Introduction
You know you have the ability to play better golf:
You work hard on the quality of your skills
You work hard on the quality of your shots
You work hard on your strategy and shot selection
However…
Your “on course” results do not reflect the work you have put in.
You suspect that your Mental Fitness level is holding you back.
But…
You have never trained your Mental Fitness before and you are not sure “how” or “what” to do.
And…
You want to make sure the process you use gives you maximum results in the minimum amount of time.
KEEP READING.
This article explores the research proven and golfer tested “3 Essential Keys” to making your Mental Fitness Training Program for Golf a Game Changer.
Why Strengthen Mental Fitness?
Before we explore the “3 Keys” let’s take a quick look at why Mental Fitness training is important to your success on the course.
Your performance on the course is dependent on your level of Fitness in two areas:
Skill Fitness – the quality of your physical skills (swing/short game/putting)
Mental Fitness – the quality of your mental skills (managing focus/emotions/pressure)
Most golfers spend ALL their time working on Skill Fitness.
Skill Fitness is important.
It gives you the “potential” to execute improved Shot Quality determined by physical movement patterns and the resulting ball flight dynamics.
Why only “potential”?
Because “Access” to optimum Skill Fitness and is only achievable when specific “Mental Fitness” KPI’s are met.
The Mental Fitness KPI’s are:
Presence Access
Emotion Management
Energy Management
Why are “Mental Fitness” KPI’s important?
Because neuroscience research studies over the last 50 years have definitively proven that all Physical Skills (learned movement patterns) are stored in your mind. Research has also definitively proven Physical Skills are Triggered in your Mind. More specifically, Triggered by a specific "Mental State".
Which means that “Access” to optimum Skill Fitness and Shot Quality is determined by your “Access” to the optimum “Mental State” that triggers Skills (learned movement patterns) NOT by Muscle Memory.
Reliance on Muscle Memory causes Shot quality to fluctuate significantly (experienced as inconsistency and low quality under pressure). Extensively trained and seemingly repeatable Skills (learned movement patterns) and thus Shot Quality, can be severely inhibited/interfered with when the essential “Mental Fitness” KPI’s cannot be Accessed.
This is why even the best touring professionals can still hit “low quality” shots when experiencing Competitive pressure, emotions, and energy.
The 3 Keys
In my decades of helping golfers I have used a wide variety of tools and exercises to help them strengthen their Mental Fitness:
Meditation
Mindful movement
Breathing Exercises
Self-Belief Strengtheners
Golf Specific Awareness Exercises
There are many, many more and all have proven extremely helpful depending on the individual and the situation.
However…
The most important Keys to the success of Mental Fitness training for Golf are “Process Principles” NOT the exercises themselves.
Here are the 3 “Process Principles” I have found to be most effective on the Mental Fitness improvement process:
Success Progressions
Rewiring old patterns effectively requires time, energy, and determination.
It is also helpful to utilize tested and proven methodology.
Success Progressions are a series of small challenges tuned to a specific goal.
Essentially, they are a series of small achievable goals specifically designed and timed to lead to a bigger long-term goal.
Big Goals are important for long term motivation but can get very frustrating when setbacks occur or the process of achieving the goal takes too long.
Setting Smaller Goals on the way to the Big Goal provides daily feelings of achievement and the dopamine (feel good neurochemical) surges that accompany the Small Goal achievement
Mindset Matters
Think of Mindset as the background music during the round of golf.
The background music can motivate and maximize positivity OR the background music can distract and decrease the quality of play.
Here a few of the key Mindset choices golfers can make:
Success v Learn (as opposed to Success v Fail)
Shot v Score (focus on each shot and the score will take care of itself)
Play v Perform (joy v work)
Process v Results
Presence v Pressure
Love the Challenge v Fear the Outcome
If you want to get more details on these Mindsets feel free to reach out.
Trackable is Trainable
Accurate tracking of KPI's is a critical part of the improvement process.
Wearables (ex. heart rate monitors/brain wave monitors) are highly effective and continue to get more convenient.
However, my personal favorite is Mental Game Scorecards.
You can track:
Focus Clarity
Commitment Level
Emotion Management
Pressure Management
Just like you would track:
Fairways
Greens
Proximity
Putts
You can use any number of different ranking systems for the tracking:
Plus/Minus
5 Stars
ABCDF
0 -100 %
The assessments can be tracked each shot, each hole or each round as need be.
The key is to have data that tracks your improvement process so you can reward yourself for your achievements and make adjustments if the improvements do not match your work rate.
Closing
If you would like more in depth information on Mental Fitness Training for Golf make sure to check out my white paper... click here.
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