Golf Confidence
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3. March 2008
Dr Karl Morris
Over the past few years I almost feel that the interest in the mental game of golf has unleashed something of a monster. I now see so many products on the market by mental game guru’s supposedly giving us the way to ‘unleash our power within’ or tap into our ‘unconscious genius’ with systems that instruct you to close your eyes, sit under a tree, go into a deep hypnotic trance and chant over and over again ‘I am a great putter, I am a great putter’. Then anchor those feelings of incredible positivity and go out to shoot the best round of your life!
Unfortunately when you do go out onto the course and three putt the first green your brain screams at you LIAR!!
Your brain requires something to increase your belief in yourself and that is something that a lot of the mental game products fail to mention namely EVIDENCE.
Taking this to its extreme I could visualise every single day that I could fly of a 100ft building however if I was ever stupid enough to put my imagery to the test then the evidence would NEVER support the belief.
I spent some time with Lee Westwood recently who has been having some issues around his short game and he had repeatedly been told to ‘believe in himself’. The problem for Lee was that the evidence out on the course didn’t support that belief. For a world class player his short game was below the required standard.
It is counter productive to keep trying to believe something when all the evidence is to the contrary. The problem with positive thinking is that you are really only trying to suppress the negative thoughts and unfortunately they tend to come back with ever increasing force if the evidence is counter to the positive thought.
You only change behaviour through behaviour you cannot change behaviour through thoughts alone. How many of us have just thought about losing weight?
Yes, thoughts are required to initiate the behaviour but true belief will only arise out of your actions.
Rather than trying to ‘think positive’ the mindset needs to be one of ‘what actions do I need to perform on a daily basis to build a GENUINE platform of belief?’
Look at the current rituals that you perform in any activity and they will have within them certain PATTERNS of action.
Now the patterns of action that you perform will either move you in the direction of success or in the direction of failure. Unfortunately we tend to keep repeating the same old patterns.
Lee Westwood realised that his practice patterns would not give him any platform for improvement so we devised a new system of practice that each day could begin to build genuine belief based on FACTS not FEELINGS.
Any part of your game that is giving you problems will have a STRUCTURE to that problem. What is it that you do that actually creates the issue?
How do you approach your practice? What are your tension levels like? Do you have a mental and physical routine on each shot?
It has been said that success leaves behind it a trail of evidence but by the same measure so does failure. Look closely at your rituals you may need to change an aspect of your physical game, you may need to change an aspect of your thinking, you may even need to change your body in some way through physical training but there will be a way that you can ADAPT your rituals to give you the success that you want. However save yourself some money and don’t think that sitting under a tree and imagining that you are a world beater will on its own have any impact whatsoever if it is not backed up with a plan of physical action.
Please feel free to leave comments below.
Karl Morris
Posted on: Monday, March 3, 2008 at 3:50 pm 
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Thanks Carl,
March 4th, 2008 at 7:56 pmAs a recently qualified golf coach, I’ve been looking for ways to explain in simple no nonsense words the things you have covered in the tips above. It really is refreshing to start on this journey and relate to ideas that open up avenues for all levels of golfers. My own game is taking a complete review along the way.