Training and Trusting Mind Sets

A good friend and great coach “Jonathan Wallett”  runs the Golf Academy ELITE COACHING www.elitecoaching.com

Here’s what Jonathan had to say about Training and Trusting Mind Sets.

Deciding to “trust” your swing is very scary. But if you want to play your best golf, that is what you have to learn to do.  “So what happens if I hit a bad shot in a tournament? Shouldn’t I try to work out what went wrong and try to correct it?”  ABSOLUTELY NOT! The training ground is the place to work on your swing, not the golf course.  If you hit a poor shot, the best reaction is to accept that it’s a poor shot, and realize that even Tiger Woods hits poor shots sometimes, even during his best rounds, and then to put the club straight back in the bag.

Timothy Galway, in his excellent book “The Inner Game of Golf”, says that there are 3 mental causes of bad shots; 1.Self Criticism  2.Self Analysis 3.Self Judgment

By trying to correct your swing after the shot, you are making not one but ALL three of these mental errors!  “So what happens if I hook my first 3 drives left?”  Well you should then think about taking a 3 wood on hole 4, or alternatively aim a little further right and accept that on this given day you are playing with a little more right to left flight than normal. That is the essence of functional golf, accepting your game as it is that day, and using a mindset that enables you to play golf – getting the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible.

Now some players, and Tom Watson was one of them, play better using ‘swing keys’. Let’s be very clear on this – using one predetermined swing key/feeling/image is very different than dissecting your technique after each shot. It’s fine to use a swing key, but as Tom Watson says “a swing key is to help you focus your mind so that you can trust your swing”. The golden rule is that you should never change your swing key mid round – a swing key is not a ‘swing fix’ – it’s merely a concentration focus.