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.

You’ve probably heard about Phil’s putting woes and his comments about how "I’ve hit the ball so well and yet my scores haven’t reflected that." You’ve probably also heard about how "Bones" Mackay, Phil’s longstanding caddie, urged him to get help the week before the Tour Championship from Dave Stockton, one of the best putters in golf and twice a major winner. As if those weren’t sufficient reasons, Stockton also putts a bit like Phil does when he’s at his best.

So what major flaws did Dave Stockton notice in Phil’s putting stroke and what major changes did he prescribe? You’d expect them to be fairly severe given Phil’s recent comments about the inconsistent putting that has plagued him off and on over the last two years. He’s also talked about how his poor putting has detracted from the progress Butch Harman’s been making with his swing over the same period.

Well, Phil described the change in an interview as a "minor tweak" and went on to say "No, it’s very minor. It’s very minor. But [my] hands are back ahead like I used to putt, and the ball is just rolling much better." In another interview, he talked about Dave Stockton’s comments just "reaffirming the way I’ve putted since I was a kid."

So what golf psychology lessons can we learn from that then, Andrew, I hear you say? Well first of all, it confirms that if you’ve hit a particular shot well in the past, then you already unconsciously know how to hit it that well again – without changing your technique. All you need to do is to vividly recall one of those earlier successful shots and allow your unconscious golf mind to get on with the job as you get back into your comfort zone. I’d certainly include this type of visualisation in your pre-shot routine.

All that probably happened to Phil was he missed a few putts, lost his confidence and started to fear putting rather than enjoying the challenge. When that happens with any part of our golf game, we stop enjoying ourselves as much as we did and we start consciously analysing things. It doesn’t take too long before we start thinking there’s something drastically wrong with our swing or putting stroke and we start changing things, even though we seemed to have a perfectly effective method before.

This doesn’t just happen over a long period of time. For many of us it can happen in the middle of a round. Have you ever had the experience of playing a series of shots quite well and then hitting a bad shot, maybe a big slice? Did you badly pull or hook the next shot? If you did, you probably consciously thought you needed to make a swing correction, despite already knowing how to hit the ball quite well unconsciously. Well, you did say that you’d hit a series shots quite well, didn’t you.

Another golf psychology lesson was written on Phil Mickelson’s face all day on Sunday, not just when he won. He was clearly enjoying himself immensely, even before he started scoring well. After the round, he commented that, "Today was a lot of fun" and that’s not the way he’s been talking in recent weeks. Isn’t it odd how golfers seem to play so much better when they’re enjoying themselves, even if some, like a certain future Ryder Cup captain, have a hard time convincing us of that fact.