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How to improve your mental and emotional strength on the golf course

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About 6 months ago, a young, aspiring golfer was referred to me. He was just turning pro and having a difficult time making the transition from amateur to professional golf. The primary problem was he didn’t have some of the key fundamentals and skills to move forward and develop as a player. He was struggling with the transition and the day-to-day responsibilities of a professional golfer, and he did not have the tools to maximize his capabilities: the achievement factor. So, no fun and no results.

With the pressures of professional golf, financial burdens and expectations, he was considering quitting and starting something new… or being proactive and doing something about it. Fast forward 6 months. A mental/emotional development process helped him develop the critical skills he needed to both achieve his targets, put him on the right path, bring a great attitude to the game, and enjoy his golf.

From the Player’s Dad: “This has been the difference. Adding some structure in his mental game was the key to bring it together and put things on the right track. He is confident, has a real plan, and he’s excited to continue the journey with new skills.”

Why Mental/Emotional High Performance Should Be Important to You

Working in high-performance sports everyday, I see the emerging trend to put more emphasis on the mental and emotional game as the golf industry approaches limits in technical, physical, and equipment advancement. The next frontiers are in proactive mental/emotional development and the fuel factor, maximizing the value of nutrition.

Forward-thinking modern players like Jordan Spieth understand the importance of mental/emotional performance development. Listen to any of his interviews and you’ll hear consistent references to all key areas of mental/emotional performance. The Champion Golfer of the Year said it well after winning The Open in July:

“You have to conquer the golf course first and foremost,” Spieth said. “You also have to conquer yourself, your own emotions, you have to win the mental battle with yourself.”

As the physical gap between players continually closes, golfers will need a stronger mental and emotional framework. “The edge” will be found in the mental/emotional component and other key areas like nutrition.

There are many benefits to developing your mental/emotional game. Here are a just a few benefits that you might not have considered:

1. Build self-awareness. Working with the world’s leading athletes everyday, one of the critical keys to sustainable high performance is the competency of self-awareness. When we assess athletes at all levels, results show that eight out of 10 performers do not have an adequate level of self-awareness to be a high performer. It therefore must be developed for a golfer to maximize his or her abilities. Development of self-awareness through golf will also enable high performance in other areas of your life.

2. Build confidence. What is confidence? How do you build it? How do you keep it? A great mental/emotional development plan will ensure you understand confidence and you bring it with you every time you step on the course.

3. Develop a clear path forward. A detailed, concise player plan is required, including a vision for your golf career and a plan in place to reach your targets. Most players have no plan, no fundamental structure, no defined path to reach targets. For that reason, most get lost along the way and don’t reach targets.

4. Become aware of your emotion. Human beings are emotional. Often your emotions direct you and pull you in a variety of directions. Awareness and regulation of emotions is a key element in mental/emotional high performance development. With development, emotions can be channeled in the right direction and used to maximize enjoyment and achievement.

5. Build focus. We live in a world of distraction: phones, social media, big events, expectations. In order to maximize abilities, a level of mindfulness must be developed to center the focus on what’s important. Mental/emotional high performance development builds a new level of focus.

6. Enjoy the game! The ultimate result of the time you spend in golf is you enjoy yourself and have fun. Many players lose perspective of the primary reasons for playing and get caught up in traps that don’t allow them to fully enjoy the sport they love.

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So what are you waiting for?

There are golfers all over the world who have technical and physical talent, but they never reach their targets or gain full enjoyment from the sport. Be like proactive players on the PGA Tour who embrace the value of mental and emotional development, building their mental and emotional muscles to both have more fun and achieve more.

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John Haime is the President of New Edge Performance. He's a Human Performance Coach who prepares performers to be the their best by helping them tap into the elusive 10 percent of their abilities that will get them to the top. This is something that anyone with a goal craves, and John Haime knows how to get performers there. John closes the gap for performers in sports and business by taking them from where they currently are to where they want to go.  The best in the world trust John. They choose him because he doesn’t just talk about the world of high performance – he has lived it and lives in it everyday. He is a former Tournament Professional Golfer with professional wins. He has a best-selling book, “You are a Contender,” which is widely read by world-class athletes, coaches and business performers.  He has worked around the globe for some of the world’s leading companies. Athlete clients include performers who regularly rank in the Top-50 in their respective sports. John has the rare ability to work as seamlessly in the world of professional sports as he does in the world of corporate performance. His primary ambition writing for GolfWRX is to help you become the golfer you'd like to be. See www.johnhaime.com for more. Email: [email protected]

18 Comments

18 Comments

  1. Vegas Bullet Dodger

    Oct 5, 2017 at 5:36 pm

    Got to say SteveK is on to something….
    Look at the nba

    • Demar

      Oct 5, 2017 at 7:35 pm

      Very low IQ multi-millionaires…. laughing at the tribal honking cracker fans paying to watch and fantasize about jumping and scoring and big donging.

  2. Vegas Bullet Dodger

    Oct 5, 2017 at 5:31 pm

    Bring something to eat and stay hydrated

  3. Dude

    Oct 4, 2017 at 9:21 pm

    This was covered in the movie, Happy Gilmore. Spoiler Alert:

    Chubby takes Happy to the miniature golf course so that he can find his “happy” place. As a result, Happy was able to overcome the untimely passing of Chubbs, the fact that his Grandma’s house was being taken away, and win the tour championship.

  4. John Haime

    Oct 4, 2017 at 5:49 pm

    Hi Jake – “how” is a process and individual for everyone. For example – to acquire self-awareness – many pieces need to be looked at – strengths, limitations, triggers, values, purpose etc. This article is a first step to create awareness – you have options to get customized “hows”. Thanks for the great comment!

    • SteveK

      Oct 5, 2017 at 12:52 am

      How about my cogent comment? Why do top amateur and pro golfers have an emotional/mental deficiency after playing golf starting from the tender ages of 4-6 y.o.? Is it a parental problem that haunts these emotionally/mentally challenged athletes? Surely you must determine the root causes before you can prescribe a remedy.

      • John Haime

        Oct 5, 2017 at 8:06 am

        Hi Steve,

        Re – you first comment. When I see “people who play golf for a living have a low IQ” – I stop reading and won’t take time for statements with no basis of fact and are insulting to professional golfers.

        In your second question – you are pointing out the entire problem. Almost everyone is reactive – waiting for things to break before “fixing” it. The solution is a proactive approach to develop the mental/emotional skills in the first place – just like you might develop the basic fundamentals of the golf swing. And yes, if the athlete does not have these fundamentals, then they are open to issues and getting in their own way – and the root cause is the starting point. Thanks!

        • Steve K

          Oct 5, 2017 at 11:13 am

          IQ tests are a test of broad intellectual capacity and most professional athletes do not have a high IQ because the game of golf and most other sports does not require such intellect.
          Athletes are specialized people who function athletically and intellectually in their particular sport. They don’t require a high IQ and the point I was making that their mental and emotional development is stunted by a lower intellectual level.
          Nothing wrong with that observation…. and you have taken my statement out of context where I say “… it’s a masochistic endeavor requiring an obsessive-compulsive mentality and a huge commitment to solo practice.”
          Golfers are no great minds as with most top athletes. They only live for their sport. Of course there are some exceptions that I am not aware of. In general they are fine people with a specialized brain power that may not include mental and emotional strength. “IQ” and “EQ” (Emotional Quotient). That’s a likely ‘root cause’ of the problem.
          Don’t let political correctness blind you to the ‘root’ causes of psychological problems in top immature athletes.

  5. SteveK

    Oct 4, 2017 at 11:21 am

    Improving mental and emotional strength is in essence a maturation process. Children have low mental strength and emotional control because they are creatures of instinct and feeelings. They grow out of their childish mentality by the age of 40!
    People who play golf for a living are probably low IQ (85-90) people because golf is not intellectually challenging…. it’s a masochistic endeavor requiring an obsessive-compulsive mentality and a huge commitment to solo practice.
    Sure, golf is a specialization and pro golfers have reached the top of the specialization physically. Was it Bobby Jones who said that golf is played within the 5 1/2 inches between the ears? Some pro golfers do mature and they play with great mental and emotional strength. Most don’t.
    As for recreational golfers, they are simply children seeking fun on the golf course with their incompetence and equally incompetent buddies. Geerheads are an example of the immaturity of golfers who revel in the artistic shapes and subjective feel of new model golf clubs. The OEMs know how to market their toys to customers with weak mental and emotional conditions.
    There is a child within every adult male… and I believe somebody wrote a pop-psychology book on that topic.

    • SteveKisadummy

      Oct 4, 2017 at 3:45 pm

      Congratulations on writing the dumbest comment of the year. 10 months into the rear and we have a runaway winner. I had though I had seen it all but you have shot as low as possible and hit a bulls eye. You are a true meatball.

      • SteveK

        Oct 5, 2017 at 12:46 am

        And you fall into the category of 85 – 90 IQ and it’s obvious my comments cause you much personal anguish … and I am a much smarter ‘meatball’.

      • Steve K

        Oct 5, 2017 at 11:06 am

        No, my comments are cogent and valid, and they explain the cause of low mental and emotional strength in top athletes … people who don’t need a high IQ to function at a high athletic level.
        Not only is their IQ generally low, their “EQ” Emotional Quotient is low. Athletes live for their sport and themselves as performers. This is well known in psychological circles.
        Stop with your political correctness that protects the feelings of those on this ‘safe space’ WITB forum.

  6. Jake

    Oct 4, 2017 at 10:47 am

    Where is the how? This is what you need to do. How to do those things is missing.

    • Think or Thwim

      Oct 5, 2017 at 12:00 pm

      If you recognize your mental and emotional problems playing golf visit a professional sports psychologist, not somebody who claims to be competent to diagnose problems that may have their roots in a medical condition. e.g. hormonal imbalance.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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