Part 1. Does the way you think effect the way you play, oh yes it does!

1. Incorporate Visualisation Into Your Practice and On The Course: 

If you think hard about the things we do each and every day, the simple, automatic things, our brains rehearse each action, through visualising it before it happens.For most things that are done without conscious thought, it happens so quickly, you don’t even realise its being done.Think about something new though, perhaps something that involves risk, you mentally rehearse it through visualisation first, a dry run, if you like.This is very powerful, and when used correctly, can make a huge difference to your performance in practice, and out on the course.

 

Look at some of the research carried out below, results are staggering!

Visualisation has been thoroughly tested by many research facilities including Harvard University and Stanford University, and virtually all studies report improvements in performance. A study that was done in the 80’s with the Soviet Olympic Team preparing for the Games showed that the athletes that made the greatest improvements spent up to 75% of their time working on the mental aspects of their sports.  The least progress came from athletes that just focused on physical training.

The researchers at the Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs,  put visualization to the test with 30 teenage golfers.  The 30 golfers were divided into 3 groups and were asked to practice their putting each day for a week.  The first group was instructed to practice physically putting the ball but without any visualization.  The second group was instructed to visualize sinking each putt just before putting.The third group was instructed to visualize before each shot, but instead of visualizing the ball going in the cup they were told to imagine the ball missing left, right, and coming up short. 

The results after the week were incredible.  The First (physical practice) group improved by 11%.  The second (visualization group) that imagined the ball going in to the cup improved accuracy by 30%.  And for the group that visualized the ball coming up short, their accuracy declined 21%!!

If you want to immediately perform better on the course then visualisation is a must.  Master it and watch your performance improve rapidly!