Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [31]
You may remember the fellow I introduced at the beginning of the book, Ted Jackson, the eighty-two-year-old who wanted to hit better pitch shots from about ninety yards. As you did, Ted went through the Sherlock Holmes Exercise to rediscover a fine pitch he once hit at the Saxon Woods course in Scarsdale, New York. As you’re about to, Ted discovered a colored-image anchor, in which seeing one bird gets him closer to bagging another.
When he had finished the Sherlock Holmes Exercise, during which he he recalled hitting a particularly fine pitch shot, I said, “Reproduce that swing here on the practice tee, but stay with that dream shot in your mind.” He did.
After he had taken several practice swings, I placed a ball in front of him and said, “I want you to hit just short of the hundred-yard marker. But before you take the club away, go back in your mind to when you hit the shot so beautifully. Then swing and hit this ball as if you were actually there.”
Once more Ted swung his mind years back to the fifth hole at Saxon Woods. Then he swung his club. “Wow, that’s it,” he said. “That’s the way it was—and the way I want it.”
“Repeat what you just did,” I told him. “Only, this time, as you strike the ball, still pretending you’re back at the scene of the earlier shot, let the ball change into a color, any color at all.”
When Ted struck the ball again, he said, “Red! That’s exactly what I want. ”
I asked him to do it once more and placed another ball in front of him. “Go back to Saxon Woods and relive that fifth-hole shot again. When you’re fully back there, hit another ball and let the red color spontaneously become an image, any image at all.”
After hitting the ball Ted laughed and said, “A flying red goose. That’s what I see.” The shot was identical to the first two. He was surprised and delighted.
“In the future,” I said, “just think about the flying red goose when you’re about to make approach shots, and let your unconscious mind do the rest. ”
COLORED-IMAGE ANCHOR
As you hit a shot well on the practice tee, let a color flash into your mind as the clubhead strikes the ball.
Repeat the shot and see the color again. If it was well hit, hit another ball and let the color change spontaneously into an image as the clubhead meets the ball.
Hit the same shot several more times while seeing the colored image in your mind as you watch the ball. Think of nothing else.
Anchor this colored image a few more times daily for two or three weeks until you see the colored image without conscious effort. (See Chapter 3).
If the shots are unsatisfactory, generate another colored image.
It’s possible that color, like music, can be a distraction. But give it a full chance. Make sure you see the color at the moment of impact, not before.
Free-Swing Anchor
Anchored images need not be in color like Ted’s goose. Any image can represent the feeling you want when you swing, and it can be generated out of any past experience.
According to most professional golfers the most effective swing is one that feels free and effortless. Consequently, if you can create a single image that represents the idea of freedom combined with effortlessness, you will create the right amount of freedom in your mind and body to make those effortless shots that feel so great. All you need to do is to remember a time in your life, unrelated to golf, when you really felt free. It might be a time when you were sunbathing on a beach, floating on a raft at the shore, or leaving school on graduation day.
While on the practice tee go back to that experience in your mind to feel again the bodily sensations of freedom. When you have that feeling of freedom, remember a specific scene from that time that best represents the freedom you want when you swing.
Now set up to a ball and project an image of that scene onto the top of your hands as you are holding the club. When the image is clear and you feel free in your body, turn, swing, and hit the ball, keeping in mind that image projected onto your hands throughout the swing. How good was the shot?