The US Open Can Have A Significant Effect On Your Game!

April 12th, 2010 by articles

What does the US Open have to do with your game? Well, if you want to play well under stress it should have everything to do with it. When you go to the driving range to work on your swing and pound ball after ball it’s only one small part of practise. 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 really you should be practising what is essential for you to play at your best. Your mental game of golf requires equal awareness.

To play well with pressure you must practice with pressure. When it counts the most and you need to pull off a great shot the stress of the moment you have imposed on yourself increases 10 fold for some golfers. The trial by fire approach to improving your mental game toughness and performing under pressure is a haphazard method. Yet it’s the only method that most amateur golfers know.

By entering more competitions and tournaments they have the false notion that this is going to improve their mental game and concentration skills. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work that way. So what do you think is the typical out come by following this method ? Most players don’t perform to their own potential in the key moments when everything is on the line because they lack the mental game training.

Then they merely chalk it up to experience and hope to get in the position to win again. They call this approach the natural way. Simply get in position as many times as possible and you’re bound to win. This is a very hit and miss mental game strategy. Although the odds are if you are in position enough times sooner or later you are going to win.

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. What the problem is; it’s a lack of mental game preparedness . You have built a mindset of losing in your subconscious mind around not performing well under pressure. It will drive your behaviour (your thought processes and the swings you make under stress). You will automatically duplicate the experience of losing that you are accustomed to.

This a tough pill to swallow but if you ever want to become more than just a mediocre golfer then mental game training can save you months, and even years for some golfers, of pointless inner chaos around pressure, performance anxiety, competitive stress and its influence on your game . So what if you could simulate the US Open championship pressure when you practise and then were able to take that mindset out to the course when you play?

What if your preparation included a mental game imagery process that mirrored any and every pressure filled setting you might face and included 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? I believe you most certainly would be!

By feeling with your mind’s eye, not simply seeing, you can undergo the exact pressure you’ll face in a tournament . Your unconscious mind will absorb these sessions and add them to your mental game library and integrate them into your golfing self image. They become real situations in your subconscious. With this methodology you are providing your mind and body with sensory specific information about what pressure is to you and how to perform when it’s present .

This is in fact preparing your mind and body to react in a desire manner when the anxiety of competition is present. Practise your mental game by imagining you are in the US Open and at the range hitting balls. Try to make every shot count, give yourself only one chance to hit your desired target. Create a scoring system to examine how well you do when practising 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 speed up your mental game progress and begin to play well under pressure then it’s critical you simulate pressure in your practice routine. How else are you going to prepare for the inevitable? Do you really want to rely on the time worn routine 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 needed?

Grab a hold of your potential and start to develop a dependable mental game. Your overall mindset on the course, your mental game, 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. You will be absolutely amazed at how all the little distractions and rubs of the green that used to get under your skin and derail you don’t even enter your mind anymore.