Golf News, Tips and Tricks

By James Hau
   
  
In Golf My Way, Jack Nicklaus writes of the importance he places on visualizing the target and the shot before hitting it:

” I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of  it in my head. It is like  a color movie. 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: its 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 run the previous images into reality. Only at the end of this short, private, Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and set up the ball.”

      Much has been written on the subject of visualization and mental rehearsal. These techniques can have a powerful effect on performance, but many people , including myself , do not see pictures distinctly when they visualize. The primary advantage to targeting in this way is that it can give yourself a clear goal in a language it understands: imagery.  Before putting, to tell yourself in words
that you want the ball to into the hole is much less effective than actually picturing the ball doing so. You will get the best results if you think of it as a way of communicating a request to Self 2. If you make it in an order in the form of a picture from Self 1 to self 2, you will induce doubt, and then you will try to accomplish what you visualized; probably you won’t get the results you visualized, and you will soon abandon the technique.
       It is the most important issue in visualization, using it to make a demand on Self 2, or as a gimmick, undermines trust in Self 2, and your proper relationship to it. Asking Self 2 by offering an image of the results you want is very different from demanding them, and affects the success of the technique as well as your general state.
When visualizing the target, it is best to hold the image in your mind throughout the swing. If you were shooting an arrow, throwing a baseball or bowling, your eye would constantly be focused on the target. Since this is impossible with the golf swing, the best one can do is to “remember” the target constantly. “Remembering” does not mean trying to steer the swing; it simply means holding the position of the target as vividly as possible in your mind so that Self 2 can direct the swing.

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By James Hau

As you go along the road of learning about golf, you will find yourself one day saying , ” I’ ve got the secret now.”  You must have said those words many times after taking a lesson or reading or viewing some instructional material.  It is clear that the search for the secret is what binds golfers together , as everyone goes out looking to solve the big riddle with one change, one tip, one last alteration to make things just right.  What about these secrets ? Is there such a thing ?   Should you try to find a secret to your swing ?

I think golfers should indeed search for the secret while recognizing that the secret differs from golfer to golfer and changes over time, even for the same golfer.  I define a secret as a key or cue that brings together the parts of your game in the right way.  The real secret is to identify what the key is for you at a given point in time.  You will need to reidentify what will help you the most as your game changes. Thinking about a full extension on the backswing may have been the key at some point, but now it might be thinking about the right hip turn. Down the road it might be something entirely different.  This is also true for the best players on the pro tours.

What causes a swing tip to work great for one round, or for that matter, for one hole, then to go away and leave you swinging as poorly as ever ? This is one of the mysteries of the game.  It may be because of fatigue, boredom, lack of opportunity to practice or play, or inattention to grip, setup or posture.  Or you simply may be overdoing the secret that worked in the first place.

One of the nineteenth-century German philosopher , Johann Herbart, never played golf but he may have had a possible explanation for the short life of secrets.  Herbart explained that people bring to each situation in life an “apperceptive mass “  - an accumulation of all our past experiences.  This apperceptive mass is full of our old and new ideas, and changes as we learn new things.  As our apperceptive mass changes, we see things differently. Take the case of re-reading a novel or textbook. You might come across passages or paragraphs that you highlighted or underlined the first time you read the book. Upon rereading it, you may be puzzled why you chose those certain passages to highlight and why you did not emphasize others.  According to Herbart’t theory, your apperceptive mass has changed between the first and second times you read the book.

In golf , our apperceptive mass changes from day to day for golfer of all skill levels. Some day, the keys to a good round won’t lie on the mechanical swing side, but on the mental side. Other days for the same player,it might be a very mechanical swing key.  The secret may be in the setup position , for instance.

The best way to manage your golfing secrets is to recognize that your apperceptive mass changes from day to day and to know where to search for your secrets. The simplest and best way is to jot down in a notebook your given thoughts on a day when your swing worked well.  This can be your guide to refer to and may save you a lot of frustration, since there is so much to learn that you end up forgetting a lot of it and it ends up seeming new again, which in turn can make it more difficult to grasp.

To give yourself a better chance of finding the secret, come up with several keys for the mental side, the setup and the swing. Write them down , and  when you set out to find them again, you will at least know where to turn.  You will have put yet a little more order in your search to learn golf, a search that will continue as long as you play the game. Read the rest of this entry »

By James Hau

Why do you even try to play golf ?  No doubt every golfer has tried to answer that question while struggling to finish a round when nothing seemed to be going right. Perhaps it was in the hotel corridor and you kept getting strange glances as you used the hallway’s mirrors to check your position at the top of your backswing.  Don’t worry - there was probably a fellow golfer standing there knowing exactly how you felt.

Golfers are members of a fraternity of millions. We have our own reasons for paying all that money for a club membership or greens fees, or for the privilege of being tutored by an esteemed teaching professional  or for the right to hit another bucket of range balls that look like they should have been taken out of circulation when Jack Nicklaus still wear a crew cut.

The game gets its hooks into us , all right. Before you can get your thoughts focused the right way, you need to get your minds off golf.  One tour player was a particularly tough case in this regard. He seemed never to be able to get his mind off golf.  It was his life. He thought about the game morning, noon and night and was grinding himself into mental and physical exhaustion.  I suggested he try a hobby - to find some diversion.  I had about given up hope that he would, then one day I got a call from him

His voice was as excited as I have ever heard about it.  I see what you meant.  I bought some watercolors the other day and I have been painting away.  “That’s great”  I replied.  “What have you been painting?” Golf course landscapes,” he said . I was stuck for an answer.

Why do golfers get hooked on the game ?  What draws people to golf so that they are unable or at the least unwilling - to let go ?

Golf is an endeavour that offers intermittent reinforcement. That is, its rewards don’t come with every shot, every hole, or even every round.  And psychological research has found that behaviours that are acquired on the basis of intermittent reinforcement are the behaviours  most resistant to extinction.  Playing the slot machines or smoking cigarettes are other examples. The slots dont pay off after every pull of the lever, of course, and that is what keeps the customers coming back for more. It is the anticipation of “the hit”.  A cigarette smoker does not enjoy every smoke , but somewhere down the line, after a meal ,or with a drink, he knows that one will taste very good. The “hit” and the good cigarette are remembered - the losses and the bad cigarettes are forgetten.

Golf is no different. You are rewarded with the feelings of pride, accomplishment and joy when you strike the solid drive or hole the snaking twenty-footer.  But not every shot goes your way, so you are constantly looking , and waiting, for the intermittent reinforcement.  It is a powerful concept.

For people who have achieved a high level in their everyday lives, golf can be an addictive sport. High achievers love activities that are difficult to master, and golf is certainly one of those. ” You can never own the secret of golf”  says former PGA champion Dave Marr.  ” You just try to borrow it for periods of time”  Unlike bowling, golf’s only “perfect game” exists in a golfer’s dreams. Even after extremely successful rounds, golfers can reflect on what might have been. Al Geiberger and Chip Beck , who hold the PGA Tour scoring record with 59s - Beck’s was shot in 1991 - still probably left the scoring tent considering the shot that got away.

In other words, golf is always an unfinished task.  Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, and even Nicklaus have never completed golf. There is always more to learn, more to experience, more challenges  to be met.  It is interesting that we speak of rounds of golf, since true rounds have no beginnings or ends. This is how avid golfers view it. Since we never complete golf, we are always anxious to return to the course for another round. Our everyday life is an interruption that intrudes on our golf games.

Golf, however , is made difficult because it consists of two very separate mental components.  The first is skill acquisition, the second is playing the game.  The kind of personality that makes it easier for you to succeed at the former often makes it harder for you to excel at the latter. Learning how to hit pure, technically correct 5-iron shots with the proper trajectory, for instance, is a requisite to being a good ball-striker, but playing the game well demands a different approach. The perfectionistic attitude that lets you stay on the  practice tee for hours and concentrate on learning how to hit that 5-iron can often get in your way on the course.  Likewise, if you live by a “let it happen ” philosophy, which can help you as you play the game, it may not be beneficial during practice sessions.  You need to be aware of these factors and your own personality in this regards.

Understand why Tiger has the greatest golf mind ever and how this can benefit your game, lower your scores and cut your handicap. How to control your mind to allow you to control the ball. Golf psychology simplified to assist your game.