they are good repetitions and there are thousands upon thousands of them. It pains me to think of all those balls I hit on the range in my 20′s in the hope of hitting a dozen shots the way I wanted to. What’s the point of all those bad repetitions?

I have a third reason, a personal one, and that’s to use these techniques to learn a new, more biomechanically correct swing. One that will protect my 61 year old body after more than 40 years of “trying” to swing like Jack Nicklaus did in his prime. Thankfully, my hips have survived better than his! The new swing I’m just starting to work on is called the RST swing from a guy called Chuck Quinton at www.rotaryswing.com.

In his RST programme, Chuck is very heavily into a series of drills and “reps”, gradually building up the elements of the full swing. The problem is that you need to practice each of these drills serially and thousands of times. That takes many months. In addition, most of the early drills do not even involve swinging a club, let alone hitting a ball. So you have to be very dedicated and prepared to give up playing golf for a couple of months. I didn’t like that idea at all.

So my approach is to physically run through each drill consciously, until it looks and feels right. Immediately after that I sit down and listen to the “Practice Golf in Your Mind” hypnosis track from my “Better Golf with Less Practice” programme and do 1,200 perfect reps in my mind in the next 30 minutes using “Hypnotic Time”. If I repeat that daily for a couple of days, I’ve done over more than enough reps to internalise the drill. I’ll also build up many more layers of myelin on the new neural pathways than I would get from many months of less consistent practice.

There’s even a valid argument that says that, as long as I really understand and feel the drill internally, I probably don’t even need to do the physical bit at the beginning. Either way, the repetitions in your mind really will be flawless and identical – won’t they!

If you want to complete the reps even faster, then once you’ve used “Practice Golf in Your Mind” on a drill, you can use “Play Golf in Your Dreams”, the third hypnosis track in the “Better Golf with Less Practice” programme. That way, you’ll get even more perfect repetitions while you sleep.

I developed this “Visualisation Skills for Golf” programme for two reasons. Firstly, to address one of the things that really annoys me about so many of the hypnotists I know. That’s because they simply assume that, because they can see pictures clearly in their minds, then so can their clients. If like used to, you’re struggling to visualise things clearly in your conscious minds, then you’re also frustrated with their insistence that everyone can visualise. The second reason is that the ability to visualise easily and well is a great asset to your use of all the other golf hypnosis programmes in this series.

This new “Visualisation Skills for Golf” programme is available in MP3 format for download, with the three powerful golf hypnosis sessions, each running for around 25-30 minutes. 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 two more new and intriguing Golf Hypnosis MP3 audio programmes over the next couple of weeks. As with the other new programmes, I will be including at least 3 new golf 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 Zone (Released 21 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 “Visualisation Skills for Golf” Hypnosis Programme all about?

One of the things that really annoys me about so many hypnotists I know is that they simply assume that because they can see pictures clearly in their mind then so can their clients. If like me, you used to struggle to visualise things clearly in your conscious minds, then you’d also be frustrated with their insistence that everyone can visualise. In fact they often go on to say things like, if you couldn’t visualise, how would you know what to wear every day and how would know where to look for your car.

Now they are right about the fact that every normal person can and does visualise things in their minds, but they are wrong to assume that every person actually sees those pictures consciously. Research suggests that at least 40 percent of the population are not consciously aware of the pictures they make in their minds. If you are one of this 40 percent, then if I was to ask you questions about the colour, style and handle of your front door, you may not see a clear picture of your front door. However, I’m sure that you do somehow know the answers to those questions. Maybe the answers come to you in words or in terms of feelings.

When I think of the handle on my front door, I can feel the shape and texture of it before I can picture it. I used to have the same experience remembering people’s faces. I could tell you a few details about someone’s appearance and maybe remember their name, but I didn’t use to see them in my mind’s eye when asked to describe them. My wife, on the other hand, tells me that she can “see” the faces of people she hasn’t seen for 20 years as if they were standing right in front of her. She just assumed that’s the way it works for everyone.

Now there’s no doubt in my mind about the power of visualisation in golf, especially when I read about the way Jack Nicklaus, one of the best mind game players golf has ever “seen”, uses visualisation to such good effect. I think Jack made that clear in this famous quotation:

“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I see the ball going there – it’s path, trajectory and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there is a sort of fade-out and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.”

The good news is that we all have the mental ability to visualise our golf in the same or possibly an even better way than Jack and that’s what this programme is all about.

So what have you included in “Visualisation Skills for Golf to help me visualise like Jack Nicklaus, I hear you ask?

Well this time, I’ve included three powerful golf hypnosis sessions for you to use in sequence to develop your visualisation skills by helping you to:

• Practice describing your better shots from successful past rounds in ways that allow you to unconsciously reveal your unconscious imagery to your conscious awareness
• Imagine your way round your favourite golf courses as if you were caddying blindfold for a good player – yes I know that sounds weird
• Learn what it will be like when you can visualise through using this programme and experience using your newly uncovered visualisation skills on the golf course.

Open your Eyes to Better Golf - As with many aspects of life, perfect practice makes perfect, so the more you describe things visually to other people, and yourself, the better you see the picture in your mind’s eye. So in this first hypnosis session, you’ll practice, in hypnosis, describing your better shots from successful past rounds in ways that allow you to unconsciously reveal your unconscious imagery to your conscious awareness.

Golf with your Eyes Closed - The second hypnosis session is a bit weird and very effective. I based it, with an unusual twist, on an intriguing experience I had many, many years ago. I was selected to play with a good friend of mine as my partner in the Hertfordshire County Foursomes team event at the old East Herts. Golf Club, a course I had never played before.

Despite my best endeavours, I didn’t have the time to play the course before the event, so I had to play it blind, so to speak. Back in those days, there were no yardage charts available and no distance markers on the course, so my foursomes partner, who had played there several times and knew the course well, suggested that he would have to tell me where to hit the ball and act as my caddy when it was my turn to hit our ball, as there were many doglegs and blind shots on the course.

So what’s the unusual twist with this session? Well this time you’re going to be my caddy, as I play one or other of your favourite courses in your mind. What makes it an interesting learning experience is that you will be caddying blindfold for me and you’ll have to picture and visually describe the shots I have to play. Before you say it, yes I know that sounds weird, but I think you’ll find it quite revealing

Imagine Your Way to Better Golf - The power of the unconscious mind is truly phenomenal, especially when it comes to synthesising new ways of working from our lifetime of experiences and resources. This third hypnosis session builds on your successful work with the first two sessions to help you build a vivid imaginary future experience of playing great golf using all your newly rediscovered visualisation skills. I then ask your unconscious mind to work out how that could have happened. After all, if your unconscious mind can create that vivid imaginary future, then it can also work out a plan to get you there without interference from your conscious analytical mind under hypnosis.

The power of the imagination and the ability to see things in the “mind’s eye” is often very obvious to us as spectators when we see golfers thinking out their most difficult shots. You only have to think of some of those amazing chip shots Sergio Garcia and Jose Maria Olazabal play, the pitch shots of Padraig Harrington and those unbelievable shots that Phil Mickelson pulls off, to name but a few.

Visualisation is also a key part of the pre-shot routines of these top players and I suspect that most of them consciously or unconsciously think about it in a similar way to Jack Nicklaus.

Go to the “Visualisation Skills for 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 “Visualisation Skills for Golf” there for instant download and start using the programme to Imagine Your Way to Better Golf.

The “Confident Golf – Free From Fear” golf hypnosis programme includes three long and powerful golf hypnosis sessions that address turning fear into confidence, learning how to play fear-free golf and experience the motivation to play confident golf every time you play and trust your unconscious mind.  The programme is available in MP3 format for download, with each session running for around 25-30 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 5 or 6 more new Golf Hypnosis audio programmes over the next couple of months. As with “Winning Golf”, “Overcome the Yips”, “Own the Putting Green” and “Confident Golf – Free From Fear”, 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 “Confident Golf – Free From Fear” Golf Hypnosis Programme all about? 

Fear on the golf course can come in many shapes and sizes and it can result in a multitude of problems. Although you’re born with only two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noise, according to Richard Bandler the creator of NLP, everything else that makes us nervous, anxious and downright afraid we learn and build up throughout our life.

This applies just as much to our golfing lives. People can and often do experience fear, anxiety and nervousness over things that may embarrass them, upset them or distract them. Now, fear of anything has to be based on past experience, real or imagined, and its influence on the future. A player who’s afraid of getting a bad bounce or mishitting a particular he’s about to make, maybe shanking, yipping or hitting some other disastrous shot, is probably thinking about a similar shot he’s mishit in the past. It doesn’t even have to be a bad shot he’s actually hit himself, it could be one he’s imagined or seen someone else play. If you see a playing partner shank a shot, even if you’ve never hit one before yourself, you can start worrying about the possibility that you might hits a shank yourself. Many people are more nervous about holing a three foot putt after the see someone else miss one of a similar length.

And what’s included in “Confident Golf – Free From Fear” I hear you ask? 

Well, I’ve included three long and powerful freestanding golf hypnosis sessions to help you to turn your fears into golfing confidence, to allow you to play fear free golf and to build an unconscious process to motivate you through your fears to play confident golf automatically.

Turn Fear into Golfing Confidence – given the title, you won’t be surprised to hear that I designed the “Turn Fear into Golfing Confidence” hypnosis session to build you a powerful resource of calm, quiet confidence to help you to turn any fear, anxiety or nervousness into confidence on the golf course.

Fear-Free Golf - this second golf hypnosis track uses the power of your imagination to build an automatic, systematic and unconscious process to cycle through and eliminate all those old fears, nervousness and anxieties you’ve ever experienced, seen or imagined in your golfing past.

Motivation to Confident Golf – helps you to progressively build a library of powerful resources and experiences. Your unconscious mind then automatically calls on these resources whenever you are under pressure or experiencing one of your old fears. As a result you unconsciously turn your old fears into Motivation to Confident

Go to the “Confident Golf – Free From Fear” 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 “Confident Golf – Free From Fear” there for instant download and have the opportunity to Overcome Fear – Confidently on the Golf Course.

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.

So let’s have a look at an example. Quickly read the next sentence and see what you think it says.

Now raed tihs snectene aagin slwoly to see waht it auctlay syas hree in balck and wihte. I ssucept taht it may be vrey dfreneift.

If that one’s a bit too easy for you, have a go at this next one. It’s one of my favourite quotes from my golfing idol.

“I neevr hit a soht, not eevn in paccirte, whiotut hainvg a sahrp, in-fcous pcirtue of it in my haed. First I see the blal wehre I wnat it to fiinsh, ncie and wihte and siinttg up hgih on the birght geern garss. Tehn the secne qcikluy caeghns and I see the blal ginog tehre – it’s ptah, tacejorrty and sahpe, eevn its baehiouvr on ladinng. Tehn tehre is a srot of fdae-out and the nxet snece shwos me maikng the knid of sinwg taht will trun the peioruvs pctruies itno raeilty.”
Jcak Naciklus

So what’s happening here and what’s does all this have to do with golf? Well, firstly it suggests that you don’t need to have the spelling absolutely correct for our message to be understood. However, we do have to have the right letters in each word and the first and last letters of each word have to be correct. Secondly, it says that we are unconsciously very good at making a well informed guess about what we are seeing. So why shouldn’t the same skill apply to reading a shot or putt on the golf course?

Well, of course it does. When you throw a ball to someone, you look at your target and, without you thinking consciously about any precise measurements, your mind makes the necessary assessment of what you’re asking your body to do and simply does it. If on the other hand, you were executing a similar “throw” with a cannon, you’d be wanting to know the exact distance, the wind strength and direction, the temperature and all the other factors you’d need to assess the trajectory, direction and amount of gunpowder you’d need to send the cannon ball to the target. It can be the same when you hit a putt, if you trust your unconscious mind to do all the necessary calculations for you without you consciously analysing things too much.

But what about a full shot, don’t you have to calculate the distance precisely before you hit the shot? Well yes you do, especially if the distance can be deceptive, for example with a blind shot. Knowing the distance also helps with choosing the best club to use. However, note that I said the best club. The better golfers can hit the same distance with a wide range of clubs. I remember playing years ago with a group of people who would always look in my bag to see what club I had just hit. I remember totally confusing them one day by hitting every shot I could, from 100 to 220 yards distance, with my 2-Iron. That sure confused them! I also remember that the scores in club competitions where you’re only allowed to take 3 clubs and a putter always seem to be just as good, if not better, than when people have the full 14 clubs.

So remember that you have an amazing computing resource in your head that bases it’s assessment of what you see, feel and hear not on precise measurements., so trust your unconscious for better golf.

Just in case you found the scrambled quotation difficult to read, here’s what Jack had to say about visualisation.

“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I see the ball going there – it’s path, trajectory and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there is a sort of fade-out and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.”
Jack Nicklaus

The average golfer is often preoccupied with his current set of – sometimes conflicting – technical swing thoughts, from coaches, books, websites and golf magazines and TV programmes. And even if he isn’t, someone may have given him a set of the tee pegs I saw recently that had different swing thoughts printed on each one!

Now to be absolutely clear, I do believe that you should take adequate time to consciously plan your shots before stepping up to the ball and taking your stance. And this should include time to fully visualise and rehearse the shot or putt that you are about to make. I’ve written before about Jack Nicklaus describing how he’s never hit a shot without first seeing himself playing it.

I also believe that once you have that clear visualisation of the shot you are about to make and the confidence of the short-term recent memory of your rehearsal or practice swing, then the sooner you hit the ball with that thought in your mind, the better. If your rehearsal swing was adequate, then there’s nothing more to do than to take your stance, briefly check your alignment, take one last look at your target and start your swing – before you forget how you rehearsed it. If you needed any specific swing thoughts, then you must really have incorporated them in your rehearsal swing.

That’s what I mean when I keep harping on about unconscious golf. Your unconscious mind knows all about the shot you’re visualising and it also knows about the rehearsal swing you just made. Now’s the time to get your conscious mind out of the way and let your unconscious mind do its job and hit the ball the way you visualised and rehearsed. It’s that simple.

How I wished I’d understood this back in my youth when I played off 2-handicap. I even had regular demonstrations of it when I played with my father’s friend. If you haven’t already read the article that comes with my free "Your Own Virtual Caddy" golf hypnosis programme, then let me explain. He was a fanatical newcomer to golf – yes we’ve all been one – and whenever I played with him he would try to get to my ball before I did so that he could ask me how I planned to play the shot. What I didn’t realise at the time was that by describing my thoughts in detail, I had to visualise the shot to describe it.

By the time I’d finished explaining it all, I was rushing to hit the ball and didn’t have any time for any swing thoughts. I just quickly took a practice swing and hit the ball without further conscious thought. If only I’d realised how much better my shots went and how well I scored playing with him. I didn’t realise until I started developing my own approach to golf psychology and understood the power of trusting my unconscious.

Now I’ve written here before about the perils of Analysis Paralysis , the benefits of Visualisation and the need to Speed up your shot routines, but I’m not alone. In researching this article I found an interesting question asked by Karl Morris,

"Whenever you have played your very best golf, is it usually down to MORE or LESS thinking?"

I’ll leave you to answer that one for yourself.

Firstly there was Lee Westwood’s much talked about "Secret Plan." When the dust settled he admitted, "Okay, if you really want to know, the secret was making everyone else think I had a secret, when I didn’t really have one." He had the rest of the field nervously waiting to find out what the plan was and not concentrating on their own plans. In my forthcoming book, The Secrets of Hypnotic Golf, I talk about protecting yourself against Covert Hypnosis or "Black Ops Golf", as other people refer to it. Although I’m not comfortable with Covert Hypnosis, I have to admit that Lee’s approach isn’t that much different from Jack Nicklaus taking advantage from "The golf psychology of letting everyone else complain while you win", as I wrote about in September.

Then there was the Lee’s personal success story of how he regained his form when he explained that. "The reason for the big turnaround in my confidence and stuff like that was catching my caddie, Billy Foster, at the beach party on Tuesday evening when he probably had enough Heineken to tell me what he really thought." Lee went on saying, "He said I’d not been myself recently. I’d paid too much attention to other people around me. He told me I’d been out here 16 years, which is longer than all three of them (McIlroy, Ross Fisher and Martin Kaymer) put together and have won 30 tournaments, which is more than they’ve all won. You’ve got to bully them on the golf course. You’ve got to be yourself again and get back to the instinct you had in the late 90s and 2000′."

I suspect that Billy’s comments had a much more positive golf psychology impact on Lee than any negative one his "Secret Plan" had on his opponents. Having said that, his anticipation of the disadvantage his "Secret Plan" would have on them would clearly help improve his own state of confidence. He certainly seemed to think it had a detrimental effect on Rory McIlroy.

That leads me nicely on to Rory’s apparent golf psychology disaster after playing with Lee in the first round at Dubai. Whatever impact that had on his game, it was his putting that let him down, if you consider coming third at Dubai and runner-up in the Order of Merit a let-down. In contrast, it was Lee’s phenomenal putting that made the difference between him and Rory and that was what really sealed his victory.

So if you want to play your best golf, you need to increase your psychological strength and confidence with golf hypnosis and protect yourself from covert hypnosis and other people’s "Secret Plans."

You may remember my recent article about mental foursomes practice with golf hypnosis the other week. Now shortly after writing that I was watching a rerun on television of a recent US PGA Tour event and enjoying the overhead pictures from the blimp, when I had a sudden flash of inspiration. Why not visualise my shots in 3D and incorporate an overhead shot of how I visualised the shot I was about to play. It sounded difficult until I realised that if I can see it on TV, then surely I can visualise it. After all, I already had the overhead view on the course planner, so why couldn’t I incorporate it in my pre-shot routine visualisation and mental golf practice.

So, later that evening I took myself into a light trance using self-hypnosis and played an imaginary round of golf at Beaconsfield, my home course. I visualised playing every hole and every shot in 3D, even the putts. It worked great and I couldn’t wait to take the idea to the course. That Friday, I got the chance to use it in my pre-shot visualisation on the real course and it worked amazingly well. Initially I found that I got the best results from visualising the shot normally, as a picture in 2D, and then "seeing" it again as if from a blimp, just as I stepped into the shot. By the time I’d played a few holes, visualising the shot in 3D just became a natural part of my routine.

What surprised me most was that it gives me so much more confidence, especially when hitting over a hazard or trees to my target. Instead of seeing the trees or hazards and estimating how far to hit past them, I’m finding myself seeing the whole shot from above. I’m getting a much clearer idea of the shot I’m playing and that’s taking away a lot of the normal doubt I normally have when playing these shots.

Vivid visualisation, using all the senses, is an essential part of the pre-shot routine you should be using when physically playing golf. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about what Jack Nicklaus says about how he never played a shot without having first watched himself execute the swing perfectly and seen the ball flying or rolling to his target before finishing up, "sitting there and shining white on the bright green grass."

So try this out when you’re next out playing on the course and on the practice ground, especially when you’re practicing your golf in your minds eye. Maybe you’ll see a new low score up on the leader board – in 3D.

Now I’m talking here about a whole range of complaints. You’ll hear some people whingeing about the conditions. Maybe it’s too hot or too cold for them to play well. Perhaps the wind’s too strong, in the wrong direction or, as Tiger Woods seems too struggle with these days, the wind is swirling unpredictably. Some may be saying that the greens are too fast or too slow for them to putt well on or too hard or receptive for their style of play. Yet more may be complaining about the length of the course, the thickness of the rough, the width of the fairways or the size of the greens. And it doesn’t matter that it’s the same for everyone, most of them can find something to complain or worry about.

The complaining doesn’t stop with the conditions. How often have you heard golfers talking before a tournament and commenting on how they don’t like this particular course and always play it badly, how they don’t play well at this time of year or how they’d rather be paired with a different partner. Sometimes, they’ll talk about a particular competitor that always plays well here and they can never beat. You only have to think about all those PGA Tour Professionals who started out playing for second place as they just knew they couldn’t beat Tiger – "he’s on another planet."

So what does it matter if I complain a little before I play? Well, as I’ve said many times in my articles, whatever you consciously think about, you unconsciously achieve. You may remember me talking about how if you focus your conscious thoughts on not going into a particular bunker or water hazard, you so often hit the ball straight into or at it. The same thing applies to the things you complain about. If you go out to play thinking consciously about how much you don’t like the course, the conditions or your opponent, then your unconscious mind will fulfil your expectations and you will rarely play well.

My first and best golfing hero, the great Jack Nicklaus, told a story about how he used to assess his chances at tournaments by listening to what his fellow competitors were saying. If he heard a player complaining about the conditions or talking in a negative way about anything, then he’d think to himself, "There’s a guy who won’t be in contention", and mentally cross them off his list of competitors to watch out for that week.

So the next time you’re planning to play a round of golf and you start feeling hard done by about the conditions, your opponents or just a string of bad luck, then remember Jack’s comments and turn things round by finding the positives rather than complaining. The conditions are the same for everyone, your opponents are only human and your luck generally balances out over time. Let them complain while you focus on winning.

There’s absolutely no doubt that this weekend and so many times before in majors Greg Norman has struck the ball brilliantly and enjoyed a great short game, it just seems that he’s missed out on the mental side of the game, especially in the closing holes. As far as I can recall, Greg has never worked with a golf psychologist and sadly it shows at times like these. If he had Tiger’s training and could use golf psychology and self hypnosis at these critical times, just imagine how many majors he would have won by now.

Coming back to the venue, Sir Michael Bonallack, one of the UK’s and possibly the world’s finest amateur golfers of all time and secretary of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews for 15 years, describes Sunningdale very aptly on the welcome page of the club’s website:

“All that one would hope to find in the ideal golf club is in abundance at Sunningdale. Two magnificently conditioned courses of superb design and so pleasing to the eye, a clubhouse which provides members and visitors with an unforgettable experience of pampered comfort, accompanied by exceptional food and wine, a staff that anticipates and provides for the members’ wishes, no matter how eccentric they may be, a first class professional’s shop and competent instruction on hand, the most knowledgeable caddies in the game and the finest halfway house I know.”

My first memory of playing at Sunningdale was in the early 1970s when I played in an event there run by The Plus Four Society an elite group of golfers sponsored by the Surrey Golf Union with membership restricted to handicaps of 4 and less under the old handicapping system. Thankfully, I can’t remember much about my rounds that day, but I do remember one of my fellow golfers playing both courses of the championship tees in 68 for a total of 136. It must have really felt like he was being cheated when his plus 2 handicap was added back to his score and he ended up with a net 140 for the handicap event. It certainly seemed so unfair to me, as someone playing off 2 handicap and desperately needing both my shots! Unlike today, there were very few players of plus 2 in those days. I was intrigued to see that same man playing in the Senior Open Championship there last week and still as an amateur.

I really enjoyed watching so many of my golfing heroes out there playing just as well as I remembered back in their heydays. People in their 50s and 60s playing that standard of golf is an inspiration to people like me of a similar age and, like last week at the Open, it reminded me that I really can’t use my age as an excuse for playing less golf.

I found it difficult to choose who to follow and who I really wanted to win and it came down to a choice of Greg Norman and Tom Watson. They are both players I admire and both have played remarkable golf in major championships in the last two years. I felt sorry that Tom again missed out after coming so close at the Open. However the person I really wanted to win was Greg Norman. Although Greg has won the Open twice before, I hadn’t realised how many times he had slipped up in the last round of majors. I remember of course his pushed long iron on the final hole of the Masters in 1986 when a par would have got him into the playoff and his turning a six shot lead in the last round there ten year’s later into a 5 shot defeat by Nick Faldo.

When I checked the records, it turned out that Greg had just had those two Open victories out of 23 majors where he finished in the top 6. In addition he came second in 8 of those majors and third in 4 more. So he clearly has a problem finishing off his rounds.

So what happened last weekend, well Greg was striking the ball awesomely well and his shots were going long and straight. Despite dropping a few shots, that you’d expect from a man who plays so little competitive golf, his short game was just amazing. He was probably playing as well as he played in all those top-six finishes in majors. But when he got to the 16th on Sunday, needing one more birdie to tie the lead or two to win outright, he pushed his drive way right just like he had hit that long-iron back at the Masters in 1986. He made a miraculous recovery from deep in the trees and hit his third fairly close to the pin, he was out of it and three putted. He was still hitting the ball well on 17 and 18, but he was a defeated man.

Here’s wishing Greg Norman and all my other golfing heroes every success at the US Seniors Open this coming weekend.