Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [0]
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Quotations taken from Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy, copyright © 1972 by Michael Murphy, all rights reserved, are reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.
Copyright © 1990 by Marlin M. Mackenzie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79673-8
v3.1
To my brother,
Ken, for auld lang syne.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1 • The Fundamentals
1 Teeing It Up
2 The Sherlock Holmes Exercise: Discover How Your Mind Regulates Your Golf Shots
3 Anchoring: Tapping Your Inner Resources
Part 2 • Metaskills Techniques
4 Just-Right State: Concentration
5 Just-Right State: Confidence
6 Just-Right State: The “Zone”
7 The Pro Within: Your Instructional Mind
8 Swing Effort: The Short Game
9 Self-hypnosis: Tapping the Power of Your Unconscious Mind
10 Mind and Body: Generating Energy, Controlling Pain, and Hastening Healing
11 The 19th Hole … and Beyond
Selected References: Neuro-Linguistic
Programming
Appendix A Uptime Cues
Appendix B Sensory Awareness
Appendix C Guide to Selecting Metaskills
Techniques
Lots of people shared directly and indirectly in the development of this book—athletes from many sports, my students, my agent, my collaborating author, my editor, and most of all my wife, Edna.
Several dozen outstanding golfers were exceedingly helpful because they allowed me to rummage around in their brains to find out how their minds work. And they provided the true test of the validity of my techniques when they actually performed better after using them.
My graduate students at Teachers College, Columbia University, contributed as they constantly challenged me to clearly describe and justify what I did with my clients. Their analytical minds and healthy skepticism enabled me to refine and expand my techniques.
My collaborator, Ken Denlinger, a good golfer in his own right, was a constant source of humor, understanding, encouragement, practicality, and skepticism.
My agent, Faith Hornby Hamlin, had the insight and confidence to recognize that my earliest draft of a book for athletes in general contained the seeds of a publishable book; and she obviously convinced others to agree with her.
My editor, Jody Rein, with the force of her logical analysis and organization, and with her interest in the uniqueness of my approach, guided my collaborator and me in transforming our original manuscript into a better organized and more succinct piece of work.
Edna, my wife and companion on and off the golf course, deserves a hearty hug and unmeasurable thanks for her emotional support and for her hours of careful editing of draft after draft after draft of this book. She demanded clarity, logic, and good grammar without imposing upon me her own ideas about competition and play, about hitting a golf ball, or about mental processes.
To all of these people I say “Thanks.” To the golfers among them, I say “Have a good time, and hit ’em long and straight. ”
MMM
Washingtonville, New York
July 1989
People pay dearly to play golf. They wear the most expensive shoes in their closet, and they kill grass with implements that can run over a thousand dollars a set. Some pay a small fortune to determine where to play golf—and with whom. At those prices the civilized sport becomes an investment. Yet nearly all golfers, from humble hackers to elite touring pros, in dogged pursuit of enjoyment—and par—rarely invest as much as a thought on what will help them more than any hunk of high-tech equipment:
Their own minds.
I propose to change that. In this book