Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [22]
MECHANICAL JUST-RIGHT ANCHOR
Practice.
Practice some more.
When executing a practice shot, let an image pop into your mind that represents the way you want the entire swing or parts of it to look (e.g., take-away, wrist action, weight shifts, et cetera).
Hit several balls to determine if the shot stays fine with that spontaneous image.
Reinforce that V-anchor by hitting three or four of those particular shots several times a week for a week or two.
Reinforce the V-anchor, off the course, several times a day for about a week. Visualize door hinges, airplanes, or whatever, at home or the office. If anyone should inquire about the smile on your face, hand him this book.
After completing step 6, let your unconscious mind take over. Do nothing more.
A common desired outcome for all golfers is to have confidence that they can execute the shot facing them at the moment. It’s the same as the common desire for all humans to catch the next available whiff of air. Confidence in golf is a bit tougher than breathing—it comes with experience.
To build their confidence many golfers say to themselves, “I’ve played well in the past, so I can play well today.” However, merely saying that is not enough to establish a lasting state of confidence. Generalizations about past performance don’t work. What’s needed to become confident is automatic and repeated generation of specific memories of hitting good shots. Here is one metaskills technique you can use to produce a genuine feeling of confidence.
Golf-Shot Resource Anchor
I helped one PGA Tour golfer build his confidence and access the just-right states for hitting several kinds of specific shots by using an anchoring technique that involved “stacking.” An anchor is stacked when you associate more than one idea or feeling with it.
Randy, my touring pro, wanted to make his tee shots more consistent. Tee shots that flew all over the place eroded his confidence. Randy had already determined that one of his mechanical “keys” for driving was putting pressure on the club with the last three fingers of his left hand. To remind himself to have a firm grip at impact, he would deliberately and routinely squeeze those fingers during his preparation for all tee shots. The squeeze became his anchor for drives.
As we stood on the first tee, I told him to examine what the shot demanded and to remember a past successful drive he’d made on a similar hole. Because he’d played so often all over the country, that wasn’t difficult.
Randy took his normal pose, looking down the fairway from behind the ball, holding his driver in his left hand.
“Now, I want you to be very precise about remembering and anchoring that similar shot,” I said. “See, hear, and feel what you saw, heard, and felt then, until you become aware of the emotional state you were in while you were actually addressing and hitting the ball, not the feelings after you hit it.” How he felt after a successful shot is obvious—and useless.
It took Randy a while, but he said, “I’ve got it. I was really eager to hit the ball. I couldn’t wait to give it a ride.”
“How do you know you felt eager?” I asked. “What sensations in your body let you know you felt eager? Really pay attention to sensations that indicated eagerness—in your shoulders, chest, stomach, arms, wherever.”
“My forearms really felt alive, tingly,” he said. “I get that feeling a lot when I want to crush one.”
“Before anchoring that feeling,” I said, “let’s do a prior test of its usefulness. Generate that feeling strongly right now, and in your mind hit a ball from this tee. As you make that shot mentally, find out if it turns out the way you want it to. ”
I told him that if his mental shot wasn’t up to his required level of performance, he was to select another prior shot, identify the emotional state associated with it, and test it before anchoring. He said his mental shot turned out just fine.
So I said, “Anchor that feeling of aliveness in your forearms by squeezing your last three fingers on the club. Match the