The Mental Side of Golf
Peak performance on the golf green is the result of proper physical training, proper diet and good mental golf training.
At the range we do hear accounts of how a player stood on the tee and began to sweat as he felt the eyes of other players on him. It's true that like other players playing before an audience, golfers too experience performance stress. A recent study among top male golfers between the ages 14 to 21 revealed differences in their attempts at stress management. The researchers found some interesting differences between effective and ineffective coping. It was found that effective coping by the players involved gaining a sense of control over their stress and in contrast ineffective coping meant golfers with flagging spirits simply going through the motions.
During effective coping, the golfers had a positive mindset, used positive self-talk and mental golf exercises, blocked negative thoughts, and focused on the next shot. They stayed physically relaxed by stretching and using deep breathing exercises. In addition, they followed their normal playing routine. In contrast, the golfers had different thought pattern and exhibited different behaviors during the episodes of ineffective coping. Ineffective coping strategies adopted by the players were trying too hard, and making sudden changes to their settled playing routine. Here is a mental golf tip. Players often make the mistake of changing their playing routine. Players should stick to what they know instead of making changes during the round. Moving away from the pre-shot routine especially under the stress of competition is detrimental to your performance.
Golf players were stressed about their scores, making unforced mistakes or missing putts, choosing the wrong club, being watched, and a marked improved performance by the opponent. An interesting observation was that when the ineffective coping experiences were discussed, some of the golfers found out that they had not attempted to cope by using their golf mental game. The researchers were surprised to find that even promising players with excellent technical ability were unable to cope with stress or practice their mental golf skills. They concluded that the performance of the players would show marked improvement if they could work on their mental golf skills. It is not for nothing that the best players on the golf circuit today are the players with best mental golf skills who cope really well with stress day in and out.
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Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
Added: January 18, 2008