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Do You Choke Under Pressure in Your Golf Game?
Wade Pearse
What does the US Open have to do with your game? Well, if
you want to play well under pressure it should have
everything to do with it.
When you practice simply focusing on your swing and blasting
balls at the range this is only one small aspect to true practice.
You are using the practice makes perfect formula. Yet
if you've golfed for any length of time you know this simply
isn't true: practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes
permanent. So practice what is really necessary to play
at your peak.
Your mental game requires equal attention. To play well with
pressure you must practice with pressure. When
the chips are down and you need to hit the shot of your life,
the self imposed pressure experienced increases 10 fold for
most players.
The trial by fire approach to improving your mental toughness
and performing under pressure is a haphazard method. Yet this
is all most people know. They enter more tournaments and matches
with the hopes that by being in more events they will "acquire"
the mental toughness and concentration skills to deal with
the pressure.
What do you see happen most of the time with this typical
approach? Most players don't perform to their own potential
in the key moments when everything is on the line. Then they
merely chalk it up to experience and hope to get in the position
to win again. This strategy, if you can call it one, is
the "natural" way. Simply get in contention enough times and
you're bound to win.
Well this might be true, since a player will win eventually
if they give themselves enough chances. Yet I am going to
say something few, if any, coaches would say. For one reason
they might lack this critical insight, and for another it's
some serious tough love. Not the warm fuzzies that keep us
feeling good about an area of our game that is in serious
need of attention.
I want to submit to you that the more times you are in contention
and don't win that what you are doing is increasing the likelihood
of losing again, not of making winning easier. Why
is this?
Because the negative associations that are stacked in your
unconscious mind around not performing well under pressure
will drive your behaviour (your thought processes and your
the swings you make under pressure). You will unconsciously
reproduce the experience of losing that you are accustomed
to.
This a tough pill to swallow but if you want real and lasting
change then mental preparation can save you months,
and even years for some people, of needless inner turmoil
around pressure, performance anxiety/competitive stress and
its influence on your game.
Now what if you could recreate the pressure of the US Open
in your practice sessions and then go and play with this mindset?
What if your practice included a mental imagery process
that mirrored any and every pressure filled situation you
might face and incorporated it into your practice routine?
Do you think you would be perhaps a step or two ahead of your
average player with the "natural" approach? You most certainly
will. Top Olympic athletes habituate mental imagery into every
practice session and during their pre-event preparation.
By "feeling" with your mind's eye, not simply "seeing", you
can experience the exact pressure you'll face in a tournament.
Your unconscious mind will absorb these sessions and add them
to your mental library and integrate them into your golfing
self image. These become real events to your mind.
With this approach you are providing your mind and body with
sensory specific information about what pressure is to you
and how to perform when it is present. You are, in very real
terms, preparing your mind/body to act and perform
in a desired way when under pressure.
So imagine you are in the US Open when at the range hitting
balls. Give yourself only one shot to hit your desired
target. Create a scoring system to monitor how well you perform
this way. Increase the pressure by taking only one drive,
then one iron, then a chip shot if you miss your imagined
green with your approach shot. Pay attention to how well you
perform this way.
If you want to accelerate your mental game progress and begin
to perform well under pressure then it's imperative you simulate
pressure in your practice sessions. How else are you going
to prepare for the inevitable?
Do you honestly want to rely on the time worn method of entering
more and more tournaments and matches with the hopes of getting
used to it? How much time money are you prepared to lose before
you make the changes necessary?
Take hold of your potential by developing a rock solid mental
game. Your overall mindset on the course, your mental toughness,
your sense of clarity and inner confidence under the gun,
and a list of other benefits will enter your game. Not just
occasionally but for a lifetime.
Wade Pearse is a Peak Performance Coach who spent
7 years applying the most advanced mental game strategies
in golf with his clients and in his own game with phenomenal
results. Visit his website. It is filled with mental game
resources you can use in your game right away. He has a mental
game ezine and a daily blog you can subscribe to
Wade Pearse
Keeping you on target!
Visit the website now =>
Golf
Mental Game
Article Source: http://www.amazines.com/
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