Experiencing pressure to play well is a sign of poor focus. Playing with pressure takes the fun out of the game, causes tension, and negatively impacts your shotmaking ability. What kind of situations cause you to feel pressure to perform? A team event, a golf trip with friends, playing with better golfers, or playing with […]
Your Finish is Just as Important as Your Start
The title of this article is true whether we are talking about the space between the start and finish of a round of golf, or how you start and finish each shot. The key to a strong finish is maintaining a consistent approach to your game shot by shot and hole by hole. You must […]
Give In or Step Up – Lesson from The 2016 Masters
During the final day of The 80th Masters, we once again witnessed that the outcome of a round for any golfer can change in the blink of an eye, or handful of holes. News outlets and golf experts have been labeling Jordan Spieth’s performance on holes 10-12 as a “collapse.” Sport psychologist, Dr. Gio Valiante […]
How to Approach Match Play with a Ryder Cup Mindset
There are valuable lessons that can be gleaned from watching Tour events like the recent Ryder Cup, which you can use to enhance your golf game. Match play is a great format for developing your mental game because it’s essentially a series of mini-matches, one hole at a time. Unfortunately, many golfers experience unnecessary pressure […]
Thoughts While Riding the Train
Whenever I am in Chicago, I often find myself riding the Metra train to get to the city and back. Rather than traveling with the highway herd at the amazing average speed of 35 MPH, I would rather ride with the smart people on a great mode of public transportation and make the most of my […]
Masters Lesson – Keeping a Cool Head in the Heat of Competition
There’s no Major quite like the Masters, and those who made the cut to play this weekend will, win or lose, be forever ranked among the exceptional in the game. Going into the final round today, with several players vying for the top spot, there’s going to be pressure. Pressure in the game is relative. […]
Not Every Four Years…Every Day
All eyes are on Sochi as the finest from athletic venues worldwide meet on the Olympic stage to compete for heart and country. These individuals and teams are fueling the dreams of future generations of athletes, who someday will be in pursuit of Olympic gold. What we all may not fully comprehend during the four […]
Fine Tuning Your Golf Focus (Pt 5) – Managing Performance Stress
If you’ve been following this 5-part series then you now have a better understanding of mental game strategies you can implement to fine tune your focus on the course. To recap, I have covered the following topics in prior posts – Part 1 – Gaining Control of Your Thoughts Part 2 – Selective Awareness Part […]
Fine Tuning Your Golf Focus (Pt 4) – Recovering from a Bad Shot
How many times have you found yourself in one of these scenarios – You just made an amazing birdie only to follow it with a double bogey. You have no idea what happened and your emotions are boiling beneath the surface as you approach the next hole. Or, you started off really strong on the […]
Fine Tuning Your Golf Focus (Pt 3) – Eliminating Distractions
We have all learned to focus our attention by blocking internal and external stimuli in different areas of life. You may be better at this than you think — Have you ever read a book while someone else is watching TV in the same room? Blocked out an airplane flying overhead to make a putt? Or pulled […]