Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [29]
Piece-of-Cake Anchor
Because of the capacity of music to affect one’s emotional state intensely, I developed a special technique that capitalizes on integrating music, emotions related to a meaningful past experience, and shots that are particularly tough. These situations usually include: bunker shots; short downhill, breaking putts on a slick green; delicate chip shots from deep grass to a close-cut pin; or any other shot that bugs you. I call it the Piece-of-Cake Anchor because it’s designed to transform your tough shots into easy ones that are consistently good.
A client, Nel Whiting, had a long-standing problem with bunker shots. She had the skill to make them; she had a 14 handicap and was club champion in her flight several times. She chunked sand shots too often, though, to the point of being “terrified” whenever she saw sand. Now her sand shots are a piece of cake. This is what we did together.
I tossed a ball into the middle of a big sand trap and said, “Does this shot remind you of a shot you’ve made somewhere else?”
After thinking for a moment she remembered one something like it at the Mid Ocean course in Bermuda.
I told her to prepare to make the sand shot, pretending she was at Mid Ocean, and step in and hit it out. She swung like a dishrag; the ball moved about a foot or two.
Earlier we had talked together, and she had said that whenever she’s in a trap, she always hears a voice inside saying, “Follow through, now.” And the voice really bugs her, causing her to put a death grip on the club and become tense in her chest.
Knowing this I asked, “What was going on inside of you on that last shot?”
“The same old voice, “Follow through, now,” she replied.
“How about the grip and tension?” I asked. “Were they present too?”
“Absolutely, as tight as ever,” she answered.
At this point I asked her to find a piece of music that she really likes—one that she could put the words of her internal voice to. I knew she couldn’t get rid of that voice. It had been with her for years. So I decided to have her use it constructively.
I wanted her to find a song that got her in the right state that would match the way she wanted to feel while hitting sand shots well—not just any old song, but one that had some meaning, one that reminded her of an experience unrelated to golf.
It didn’t take her more than five seconds to come up with “San Francisco.” I could tell by the smile and flush on her face that it did have meaning.
I tossed another ball into the trap and instructed her to go through her normal preshot routine, and then sing the words “Follow through, now,” to the tune “San Francisco,” while she was addressing the ball and swinging.
She swung and put the ball into the cup about forty feet away.
“Wow,” I said, as Nel, her pro, and I watched with amazement. “Let’s see if it’ll work again.” I tossed several more balls into the trap.
Nel took a few more shots, some good, some bad; she got all but one of them out of the trap. She realized that she was raising her head on some of the poorer shots, so I had her integrate another phrase about keeping her head down into the tune she was singing.
I queried her about the death grip and the tension in her chest; she said her grip was soft and she felt very relaxed during the entire shot.
Subsequently, Nel told me that she practiced the routine of associating the song with making sand shots for about an hour or so after we worked together, and regularly sang her song to herself when she had a sand shot to play during matches. I had her anchor the entire process to the act of grasping her sand wedge as she took it out of the bag.
In a letter a month or so after we had worked together, Nel wrote, “On the very first hole [of competition] my ball went into the bunker. No problem—I just sang my song and out onto the green went my dimpled ball—Success. The same success has come many times since. It’s a wonderful