Archive for Nick Faldo
Talk yourself into better golf with golf hypnosis for positive self talk
Posted by: | CommentsDo you talk to yourself when you’re playing golf? Well, if you don’t, you may have a serious problem. It’s called brain death! Self-talk, otherwise known as internal dialogue or intrapersonal communication, is one of the main functions of our conscious mind. It allows us to make sense of our conflicting thoughts and to express our ideas and feelings to ourselves. Most of the time we talk to ourselves internally and sometimes, particularly after a bad shot, we share our self-talk with everyone in earshot. That can be a large distance with some of the golfer’s I’ve played with!
Self talk really comes into its own when we are internally analysing and evaluating complex choices in our lives. A good example is when you are starting your pre-shot routine and deciding on the type of shot you’re going to play. Have you ever had one voice in your head proposing an ambitious shot with a driver and another one encouraging you to make a more conservative shot with an iron? Don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly normal and unlikely to be a symptom of schizophrenia!
Now, I’ve often written about the concept that whatever we consciously think about our unconscious mind does it’s best to deliver. And self-talk is the most powerful and influential mechanism for conscious thought …
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Mental foursomes practice with golf hypnosis for better golf in your mind’s eye
Posted by: | CommentsPracticing golf in your mind, mental golf if you like, is just as effective as playing golf and physical practice on the range, if you want to play better golf. As I’ve written many times before, it also works a lot better when accompanied by golf hypnosis and other golf psychology techniques.
But there’s a problem. How do you imagine hitting shots from difficult lies if you’re playing an imaginary round? Surely you’d have to hit bad imaginary shots in order to get into the difficult positions. Wouldn’t that be bad golf psychology?
When you play golf for real, you’ll probably hit the odd bad shot now and then. Hopefully, you’re already using a good post-shot routine, so you’ll be able to learn from the bad shot and release it to the past. It can’t hurt you there. Maybe you could use the "Reset Button" technique Nick Faldo spoke of when commentating on Tiger Woods the other week …
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Hit the reset button for a winning golf hypnosis metaphor
Posted by: | CommentsThe ability to learn from your bad shots and release them from your mind is one of the keys to winning golf. You only have to look at the world’s greatest ever golfers to see this. I don’t ever recall seeing the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo dwelling for any length of time over a bad shot or allow one to affect a subsequent shot they had to play. They certainly got over it before they played their next shot and just went back to their regular routine.
One of the key techniques in the application of golf hypnosis is the use of metaphor to communicate a concept that may be rejected or over analysed by the conscious mind. As an example, if I wanted someone to swing their golf club naturally and unconsciously, I might talk to them about the way they throw a ball of paper into a wastepaper basket or skim a stone across a pond – without any conscious thought.
So I’m always on the lookout for a good metaphor …
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Play unconscious golf in the zone or in a trance-like cocoon of concentration
Posted by: | CommentsSo what is this golf mind and unconscious golf stuff that I’m always writing and talking about? And how does it actually work? These are questions I occasionally get asked by more sceptical golfers. Thankfully the vast majority of people I talk to either accept my explanations or trust me based on the results they’ve seen other people achieve.
Hypnosis tends to be experienced in many different ways with different [people and what works in one session with a client may not work as well, if at all, the following week. That means that golf psychologists and hypnotherapists have to be flexible in their approach to every client session. It also means that it’s difficult if not impossible to analyse and document hypnosis and hypnotic technique scientifically. For some people that means that hypnosis doesn’t exist and that it’s dangerous because it can’t be explained.
Now I’ve often explained the unconscious mind as the source of our autonomous or instinctive actions. I illustrate this with stories about how difficult it was to consciously learn to drive, tie your shoelaces or a bow or ride a bike and how at some point it just becomes an automatic process that we don’t have to think about …
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Shark Bitten at Sunningdale without Golf Psychology and Self Hypnosis
Posted by: | CommentsSo who made it to Sunningdale to watch the Senior Open Championship last weekend? I know that one of the latest subscribers to my newsletter did and he tells me that he and his wife really enjoyed it? For me it was well worth the visit, especially as it’s only 10 miles down the road from me the Old Course at Sunningdale is one of my favourite courses in the world – not that the New Course isn’t just as good.
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 …
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Ian Baker-Finch demonstrates mental golf confidence at Colonial
Posted by: | CommentsStill tied up with half-term duties, so just a quick post today to say how delighted I was last night to see Ian Baker-Finch open his return to Colonial and his return to competitive golf with a 68 – that must have taken some guts and some powerful golf-psychology work.
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.
Please trust your unconscious golf mind to remember to play good golf, Ian Baker-Finch
Posted by: | CommentsRegular readers of my blog will be familiar with my rants about golfers changing their swings in response to what I see as their golf psychology problems. Sometimes they change their swings in the often mistaken belief that they somehow need to play better. This generally seems to have one of two results and neither are better than trusting their unconscious golf mind to remember how to play well.
If they are really talented and especially strong mentally, they struggle their way through the changeover period and emerge a season or two later scoring almost as well as they did before the change. They of course believe that they are now better and more consistent golfers and clearly have a new swing. I’m thinking here of people like Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods. Now don’t get me wrong, they are both fantastic golfers. It’s just that they don’t seem to be better golfers than before their swing changes …
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Nick Faldo masterclass on golf psychology and the mental game of golf
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve just been reading about Nick Faldo returning to competitive golf to play in the Open at Turnberry. It reminded me about his focussed determination on the golf course and prompted me to do a bit of research into his attitudes to golf psychology.
I’ve seen Nick playing at very close hand and even played with him in an open amateur tournament, the Hertfordshire Stag, at Moor Park back in the 70’s. I recall that it was just a couple of months before he turned professional and I was amazed at his confidence and scoring ability. I felt like I outplayed and outscored him both morning and afternoon. The scorecard told a different tale with me scoring to my handicap with a couple of 76’s against an SSS of 74 and Nick scoring well below par in both rounds.
Coming back to Nick’s current attitude to golf psychology, I was fascinated to find this fairly recent video article on YouTube with Nick giving a masterclass in Thailand on golf concentration and his mental approach to golf.
I’m particularly in agreement with Nick’s emphasis on not using the word "Don’t" when thinking and talking about your shot – "don’t hit it in the trees"; "don’t hit it in the water"; etc. As Nick reminds us, your unconscious golf mind doesn’t know the meaning of "don’t" and does its best to deliver what you are thinking about – "hit it in the trees"; etc. I also like his ideas around visualising the shot you want to play, making a rehearsal swing to achieve that shot and then hitting it.
I’m certainly looking forward to watching Nick playing at Turnberry.
Technically perfect golf does not always win over good mental golf
Posted by: | CommentsHave you noticed that the winners on the professional golf tours around the world aren’t always technically or statistically the best players. They often don’t even look like the best player over the four rounds the week they win. Now, I know that’s a contradiction, because if they win the event, then they must be the best in that event.
Going back a few weeks to the 2009 Masters, no one would suggest that Kenny Perry, Angel Cabrera and Chad Campbell were the best players in the field, but they were the one’s that got into the playoff, despite their obvious mistakes. Many of the technically and statistically better players looked to be playing really well, but despite some amazing heroics from the likes of Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, none of them came near getting into the playoff …
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The mind golf secrets the golf equipment industry does not want you to hear
Posted by: | CommentsWhen people write about the top professionals, they tend to talk about the externally visible aspect of their game – their swing technique. Those same writers rarely tell you about the golf mind golf secrets of those same professionals.
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 …
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