Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [11]
When Bill Burgess, 1987 Nissan Classic Champion and head club professional at Areola Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, played investigator, he found he had an image of strings that connect his ball with the target. He described it “as if there were strings out there, lines. And it felt like everything matched up to the lines, so all I had to do was swing the club. I can’t always do it. But when I can get the strings and feel the lines, I always hit good shots.”
All pros that I’ve talked to imagine the actual trajectory they want the ball to follow before striking it. They know precisely where they want the ball to come to rest, either in the fairway, or in the hole on putts.
What the Pros Hear—the Internal As
The internal auditory information of professional golfers almost always consists of short, positive statements or commands. Peter Jacobsen routinely says to himself, “Knock it close.” David Graham says, “Rhythm,” as he approaches the ball, and he repeats the phrase “Good shot” throughout his backswing.
Mike Davis, a colleague of Bill Burgess at Areola, quickly calls off in his mind a checklist of the key elements of his setup and swing as a part of his preshot mental routine. Mike Sparks, an assistant pro at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey, listens to music in his head when he’s in his best playing mood.
“I never realized it,” he said, “but when I replayed my shot and heard what was in my head, I learned I sing a song to myself. Before I hit shots, I get in a mode where I kind of do my own deal and don’t pay attention to people. Maybe it’s a tune I’ve heard in the car on the way to the course that day.”
Bill Loeffler, a former PGA Tour professional, and Mike McCullough, currently on tour, both “hear” silence as a positive indication that they’re ready to hit the ball well.
What the Pros Feel—the Internal Ks
The way golfers feel emotionally on the inside is absolutely crucial for playing golf consistently well. As you might expect, Sherlock Holmes revealed that the emotional state most conducive for good play varies from person to person and from time to time. Mike Davis says he feels relaxed when he plays well. Bill Burgess says, “Instead of feeling relaxed like Mike, I feel slightly juiced up in my legs and arms. When I get turned up a notch, I really play better. ”
Another touring craftsman, George Burns, says, “I have a feeling of freedom in my chest, belly, arms, and shoulders when I’m on my game.” And Bill Adams, head pro at Ridgewood, has “a feeling of eagerness” in his forearms that lets him know that it’s time to putt, and a “loosey-goosey feeling” when he’s ready to chip.
Identifying the just-right states—the emotional K’s—for hitting various golf shots is perhaps the most important set of internal clues that you can identify; and the ability to quickly generate that state at will is undoubtedly the most important skill you can learn. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are devoted to this important process.
External, or “Uptime” Cues
The kinds of sensory cues that pros identified while doing the Sherlock Holmes Exercise have been, up to this point, “internal” cues—what they saw, heard, and felt inside of themselves; I refer to them as “downtime” cues. Now I want to briefly identify what the pros saw, heard, and felt on the outside—the important sensations that come directly from the environment or are associated directly with the movements that control their golf swings. As you might expect, I refer to these environmental and movement sensations as “uptime” cues. An extensive list of what good golfers consider to be the most important “uptime” cues can be found in Appendix A.
Uptime visual cues that pros attend to are familiar to you, I’m sure, because most golfers are sensitive to them. They include: location of the target and intervening hazards, out-of-bounds markers, contours of the fairway and green, alignment of the body with