“If you want to take long walks, take long walks.  If you want to hit things with sticks, hit things with sticks.  But there’s no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV.  Golf is not so much a sport as an insult to lawns.” – National Lampoon, 1979

As we roll into the New Year you may be thinking about the state of your golf game right now and deciding on the best strategy for improvement this year.

You might have even come to the conclusion that to play better golf you will need to invest some of your time, effort and money in having a golfing lesson or two, or even attending a golfing school?

In this article I’m going to share with you my thoughts on the immense differences between taking a golfing lesson here and there versus spending a few days at a top golfing school.

You see I’ve come to the conclusion that amateur golfers in search of help with golf swing problems will not solve their problem with a short term “fix my broken swing” approach by taking a series of 30 to 45 minute golfing lessons.

As someone who has given in excess of twenty thousand private golf lessons and conducted hundreds of golfing schools I’m in a good position to help you to understand the difference between taking a few golfing lessons or committing yourself to attending a golfing school.

Let’s face it; the golf swing is a very complicated motion. You’ve got a golf swing moving within three dimensions with the club head travelling at somewhere between 70 and 100 miles per hour striking a small stationary object that is only 1.68 inches (42.67mm) in diameter.

In less than a millisecond your golf shot is programmed to go up or down and left or right, or a combination thereof. And if that wasn’t enough, the thirteen major joints in your body have got to either rotate a certain amount or remain stable whilst you whirl your golf club around your body with perfect timing and at the same time maintain excellent balance.

Is there any stick and ball game more difficult than golf?

So what happens when you golf swing doesn’t behave itself? Traditionally golfers will take advice from well meaning friends and associates or take a golfing lesson or two from a golf instructor. Some may even buy a golf instruction book or view golf video instruction on the internet.

The trouble is that it’s like the guy in the story who put his finger in the dyke to stop the leak. Just when he thought he’d fixed it, another leak started somewhere else and you go through the same process over and over.

Having a few golfing lessons will not stop the leak. Going to a golfing school will. Why? It’s simple; you need to build a better dam, not keeping plugging it up. Your golf swing isn’t broken it’s simply off its track.

Golfing schools are designed to get off-track golf swings back on-track. If you want to hit straighter and more consistent golf shots you need to get your golf swing on the correct pathway when it strikes the golf ball. It took you quite a bit of time to get it off track so what makes you think that a lesson or two would sort that out? Let me assure you it won’t!

I don’t care how famous the golf instructor is, or how much they charge, if something takes a long time to manifest itself, like a chronic slice shot for instance, then you need to invest reasonable time and effort to change it.

A package of thirty or even sixty minute golfing lessons won’t do it, but what will do it is a planned and well thought out approach with a competent golf instructor, and the time to repeat the new action many times under his/her supervision.

The truth of the matter is that most amateur golfers will never invest their energy in the amount of time needed to change their habit. However at golfing school you will be able to make enough repetitions that will allow you to make the changes required to take it to the golf course and trust it.

You see this is the key. You need to repeat the adjusted stroke pattern more than one thousand times to move it closer to automaticity (High trust level). When you have a golfing lesson you might hit fifty or sixty shots and then it’s left up to you to practice unsupervised, which in my opinion is a lesson in disaster.

The golfing school success formula is a far better way to approach it;

Relearn your stroke + repeat it regularly under supervision to reinforce the habit = remember it forever

This is what going to a golfing school is all about. More time to reinforce your new habit so you can take it onto the golf course and trust it.

So do yourself a favour this year and keep the money in your pocket that you were going to use to invest in a few golfing lessons and save until you’ve got enough to go to a reputable golfing school for three days or longer.

What you save now will definitely pay off for you in the long term, and I guarantee that it will be the best investment you can make in your golf game this year and beyond.

Until next time,

Lawrie Montague – Golf Confidence Pro

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley – Sports Psychologist

Do you admire the determination of champion golfers like Tiger Woods? When you watch them perform under pressure and pull off astonishing golf shots, do you ever wonder what they’re thinking about to be able to play so well when it absolutely matters? Would you like to hit your golf shots solidly and accurately under intense pressure like they can?

Golfers who possess the mental toughness traits of Tiger Woods have developed a psychological edge that enables them to:

• By and large manage the pressure of tournament competition better than their fellow competitors.

• Perform more consistently and better than their fellow competitors by remaining steadfast, focused, certain, and in control of their golf skills and emotions under pressure.

Many people mistakenly believe that mental toughness is something only top class athletes possess. Still others think that it’s a God given gift bestowed on a blessed few. But this is simply not true.

You can learn how to develop mental toughness so that you are better able to control your thoughts, emotions and behaviours when it really matters to you. Being mentally tough refers to the effectiveness of your mental skills when you perform. But what are these mental skills?

One way to recognize mental toughness skills is to think of a top golfer like Tiger Woods when he is in a really competitive mood in a major golf tournament. What do you notice about his behaviour that stands out for you?

I’ve asked this question to many of the golfers who have attended my golfing school over the years and it’s surprising how many see similar characteristics in his behaviour. The most common response is his ‘never give up’ attitude, which is one of the traits of mental toughness.

Of all the psychological toughness characteristics Tiger displays though, it’s his ability to ‘dig deep’ when it matters most that I believe golfers most admire in him. Who can forget his fifteen foot putt on the last green at the US Open at Torrey Pines to get into a playoff with Rocco Mediate?

He has developed the ability to completely trust his golf skills and hit shots with a clear head, without worrying about the consequences.

You can learn how to develop your mental toughness skills so that you increase your feelings of personal control and confidence over your performances on the golf course, especially when the pressure is on, just like Tiger Woods.

Following are the seven mental toughness traits of Tiger Woods that you can develop to build increased confidence, control and positive energy every time you tee it up.

1. Believe in Yourself

I know it’s a cliché, and you’ve probably heard it said many times before, but believe me, having a ‘rock solid’ belief in your ability to achieve your goals on the golf course is the first step in developing your mental toughness skills. Start by setting realistic goals for yourself that focus more on being excellent at the process of hitting golf shots that are under your control rather than focusing on the outcome of your golf shots that aren’t.

You are in control of your game, if you are in control of your thoughts and feelings. Tiger Woods completely believes in his ability to hit his golf shots without worrying about what ‘might happen.’

Ask yourself these powerful questions before you hit your golf shot; “what is the worst thing that could happen if I hit this golf shot?” and then follow that up with “what’s the best thing that could happen if I hit this golf shot?” Once you have evaluated the level of risk, trust yourself to hit your shot with confidence.

2. Strong Success Drive

Do you have a BIG reason for succeeding at golf? Having a strong desire and a well developed sense of purpose is what drives you towards better results. It’s hard to play well under pressure when it doesn’t matter about your results, or you don’t want the results badly enough.

We can all see that Tiger really wants to win, and this overwhelmingly influences those around him to also believe it as well. There’s an old saying that goes; “you become what you think about all of the time” which really is the secret to developing your ‘golf success drive.’

Clearly imagine yourself achieving your golf goals everyday and you will increase your sense of urgency to achieve those goals, which will fuel your internal drive and ultimately your results. Human beings with a strong sense of purpose can accomplish incredible results if the goal is worthy enough. If you want to perform to your absolute best then you need to develop a clear goal and go after it with the passion and drive of Tiger Woods.

3. Get Over It and Get On With It

Your ability to bounce back from set-backs on the golf course with a much more focused determination is a powerful stimulus for playing your golf shots with a high degree of control under pressure. This requires you to develop a ‘let go’ attitude when you hit shots that lead to double bogeys and worse.

By understanding that you cannot control the outcome of your shots without doing a good job of controlling the process, will help you to recognize the value in accepting that many of your golf shots even with the best of attitudes will sometimes finish up in places you didn’t want it go anyway. Get over the disappointment of the golf shot and get on with playing golf. Leave the disappointment of the golf shot back at the scene of the disaster.

4. The Unbreakable Golf Swing

There’s a saying that goes; “the first thing to break down under pressure is the last thing that you practiced.” Maintaining your golf swing technique under the stress of competition is a challenge for any golfer but fortunately there are a couple of simple keys that will make it easier for you to hit straighter and more consistent shots when it counts.

• The first thing to do is monitor your stance, hips and shoulder alignment. Shot-making problems arise when your alignment is out because it principally affects the sequencing of your golf swing. To keep a careful check on your alignment develop a simple to do pre-swing-routine that carefully incorporates alignment of your club-face and body parts. The better your pre-swing routine, the better you chance of hitting your golf shots with a square alignment on the golf course.

• Grip pressure is also very important to monitor because of its important relationship to club-face and club-head control. You should hold the golf club light enough to sense the dead weight of the club-head, and tight enough that the grip doesn’t move in your hand when you swing and hit shots.

Remember this; tight golf grips kill golf swings! If ever your grip was going to get tighter, it would be when you are under pressure, so be aware of your grip pressure-‘feel the club-head’ when you have to hit your golf shot under the gun.

5. How to Cope When it Counts

Because it matters to you to play your best, you need to accept that competition anxiety is to be expected. Embrace the idea that you are very comfortable and can easily cope with the stress of performing your best in a competition. Consider this simple but accurate statement that Olympic athletes read as they enter the US Olympic Training Complex in Colorado Springs. “The only pressure that exists is the pressure you put on yourself.”

You can cope with any amount of golf stress by focusing your attention on your breathing. Breathe in to a count of four, hold, and then breathe out to a count of four. Do this continually and you will notice the calming effects of this simple yet effective exercise. Breathe purposefully when it matters and you can cope with any pressure situation you’re confronted with more easily.

6. Why Survive When You Can Thrive

Have you ever been scared of failing at something? I bet you have, I know I have, and it’s a normal reaction to something that isn’t real, but feels very real to us. That’s right, it’s not real, it only happened in your mind. But if you practice it enough, you can definitely turn it into your reality. It’s a pretty simple formula for success really. In this case its success at achieving a negative result.

Focusing on the negative aspects of something for long enough will come true for you. I believe that competition does the same thing to golfers. That is, golfers focus on failing, and imagine it into reality. You never get to enjoy and even thrive on the pressure of competition when you’re frightened of ‘what might happen.’ This explains how golfers are able to find a way to destroy a perfectly good round of golf by expecting that something bad will happen before the end of the round is completed.

The next time you’re going to play in an important competition take the time to focus on all the good feelings and thoughts of you totally enjoying the experience of playing and performing each golf shot in the event. You’ll be amazed at how much fun you can have competing when you change your attitude of playing golf in a competition to ‘playing every golf shot’ in the competition.

7. Nothing Can Distract You

The secret to performing at your best under pressure is to control what you’re paying attention to in the moment. There’s a great saying that goes; “your energy flows where your attention goes” which is so true. Remaining fully-focused on the shot at hand in the face of competition distractions demands that you control what you pay attention to.

There are two things that I want you to learn to control here that will help you;

• Firstly you need to control you’re the direction of your intention. Exactly what is it that you want to do with your golf shot? Specifically what is your intention or objective? The behaviour of the shot needs to be very clear in your mind and also needs to be something that you know you can do.

• Secondly you need to focus your attention on your intention. You see once you’ve decided what your intention is, and then you need to make sure that you keep your attention on it. By never really being clear enough about what you want to do with the golf ball, it becomes difficult to maintain a sharp level of focus.

So there you have it, the seven mental toughness traits of Tiger Woods. These traits are really important if you want to perform at your very best under the pressure of a competition.

By developing Tiger’s mental toughness traits of;

1. Believe in Yourself

2. Strong Success Drive

3. Get Over It and Get On With It

4. The Unbreakable Golf Swing

5. How to Cope When it Counts

6. Why Survive When You Can Thrive

7. Nothing Can Distract You

You will perform with confidence, consistency and positive energy whenever you play golf in any competitive situation that demands that you are at your very best.

To your golfing success.

Lawrie Montague

P.S If you haven’t already done so, you can sign up for my free videos as part of my launch for my new online golf coaching program The Golf Confidence Solution.

P.P.S Please vote in my poll (right hand side under video of the week) and let me know what you are interested in reading so I can write highly relevant articles for you.

“I think exercise tests us in so many ways, our skills, our hearts, our ability to bounce back after setbacks. This is the inner beauty of sports and competition, and it can serve us all well as adult athletes.” – Peggy Fleming (US Figure Skater)

Is there anything worse than playing one bad hole that ruins what was potentially one of the best rounds of your golfing life? For many golfers there is nothing worse. It’s hard to be philosophical when you have just had an eight on the last hole! You could simply put it down to experience and acknowledge that if you can get yourself into a position to produce an excellent round once, you can do it again.

So how do you rebound from a bad hole/s that keeps your score average higher than it should be? At my golfing school I get asked this question a lot of times. The first thing to understand is that just because you have a bad hole doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you, or your game. You are not your bad golf score! Golf is a game built upon mistakes not good shot’s. It’s a highly technical game that for the most part can’t be mastered consistently by anyone; not even Tiger Woods.

Look at the scores of PGA tour golfers and LPGA golfers and you’ll see that their golf scores ebb and flow from hole to hole and round to round. Of all the statistics on the PGA tour the one the touring professional’s value almost as highly as the low score average is the “bounce back” statistic. The bounce back statistic measures the percentage of holes on which a golfer is over par on one hole and under par on the next. It’s another way of expressing the player’s ability to forget the past hole and get on with the next shot.

It is totally unrealistic to think that any golfer can achieve consistency when the golfing environment you play in changes constantly. In fact we can say that the only thing that is consistent about golf is that it is inconsistent. It changes and so should you.

This means that you should develop a more flexible mind-set. If you’re someone who has at least one bad hole during a round, then you should ask yourself whether your mind-set is consistent and inflexible. My experience working with many golfers over the past twenty years at my golfing school is that they become rigid and unbending in their thinking and as a consequence play their golf course with the same game plan over and over.

You should appreciate that you have many ways that you can play a hole and produce your score. So if you tend to play a certain hole with less than ideal results from week to week, then you should consider an entirely different approach to playing that hole. Bad holes usually result from a defensive attitude to playing the hole. The simple way to overcome this defensive attitude is to play a golf club from the tee that you know you can play confidently at least seventy percent of the time.

It doesn’t make sense hitting your driver off the tee if you can only hit it in the fairway a low percentage of times. This will place excessive pressure on you and you will not make a positive, free-flowing golf swing. If instead, you hit a five wood from the tee because your percentage of success is much higher; your positive attitude will definitely help you to produce a better score on the hole.

The next time you go out for a round of golf make a contract with yourself that you will play your entire round using golf clubs that you wouldn’t normally use. You will discover a rare and exciting freedom in letting go of your old and tired approach to the game in favour of a more flexible and positive approach that will have you bouncing back better than you ever have.

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein (Physicist)

There is a multitude of golf instruction books published every year by authors eager to share their knowledge and experience to a thirsty crowd of amateur golfer’s searching for the elusive secrets to unlock their golf swing from its shackles.

Still others enroll in golfing school to learn how to control their badly behaved ball flight. With all the golf books and golfing schools you’d think that golfer’s would be starting to get on top of their game and reap the rewards of their efforts.

But you would be wrong.

Nope, sad as it is, most golfer’s just aren’t improving, even with all the information available to them. Do they care? I believe they do care a lot.  I also believe that if the average golfer could develop a better understanding of what’s important in a golf swing from what’s not they would make consistent progress… in the right direction!

In this article I want to share with you the some of the critical alignment check points that I use when working with PGA tour golfers and LPGA golfer’s. These alignments are just as important in your golf swing as those of pro golfer’s so I hope you gain some new insights into what makes your golf swing more reliable and in turn you increase your golf confidence.

The following set of photographs is of one of my professional students He Yong Choi (Pronounced ‘HayYong’) who is one of the up and coming stars on the Korean LPGA tour. I  have helped He Yong to increase her distance from the tee and develop a more penetrating and straighter ball flight on her irons by focusing on three important aspects of her golf swing.

1. That her golf club maintains its relationship to the plane it started on
2. That the maximum force is applied at the right time in the downswing
3. That the clubface rotates the correct amount in the backswing and through swing

Under each photo I’ll describe the instruction process to you and offer helpful advice on how you can develop and improve your golf swing technique using these pro golf swing keys.

BODY IN BALANCE
In the address position you need to establish a sound base of support so your golf swing can remain stable during the backswing and forward swing phases. I teach my students to build a balance triangle formed from the inside ankle bones to a central point just below the navel. I want them to keep their upper body mass over this triangle as much as possible during the golf swing. I explain how a ferris wheel can only operate if it has a stable base of support.

The other important relationship to understand is that the centre of the shoulders should maintain their position in relation to the centre of the pelvis durng the backswing and forward swing.

GOLF CLUB IN PLANE
I explain to my students that “the swing plane gives force a direction.” In the mid-backswing phase of the golf swing the goal is to get the handle end of your golf club to point as close to the base of the inclined plane as you can. Since a golf club is built on an inclined plane it should maintain its relationship to its plane angle throughout the golf swing.

ALIGNED AND READY
At the top of the backswing two things are common in a pro golf swing. The first is that the upper body is still on top of the balance triangle, and two, the golf club has maintained its relationship to the base of the inclined plane. (white line)

THE MYSTERIOUS RIGHT ARM
The right arm’s participation is very misunderstood in the golf swing. Pro golf swing’s use the right arm skillfully because it provides the golf club with direction and supplies it with the energy to drive the golf ball powerfully down the fairway.

There are two thing’s to focus on in the photo above. In the left photo notice how the right forearm is in plane with the golf ball? This alignment is critical if you want to hit longer, more powerful golf shots. In the photo on the right notice how the right elbow has advanced the hands past the golf ball? This ensures that the angle of attack of the club head will be steep enough to produce a divot in front of the ball, and that the energy in the club head is released as late as possible.

IMPORTANT POST IMPACT CHECK
Just after impact the golf club ideally aligns itself with the left shoulder as the left photo displays. The key here is that the left arm and club shaft are in line well beyond impact. He Yong  is at least 60 centimetres into the follow through and has maintained the club head to left shoulder relationship. The other thing to keep in mind is that the golf club has maintained its relationship to the base of the plane which is displayed in the top left photo.

FULL ROLL IT
As the golf club travels towards the finish it must maintain it’s relationship to the plane it started on. To do this the golf club rotates or rolls over until the club face points towards the ground. The centipetal forces involved in the golf swing keep it on its track and at right angles to the middle of your chest.

THE FINISH
At the end of your golf stroke you should finish with your upper torso positioned over your front leg to reduce lower back pressure. Also notice in the upper left photo how He Yong has maintained the postural angle that she started with? This suggests that she was able to maintain her balance throughout the stroke by swinging at a tempo that allows her to maximise her timing whilst minimising excess motion.Finally she has rotated her body completely to where she would be pointing well left of where the golf ball ended up.

So there you have it, a summary of the important keys in a pro golf swing technique. I hope you enjoyed the article and if you have any questions you can contact me through golf confidence academy. Otherwise you can email me at golfconfidencepro@gmail.com.

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague