Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [12]
The significant uptime auditory cues that pros listen to are: the wind, the whoosh of the club on the downswing, the click of the ball coming off the club head, and their breathing. Chip Beck, one of the elite golfers on the PGA Tour, uses the sound of his spikes as he walks up to the ball. This helps him determine how big a divot he wants to take on approach shots. He combines this with the feel of the grass underfoot to make that decision.
The most important uptime kinesthetic cues of most pros are associated with the grip, stance, and swing mechanics. Lee Trevino feels his grip on the club as if he’s holding a bird in his hands. Bob Tosky, a master golf teacher, has the sensation of accelerating the clubhead speed at the bottom of the swing. Mike Davis feels increased tension in his hands and wrists when his club head is about a foot from the ball on the downswing.
Some Important Questions and Answers
Since the price of this book does not include me, I’ve anticipated some of the questions the Sherlock Holmes Exercise might inspire.
Q. What am I supposed to see, hear, and feel?
A. Whatever you do see, hear, and feel. Each one of us has developed our own set of clues that regulate our behavior; some have more clues to good performance than others. Also, some people become so involved as Sherlock, they think they’re actually on the course. So don’t go into this exercise with preconceived ideas.
Q. How come you had me change what I saw, heard, and felt so often? Why change colors to black and white and then back? Why change the tension in my muscles? Why change the volume of the sound?
A. Technically, I’m dealing with what we call sensory submodalities. Modalities are seeing, hearing, and feeling. As you know, there are also the modalities of smelling and tasting, but they’re of little consequence for our purposes. Submodalities are the refined elements of seeing, hearing, and feeling such as color, volume, and tension. Without getting too complex, mentally varying the submodalities of sight, sound, and feeling is when learning—and change—occur. Trust me.
Q. Was I in a trance?
A. You could call it that. You changed into a different state when you were asked to relive a past shot. Most athletes are in a trance—a profound altered state—when they perform superbly.
Q. Will I be learning hypnosis?
A. Actually, you know how to do it already. I’ll be telling you how to use self-hypnosis in Chapter 9.
Now that you know how to retrieve the details of past experience, let’s start playing some of my mind games so your golf game improves. If after doing the Sherlock Holmes Exercise you have difficulty with generating images in your mind, with making internal sounds, or with feeling a variety of physical sensations, you can use the questions and exercises in Appendix B to expand or refine your sensory awareness. The better that is, the easier it will be for you to apply metaskills techniques.
This chapter is your guide to making the most of your past experience. Here you’ll learn how to identify the kinds of internal mental and emotional resources you have within you to play better golf, and then how to make them automatically available for eventual application on the golf course.
As you know, golf is essentially a mental game, because there’s so much time to think in between shots. The actual act of setting up to the ball and striking it takes twenty-five to thirty seconds. If you play a round in par, it means that you’re spending about thirty minutes out of four and a half hours actively playing the game. Thirteen minutes per hole is spent walking or riding, talking, and, of course, thinking between shots.
It’s those between-shot periods that can jump up and jostle a golfer’s mind. They can tense the muscles, decrease concentration, cause forgetfulness, reduce confidence, and eventually produce inconsistent shots—unless he or she knows how to keep focused on the here and now.
What is needed, then, is a way to keep yourself in the proper frame of mind between