So what’s left to comment on and learn from this year’s Open Championship at Turnberry? Well, I started to talk about Tiger Woods in part 2, but put that on hold so that I wouldn’t detract from the praise I wanted to lavish on Ross Fisher. I also feel that there’s a lot to learn from Lee Westwood’s sad failure over the last few holes, as he was playing as well as we all know he can and probably better than the other leading contenders.

I was so impressed with the way Lee accepted the "rub of the green" of that unlucky roll into the fairway bunker on the 72nd hole. The way he focussed on the shot that he was left with was just amazing and the bunker shot onto the green left me stunned and speechless – not a normal state for me. With Dr Karl Morris as his golf psychologist, I have to believe that Lee knows all the golf mind techniques he needs to unleash his true talent and close out major championships. I just feel that he needs to be using those techniques unconsciously and for me the best way to achieve that is with golf hypnosis. Oh I’d just love to have the opportunity to work with him on that.

Now Tiger has had the benefit of working with a really good golf psychologist in Jay Brunza for the last 20 years and at his best Tiger is clearly the leading exponent of mental golf in the history of the game. If that’s not enough, he also makes good use of self hypnosis, especially when he’s winning tournaments.

So why, oh why does Tiger get so angry on the golf course? Watching him on Thursday and Friday, well he wasn’t there for the weekend, it seemed like every time the camera focussed on him, he has making angry gestures, banging his club on the ground or even hurling his club away. At the same time, he was demonstrating the ability to calmly stop in mid swing if someone moved or a camera clicked, so he hadn’t totally lost it.

I’ve heard people dismiss his anger by suggesting that these displays of petulance are just his way of releasing bad luck and the very occasional bad shots he may hit. However, it doesn’t seem to help him and it’s only when he really focuses on his game that he calms down and capitalises on all that golf mind training. It seems like whenever he loses his cool like this, he eventually realises that he has to knuckle down to make the cut or to win the tournament. He only just failed to make the cut on Friday with one of these focused charges.

So Tiger, please remember your golf psychology training and act more like a true professional on the golf course. We know you are the best golfer in the world when you’re using your golf hypnosis. In addition, your playing partners and the paying public will get even more enjoyment from watching you play and win.

Now I haven’t forgotten that it was Stewart Cink who took the Claret Jug home with him, it’s just that I haven’t forgiven him for depriving Tom Watson and oldies like me of a famous and rejuvenating victory.

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!

I would contend that Sean O’Hair outplayed Tiger in all the physical and technical aspects of the game – he just let himself down on the mental side of the game, especially in the area of self-belief. Just look at this quote from the loser.

"It’s not like it’s The Tiger Show and I’m just out there to watch him. We’re trying to win golf tournaments, and he just happens to be that good. But just because he’s good doesn’t mean we’re out there watching him."

Now does that sound like a man who believes he’s going to win or even one who thinks he can win? My hypnotherapy mentor says that anyone “trying” to do something has already accepted the possibility of failure and that doesn’t lead to self-belief, does it. Now you may think that some doubt is reasonable given Tiger’s undoubted abilities, but you have to go out believing you going to win or you’ll capitulate just like Sean O’Hair did. Sean’s not alone in this; you only have to look at the history books. Almost every time Tiger wins from behind on the last day, the people playing better than him capitulate mentally.

Now I’m not blaming Tiger for this or even the media that hype him up so much, although that must weigh down on his opponents. The fault has to lie with their mental preparation. Nearly all of them have highly qualified mind coaches, yet they can’t be making the best of the advice they get from them on the course. And then if those mind coaches were worth their salt, they would be running on autopilot like Tiger and they’re clearly not. I wonder if Tiger’s the only one using self hypnosis to reinforce the mental coaching he gets from Jay Brunza.

“Danger, danger, danger” Says Rocco Mediate

It’s not just Sean O’Hair I’m talking about here – he’s just the latest “victim”. Back at Doral a couple of weeks ago, Rocco Mediate, who should know better after going toe to toe with Tiger for 90 holes at last year’s US Open, said of Tiger Woods performance there:

“Danger, danger, danger. If he’s making one bogey in four rounds, he’s obviously hitting it better. We know his short game is the best, but we know he didn’t really make a lot of putts. When he does that, that will be the Tiger we know, and that will be the end of the game.”

Now how defeatist is that!

What about the Caddy and the Golf Mind?

Well, you don’t hear so much about the caddies using mind coaches, but they can be very important in keeping their players mentally on track. After all, the only advice you can get out on the course is from your own internal voice and from the voice of your caddy. That’s the premise behind by “Your Own Virtual Caddy” golf hypnosis programme. I wonder if all caddies are equal in their golf mind game.

As a low handicap golfer for over 40 years, I’ve done a fair bit of work on the practice ground and had lots of golf lessons from lots of good coaches – some of the best in the world in their day. However, I know that much of the technical advice I received left me confused and inconsistent.

Since qualifying as a Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner, I now know that much of that old advice led me to play golf almost completely in my conscious mind. And that’s about as far from being in the zone as you can get! A bit like having a driving instructor sitting next to you for the rest of your life reminding you exactly what to do – when and how to indicate, change gear, look in the mirror, etc.

So what’s confused me now – I read about Muhammad Ali

Well, for starters, here I am reading an article about Muhammad Ali and in between saying, “I am the Greatest”, he slips in this very sincere quote:

"Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last- minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill." Muhammad Ali

Now I have to agree with this as when Ali talks about being in the ring, it’s clear that he was in an extremely altered state. I cant remember the exact quote, but one of my favourite recollections was of him talking about how he felt like he was watching his own fights from above each of the four corners of the ring and it was like he could “see” his opponents back muscles move long before any signs from the front that punch was on its way. After that, “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” seemed quite mundane.

Then what happened – I read about Tiger’s Practice Routine

A short while later, I’m reading about how Hank Haney told viewers on the Golf Channel about a typical golf practice day for one of his pupils. Yes, you’ve guessed it he’s talking about Tiger Woods. Now according to Haney, here’s Tiger’s schedule

So when does Tiger he do all his work with Jay Brunza, his Golf Psychologist? I suspect he’s there with Tiger when he’s practicing. And I bet he’s helping him to build his unconscious resources at the same time. Why didn’t somebody tell me about all this golf psychology stuff 40 years ago?

What do I think about Practice?

I’m going into this in a lot of detail in my forthcoming book, “The Secrets of Hypnotic Golf.” For now, I can say that I’ve come down on the side of “Better Golf Without Practice.” Alex Morrison published a book with that title in 1940 and its messages are still true today.

So who’s Alex Morrison? Well, he was rated as the greatest golf teacher of his day by far and had his own golf school in New York. He coached many great golfers like Henry Picard, 26-time winner on the PGA Tour and winner of the Masters in 1938 and The PGA Championships in 1939. He also taught many famous celebrities, including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.  Are you old enough to have seen Bing’s wonderfully smooth and slow swing? It was effortless right through to his death, playing golf at the age of 73.

Oh yes, there’s one other important link between Alex Morrison and my world of golf in the mind – perhaps his greatest contribution to golf. He coached a certain Charlie Nicklaus, father of golfing legend Jack Nicklaus…

So what about Jack Nicklaus and 90% of golf in the mind?

When I started out in golf in the late 60’s I recall hearing Jack Nicklaus talk on TV about golf being 90% in the mind. However, when I eagerly read his first book, The Greatest Game of All published in 1969, I found very little information about golf psychology. In fact, two thirds of the book was biographical and the remaining third was about the golf swing. Maybe that was what the public wanted to hear or what Herbert Warren Wind, his co-writer, wanted to write about. There wasn’t any more about golf psychology in Jack’s Golf My Way published 5 years later.

Surely Ben Hogan’s secret was about swing mechanics?

I only recently found a similar contradiction about Ben Hogan in an article I read somewhere online. Now I got interested in Ben’s ideas a few year’s back when I first bought my Explanar swing trainer. I had a series of lessons with its inventor Luther Blacklock up at Woburn Golf and Country Club. Now Luther is a real advocate of Ben Hogan’s swing technique and has published a well thought out instructional DVD called The Lost Fundamentals of Hogan. Luther demonstrates these lost fundamentals while looking like, swinging and dressing exactly like the great man.

So what was the contradiction? Well, the article I read suggested that according to Bob Rotella, one of the golf psychology greats, he interviewed Ben Hogan shortly before Hogan’s death in 1997 and asked what Hogan’s real swing secret was. Hogan told Rotella that the technical secret was something to do with how he cupped his wrist at the top of backswing.

Hogan went on to say that the real secret to his starting to win major championships came when he eliminated all swing thoughts from his tournament play and focussed instead on imagination and instinct. I would describe that as trusting his unconscious mind. Hogan added that he only told people about his swing secrets because that’s what they wanted to hear about.

Well what about other top professionals

So how many other top professionals are being similarly misrepresented in this way? Two that I’ve played with, a long time ago admittedly, are Tony Jacklin, in a fourball in 1970, and Nick Faldo, in an open amateur competition called The Hertfordshire Stag at Moor Park back in 1976 – just before he turned pro. Oh I am a name dropper, aren’t I. Tony talked a lot about his cocoon of concentration when he won his majors, but most of what I’ve read about him refers to his swing and his life in general. There’s very little said about his mental strength and golf psychology techniques.

When I played with Nick Faldo, he was very impressive mentally and no one who saw him winning tournaments and major championships would doubt his mental strength and focus., However, at the time all the media focus was on his swing change and everyone was surprised when he appointed a golf psychologist to help with the Ryder Cup team when he was captain.

Even with Tiger Woods, and no I haven’t played with him, we here more about his swing and prodigious length off the tee than his amazing mental resilience, his obvious use of self-hypnosis and the fact that he’s had a mind coach from a very early age in Jay Brunza.

So who’s suppressing the mind golf secrets?

For some reason the golfing media doesn’t think it’s that important to promote golf psychology as the secret of golf success. I wonder if the golf equipment manufacturers want you to know about that secret either.