subject: Mental Golf Training [print this page] Mental Golf Training Mental Golf Training
Does mental golf training actually achieve anything of value for the average golfer? The surprising answer is yes. Mentally training in your mind all those awkward and difficult shots will actually improve your game, and could reduce your handicap significantly.
Just think about that. Up to now you have been trudging over the greens and the fairways, scrambling around in the rough, swinging aimlessly in the sand bunkers, all to little avail. Mental golf training gets rid of all that wasted effort. Now you can sit back and relax, listen to some soothing music if you like, and practice your golf swings, putts, drives and whatever - all in the perfect comfort of your mind, in the familiar surroundings of your warm home.
Is it really that easy? Well, yes and no. You do have to be serious in your approach and treat it like any other training exercise. Don't stop playing for real, for that is where you will discover whether your mental exercises are working or not. But if you take the right approach with the right attitude, then yes, you really can improve your game of golf just through your own mind.
The Legend of Bagger Vance, a movie from 2001 starring Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron, directed by Robert Redford, is a classic that involves mental golf training. Bagger Vance is a mystical rambling golfer, and in the movie you are never sure if he's real or not. He takes a down and out ex-golf champion and brings him back to the top. He does it through his mind. He shows him how to visualise the shots, the drives, the putts, and you can feel the reality of it too. It doesn't seem weird and unnatural; it seems like the only way there is.
While movies like The Legend of Bagger Vance don't portray actual real events, the reality is in some ways even more amazing. When you focus your attention on your desired outcome; when you see it happening before it actually does; when you feel the thrill of it happening; when you know with an unshakeable conviction that it will happen, then it does happen. That's the experience of millions who don't really understand how it happens. They just know that it does and they leave it at that.
When Spain and Germany met in Vienna in the summer of 2008 for the football final of the Euro 2008, the Spanish team knew they were destined to win, and they did win too. Their slogan throughout the tournament where they didn't lose one single game was: "podemos." It simply means, "We can." Their coach had spent all year mentally training them for the tournament, telling them that they could, so they did. They trained physically too, of course, but most agree that their mental training played the pivotal role in winning the tournament.
Football is really no different to golf. Mental golf training will give you similar results if you apply it properly. You have to visualise the moment, visualise the shot that has been causing you problems, and see the problems fade away. You have to see yourself overcome all the difficulties in your mind, and then for all of us who love to play golf and win, podemos - we can.
