Rotella, sports psychologist, uses mental coaching to help Darren Clarke play better golf and win the Open

Here’s a brief article review, to help you see how with mental coaching you can play better golf. This comes from the Mail Online Article, where Bob Rotella was talking to Ian Ladyman.

No over thinking

Rotella reminded Clarke of the Vince Lombardi quote:

‘Tiredness makes cowards of us all.’

Clarke put it in his phone to recall again.

Sleepwalk time

Rotella helped Clarke with this message:

‘You’re going to have to go unconscious.’

I told him I didn’t want him to think about technique, I just wanted him to look where he wanted it to go and hit it.

He did it when he was 12 and I wanted him to do it again.

Putt it right

He had been getting more and more frustrated. He’d got tied up in knots. He said he was so bad with his putter it was affecting his whole game. ‘If I don’t hit it to a foot, I’m not going to make any birdies,’ he said. And that was putting pressure on the rest of his play.

Go with the flow

We do a million different things every day where we don’t stop and think about it. I needed him to do that…Darren has the skills – he’s a talented athlete – it was a question of freeing them up.

Never too old

They quote Satchel Paige:

“Age is all about mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

Good signs

A top athlete’s mind is very quiet and I knew he had peace of mind then. Rotella told him:

‘You are unstoppable if you are unflappable.’

Don’t panic

When he missed those putts on Saturday and didn’t get down on himself it was a good sign. When Darren is in that state of mind he can really play.
You don’t need to have the ball go in to feel good if you’ve hit a good putt. I didn’t use any techniques. I want Darren to believe in Darren, not in techniques.

Read the whole article at: Please click here

Tags: Darren Clarke, Dr. Bob Rotella, Putting Well Under Pressure, Satchell Page, Success Imagery, The Open Championship, Vince Lombardi// Category Dr. Bob Rotella, Mental Golf // Comments Off

Dave Pelz Daily Golf Tip – Understanding how you aim your putter to sink more putts

Pelz Daily Golf Tip:      8/3/2011

There are two ways golfers aim their putters: They use their eyes to visually align their putter faces along a perceived line, based on the visual positions and angles of the ball, their eyes, and the hole. This is called “visual aim”. The second way golfers aim is by reacting to the deficiencies in their putting strokes, hoping to compensate for them and balance out two errors to get a correct solution. This is compensating aim. The question is: Which aim technique do you use?

In tests run at the Pelz Golf Institute, conducted in conjunction with the University of the Pacific, we found that experienced golfers usually aim to compensate for the weaknesses in their putting stroke mechanics. That is to say, most golfers do not aim visually. Players who regularly push putts to the right (because of poor stroke mechanics) learn to “compensate” their aim to the left. This allows their putts to start more on line. Golfers who putt with pull-to-the-left strokes, always (learn to) aim to the right. These compensating aim techniques, while popular, cause most golfers to putt inconsistently, and below their native abilities.

Read more about this in Dave Pelz’s Putting Bible, Chapter 4.

Golf Lesson to Improve Your Putting

When you take a golf lesson, and you get great golf instruction have you ever taken a putting lesson?

Could your Golf Professional answer Dave Pelz putting questions posed in his tip?

1. How do you know where you are aiming the putter?
2. What is the putter aim line – “visual aim”? What is the putter’s perceived line?
3. Are you compensating your aim to balance visual and perceived line – “compensating aim”?

If you want to putt better, shoot lower scores, and improve your overall game, call Ollen.

He uses diagnostic and reporting tools like SAM Putt Lab to show you what is really going on with your putting.

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Tags: Best Putting Technique, Dave Pelz, Great Golf Instructor, Putting Well Under Pressure, SAM PuttLab// Category Dave Pelz, PGA, Putt Like the PGA Pros, Putting, Putting Experts, SAM PuttLab // Comments Off

The Boultons and the team at FocusBand (click here to learn more about FocusBand) have come up with a great product to help you understand how to master the mental game of golf. If you are looking for ways to get in the zone, these tips can help.

Get in the Zone

The Zone Defined:

Is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energised narrow focus, full involvement, and success orientated in the process of the activity.

9 Ways to better get in the Zone

1. Clear & precise goals
2. Concentration
3. Loss of the feeling of self consciousness
4. Distorted sense of time
5. Direct & immediate feedback
6. Balance between ability level and challenge
7. A sense of personal control over the activity
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding
9. Become totally absorbed in the activity, so action & awareness merges

Conscious mind – is in charge, makes decisions, questions, analyses situations and interfacing with the outside world as needed

Subconscious mind – is the worker, running of the body functions, storing all memory and providing info to the conscious mind as required

The conscious mind cannot control more than one function at a time, while the subconscious many functions all the time.

When it comes to a golf swing, the conscious mind tells the subconscious mind that it wants to make a golf swing, and what type of swing to make, but it is up to the subconscious mind to translate the intentions of the conscious mind and create the body movements for that swing

Golf Swing takes 1.5 seconds and we need to keep the conscious mind quite for this time. If the conscious mind is distracted, it will divert its attention to the distraction which will also distract the subconscious mind.

So how do we make the Conscious Mind ignore outside distractions ?

By narrowing our Focus we can keep the Conscious Mind occupied while the Subconscious Mind is controlling the swing

Check out your nearest Golf Professional with a Focusband, and click here to learn more.

Joe Bosco has a FocusBand if you want to arrange a lesson.

Tags: Get in the Zone, Mastering the Mental Game// Category Mental Golf // Comments Off

The Dave Stockton rules on best putting technique continue from the article with Guy Yocum have written about some great Rules to Make Your Six-Footers.

Here’s the fifth rule, where we will go into a bit more description of Dave Stockton’s Top 10 list for better Putting.

5. Be a painter, not a carpenter

For the good putter, the most common miss under pressure is the push. When the heat is on, there’s a tendency to hit at the ball instead of stroking through it. Like driving a nail with a hammer, the putter stops abruptly at impact. It doesn’t release to a square position, and the clubface is aimed to the right. Putt as though you’re pulling a paintbrush, your hands leading and the clubhead trailing as you stroke through.

If you want help learning to use what the Putting Experts say, so that you will putt better, call Ollen Stephens.

Tags: Best Putting Technique, Dave Stockton, Putting, Putting Well Under Pressure// Category Dave Stockton, PGA, Putt Like the PGA Pros, Putting, Putting Experts // Comments Off

Dave Stockton, Putting Rule 4: You’ve already made the putt!

The Dave Stockton rules on best putting technique continue from the article with Guy Yocum have written about some great Rules to Make Your Six-Footers.

Here’s the fourth rule, where we will go into a bit more description of Dave Stockton’s Top 10 list for better Putting.

4. You’ve already made the putt! You might have heard that it’s helpful to form a positive image of the ball going in, but you should take it further than that. Imagine the ball tracking the entire six feet, as though you’re watching a video replay of the putt dropping. This image should be so convincing that, if the putt doesn’t fall, you should be shocked. That’s how I feel when I’m putting well — I’m absolutely stunned when the ball doesn’t go in. Do everything you can to place the six-footer in the past tense. How many times have you missed a putt, raked it back for another try and instinctively knocked it in? Adopt this “second chance” mentality on your first putt.

If you have trouble imagining how to do this imagination, we recommend a fantastic mental training product from SeeItGolf.com, get more information on the golf mental training tool.

Description

Performance Training for the Mental Game featuring PGA Tour Champions Aaron Baddeley and Stan Utley. The revolutionary app Golf Digest is calling “Powerful, creative and a joy to use!”

Tags: Best Putting Technique, Dave Stockton, Golf Visualization, Great Golf Instructor, Stan Utley, Success Imagery// Category Dave Stockton, Mental Golf, Putting, Stan Utley // Comments Off

The Dave Stockton rules on best putting technique continue from the article with Guy Yocum have written about some great Rules to Make Your Six-Footers.

Here’s the third rule, where we will go into a bit more description of Dave Stockton’s Top 10 list for better Putting.

Rule 3: Stay away from dead straight

When Tiger Woods faced that 12-foot putt on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines to send the U.S. Open into a playoff, he called in his caddie, Steve Williams, to help with the read. I’ll bet Tiger saw the putt as breaking to the left but was bothered by a hunch that it might be dead straight. If there’s one thing a good putter hates, it’s an absolutely straight putt. The reason is, if you start the putt straight, you have a margin for error of only half a cup on either side. Tiger needed Steve to confirm that the putt would break left, because the entire cup would be exposed if Tiger started the ball to the right. The putt indeed broke a couple inches to the left, and Tiger snuck it in on the right edge of the hole.

If the putt for all the marbles looks straight, look again. Study the area near the hole. Remember, the ball will be rolling so slowly when it gets within two feet that even the tiniest slope will cause it to break. Try to at least favor one side.

Dave Pelz provided data to support the point Dave Stockton makes here.

Dave Pelz’s Putting Bible:

“Measurements show that about 98 percent of putts
have at least some break or curvature in their roll to
the hole. The only putts that don’t break are those that
run straight uphill or straight downhill along the pure
‘downhill’ or ‘fall line’ direction of a green. Only about
2 percent of all putts line up purely along these lines.”

If you want help learning to use what the Putting Experts say, so that you will putt better, call Ollen Stephens.

Tags: Best Putting Technique, Dave Pelz, Dave Stockton, Great Golf Instructor, Putting// Category Dave Pelz, Dave Stockton, PGA, Putt Like the PGA Pros, Putting, Putting Experts // Comments Off

Michael Bamberger, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated

wrote an interesting piece on Golf.com originally published on, December 22, 2009.

You can’t miss a half-inch putt, can you?

Tags: Best Putting Technique, Dave Stockton, Great Golf Instructor, Optimism, Putting// Category Dave Stockton, Putt Like the PGA Pros, Putting, Putting Experts // Comments Off