This new “Golf in the Playing Zone” programme is available in MP3 format for download, with the three long and powerful golf hypnosis sessions, each running for around 22-32 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 a further 4 more new Golf Hypnosis MP3 audio programmes over the next month or so. 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 “Golf in the Playing Zone” Hypnosis Programme all about? 

For most players good golf is primarily based on making use of both the analytical conscious and automatic and instinctive unconscious parts of our minds. Nowhere is this more important in what I call the Playing Zone, the time that starts when you arrive at your ball and begin your pre-shot routine and ends after you’ve hit the shot, learned from it and released it to the past. That’ rarely adds up to more than a quarter of the time you spend on the golf course. The rest of the time you’re free to simply enjoy the scenery, share the company of your playing partners and relax as you move between shots. That’s another zone or state completely.

The first time I heard about what we now refer to as the Zone was back in 1970 when I heard Tony Jacklin talk about being in a “cocoon of concentration” in an interview after he won the Open Championship at Royal Lytham St. Annes in 1969. In fact, I recall him saying much the same thing to me, when I played with him in 1970, just a few weeks before he won the US Open at Hazeltine. He wasn’t the only one experiencing that sort of thing back then, with the legendary Arnold Palmer talking of “a tautness of mind but not a tension of the body”, “concentration on the shot at hand” and “the heightened sense of presence and renewal that endures through an entire round or an entire tournament”.

Years later, I remember Nick Faldo talking about getting into a trance-like state when playing in major championships and calling it a “cocoon” of concentration. He went on to describe it as, “a state of oblivion where I shut out all the people on and off the course.”

Have you noticed that, apart from their being in the Zone when they were winning, the common factor with Tony, Nick and Arnie was that they were all trying stay in the zone for entire whole rounds and even tournaments? You have to be really focussed and mentally strong to stay in the zone for that length of time. Maybe that’s why Nick Faldo and Tony Jacklin often seemed so emotionally drained at the end of a championship.

So what about some of the other major winners, people like Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington and Lee Trevino? Well, they seem to be in the zone only for the time it takes them to plan and play their shots. Between shots, Lee would talk to anyone who’d listen to him and many who wouldn’t, while he entertained the galley with jokes. However, he certainly seemed to be in the zone for the few seconds it took him to hit the ball. Tiger’s considerably less talkative, but you couldn’t lose your temper after a bad shot like he often does and stay in the zone. Again, he’s well into the zone from the moment he gets to his ball to the moment he either twirls his club in celebration or beats it in anger. Padraig’s eyes tell us everything we need to know about his focus and concentration when he’s in the Playing Zone, and the next moment he’s walking jauntily along the fairway laughing and joking with his caddy.

And what have you included in “Golf in the Playing Zone” I hear you ask? 

Well, I’ve included three powerful freestanding golf hypnosis sessions to help you to:

• Build a series of unconscious triggers or anchors to take you automatically into the Playing Zone and step you systematically and unconsciously through your pre-shot routine, your rehearsal swings, your shot routine and your post-shot routine.
• Zone out your inner critic and reinforce your positive inner guardian or champion so you naturally play golf more positively and confidently
• Isolate and set aside all distractions that interfere with your concentration in the Playing Zone.

The Playing Zone – This first session runs for over 32 minutes – I had so much to pack in to it. The recording helps you build a series of unconscious triggers or anchors to take you automatically into the Playing Zone and step you systematically and unconsciously through your pre-shot routine, your rehearsal swings, your shot routine and your post-shot routine. Now I’m not specifying the contents of those routines. As I’ve said before, I feel those are individual to you. What I want to achieve is a set of cascading triggers that take you automatically through from the moment you arrive at the ball through to the time you release the results of the shot and walk on to the next one. For me, that’s the Playing Zone, the time for concentration. The rest of the time you’re out on the golf course, you should be relaxed and unfocussed as you’re walking, talking and enjoying what’s going on around you.

Zone Out your Inner Critic - The second hypnosis session starts by building a powerful, calm, relaxed and resourceful set of feelings. This prepares you to learn more about your inner critic and the hidden meaning behind its negativity. The session also helps you unconsciously learn more about and strengthen the powers of your much more positive and resourceful inner guardian or champion. Finally the session uses and NLP “visual squash” technique to help your inner guardian overwhelm the inner critic while capturing any positive intention from all your old negativity. I know that sounds odd, but it’s a very effective and rewarding process.

Concentration on the Zone - I recorded the third golf hypnosis session in this programme to help you isolate and set aside the thoughts and distractions that interfere with your concentration and enjoyment on the golf course. Some of these will be the usual golf related things, like thinking about your score, your swing, course conditions – the list is endless. There are also the thoughts you bring to the course that have nothing to do with golf apart from getting in the way of Golf in the Playing Zone.

Go to the “Golf in the Playing Zone” 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 “Golf in the Playing Zone” there for instant download and start to Anchor Hypnosis Unconsciously for Golf in the Playing Zone and Silence your Inner Critic.

Although I’ve never played there personally, I vividly remember Tony Jacklin telling me, and our other two playing partners at Brookmans Park Golf Club, all about Hazeltine’s challenges, just a week or so after his US Open win back there 1970. The course certainly seems to have got even harder and so more picturesque since Dave Hill’s scathing comment back then that "all it really lacks is 80 acres of corn and a few cows."

Anyway, there I was watching the golf and really looking forward to the cut and thrust of another battle between Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington over the weekend, with Padraig seemingly putting his demons from Firestone behind him and in the past. I was also hoping to see some heroics from the many contenders from Europe and to see a real return to form from the likes of Ernie Els and Vijay Singh. Given all the excitement, I almost forgot to watch out for all the golf psychology lessons that were blowing across the screen.

Now I’m sure that you watched most if not all of the weekend’s cut and thrust on TV or, if you’re really lucky, you were there in Minnesota to watch it for real. So I’m focussing here on the golf psychology of all that windy golf, windy golfers and, in my next article, all that windy putting from the likes of Lee Westwood, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and many others.

Now I don’t want to take anything away from Y E Yang and his outstanding performance this week. It takes something really special to beat Tiger Woods from 2 shots behind on the final day in a major. It’s also worth noting that his final 2-under par 70 tied the low score of the day with just 2 other players. Having said all of that, what happened to Tiger?

Well I think I noticed the first real flaw that I’ve seen in Tiger’s amazingly strong mental game. It’s been staring me in the face for some time now, especially with his occasional bad results in the Open Championship. The problem is with the parts of golf he can’t control and, more importantly, predict. Here at Hazeltine, as so often at Open Championship venues, the players are faced with the uncertainty of a strong and swirling wind. The wind at the tee is blowing one way, the clouds are moving in another and the flag on the green is fluttering in yet another. Tiger can’t predict what will happen to his ball and, unlike his wonderful ball-striking, it’s out of his control. That’s what he doesn’t seem able to handle.

I was taken by the contrast between Tiger’s reaction to two particular shots during his last 9 holes on Sunday. Both were unlucky and neither resulted from a bad shot execution, but one really upset him and the other he accepted philosophically. The first shot was a flier hit with a six iron that flew way over the back of the green on one of the many long par 4s. You could tell that he was half expecting it as he quickly acknowledged what had happened and quietly and confidently played the next shot. His reaction suggested that he hadn’t accepted it as a bad shot, just an unlucky one.

The second one was his tee shot on the tough short 17th where he backed away several times as the wind swirled and changed direction. He looked panicked and more like a rabbit in the headlights than a tiger. Nevertheless, he used his golf psychology training and hit what looked, and probably felt, like a really good shot. The ball sailed over the flag and landed no more than a foot too long and nestled down in the rough. A foot shorter and it would probably have spun back towards the hole. Tiger almost collapsed and still didn’t appear his normal confident and resourceful self as he chipped out short from a difficult lie and missed the putt. It must be remembered that Tiger didn’t capitulate totally and Yang hit one of the best shots I’ve ever seen into the 18th green to close out his victory.

So what do I think was the real difference between those two shots of Tiger’s? Well, he seemed to accept the flier as just plain bad luck that could happen to anyone and he just got on with the short without hesitation – it was out of his control and he accepted it. However, he didn’t seem to accept the swirling wind in the same way and hesitated several times. For a golfer with such supreme ball control and the ball on a tee, he didn’t seem able to accept the possibility of plain bad luck. I recorded the final days play and watching it again I saw that same hesitation from Tiger on many of his shots, especially when he had a good lie.

So there’s a definite flaw in Tiger’s mental game when it comes to a variable or swirling wind. The bad news for everyone else is that once he recognises it, he has his own mental skills and the golf psychology skills of Jay Brunza to help him handle it.

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.

Before starting on a long car journey, most drivers spend a little time planning their journey. They consider the merits of different routes, taking into consideration factors like road works, whether they prefer to drive on main roads, the impact of rush-hour traffic and many other factors including the weather. Once they start driving, most of these people drive safely while settling down to conscious pursuits like talking to their passengers, working out the personal and business problems in their mind or just daydreaming. Their unconscious mind keeps them safe and follows all the techniques and processes they learned years ago. How often have you drivers been on a long familiar journey and suddenly just seemed to "wake up" thinking, "How did I get here?" It can be quite worrying the first time it happens, but your unconscious mind has protected you along the way.

If a top golfer described a similar experience, we’d be inclined to think they were "in the zone" or, as Tony Jacklin famously referred to it after his major wins in the early 70s, in a "cocoon of concentration." Years later, Nick Faldo talked about getting into a trance-like state, he called it a "cocoon", during the week of a major. He went on to describe it as "a state of oblivion where I shut out all the people on and off the course."

So, like the driver I described earlier consciously plans the journey in advance, the golfer consciously plans his shot taking into account all the information available, including his lie, how he’s playing today, the weather and wind conditions, the distance, the landing area and his chosen target. He completes his conscious preparation and then transitions to his unconscious mind by recalling a similar shot and vividly imagining the experience of hitting by stepping into his stance and trusting his unconscious mind to hit the ball. Put differently, the golfer is “in the zone” or in a “cocoon of concentration”, a trance-like state of oblivion. That sounds good to me!

For many people the buzz is part of the enjoyment. Perhaps that’s what Mark Twain was referring to when he wrote that "Golf is a good walk spoiled" and HRH Princess Anne meant when she said “Golf seems to be an arduous way to go for a walk. I prefer to take the dogs out."

Personally, I feel that if I’m not nervously shaking when I get near the end of a seriously good scoring round or close game of match play then I might as well give up golf and go and do something else that excites and inspires me. Jack Nicklaus knew that if you didn’t feel nervous at the end of a tournament you’re trying to win then there’s something wrong with you – he thrived on it. It’s said that he stopped winning golf tournaments when he no longer got so nervous in competition. And you don’t have to be winning to get that feeling, just competing hard in some way. If you watched the duel between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson during the last round of the 2009 Masters, you’ll know just what mean.

The important thing to remember is to channel that nervous energy into an enhanced state of focus using self hypnosis with deep breathing is one of the best ways I know for doing just that. Alternatively, you could follow the instructions in my earlier post entitled Balance your golf mind and body for better golf – focus on your Hara. Now anchor that feeling and add it to your unconscious golfing resources. Now you can access the great feeling, that Jack Nicklaus loves so much, whenever you want it or need it.

Like so many of the things I have learned as a golf psychologist, I do so wish I’d known about all this wonderful NLP and golf hypnosis a long time ago when I got so nervous at Hexham, playing with Tony Jacklin at Brookmans Park and whenever I seemed to be on the first tee anywhere!

As an amateur golfer, although my golf is very important to me, my livelihood does not depend directly on my ability to score well. However, I can think of many times, especially in my younger days, when I was uncomfortable, nervous, scared and downright terrified on the golf course.

Those of you who subscribe to my Golf Hypnotist Ezine will have read in a recent post about my nerves on the first tee in the Golf Illustrated Junior Vase at Hexham in the early 70s. When the starter announced on the loud speaker system that they were expecting great things from me after my hole in one there the previous day, I could hardly stand up, let alone hit a good drive down the middle.

I’ve experienced similar feelings when I’ve arrived on the first tee and found I was playing with some or other golfing celebrity. I’ll never forget Bill Shankland, my then golf coach, asking me to stand in for him in a game in late-June of 1970. Bill explained that he was injured and could I take his place in a friendly fourball the following day. He went on to explain that there’d be no pressure as I was playing at my home club and partnering the club pro, Colin Christison, a man I’d played with many times before. Bill also mentioned that one of our opponents would be Ian Connelly from Welwyn Garden City, later to become Nick Faldo’s first coach and someone I also knew. I was a bit nervous plying with two pros I’d watched playing in the Agfa tournament at Stoke Poges, but I knew them both and felt I could handle it.

The next day, I got to the club and as I joined my playing partner Colin walking to the first tee, I noticed that there was quite a crowd of my fellow club members behind the tee. I nearly collapsed when I walked through the crowd and Colin introduced me to our other opponent. It was Tony Jacklin, back in the UK to prepare for the British Open after winning the US Open a few weeks earlier. I was terrified and it took a lot of quiet calming words from Colin to get me through the first nine holes. I started to enjoy the experience as I loosened up on the second nine.

Like most people back in the early 70s, I had no knowledge of golf psychology and the best advice available was to pull yourself together and get on with it. That was difficult and the effect didn’t last!

I’m sure that I would still be very nervous if I found myself unexpectedly playing with a US Open Champion. The difference is now that I have the means to relax myself using a variety of golf psychology techniques and really get the most from the experience. I’d probably play my normal game.

So what techniques would I use? Well the quickest technique would be to use my finger-thumb NLP Resource Anchor that would both relax me and get me into a confident and resourceful state. If I was still nervous, I could use self-hypnosis, some simple deep breathing exercises or, even better, the Balance your golf mind and body for better golf – focus on your Hara technique from an earlier blog article.

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!

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.