I coach many golfers just the swing currently and I also coach golfers much more on the mental game; because they see their swing performing better in practice and on the course.  Old habits of the swing are basically Subconscious mental programs that run on auto pilot.  To change a players swing in a faster efficient time frame, their mind will have a lot to say about when and where the changes desired take place.

With any of the advanced players I coach who are ready for the more mental aspects of the game (not just strategy, club selection, etc) I suggest to them one book to read.  In my coaching the swing for 30 years now I have read hundreds of books on how the mind works, how spiritual new age thought blends in and how the reality you see each day in front of your eyes starts with what your mind expects to see.  Even your daily things you do at certain times of the day, such as when you wake up, what route you take to work and what favorite lunch place you go to are habits you have.  

So your habits are in your every day life and in your golf game.  There is a really good book I suggest to all golfers who want to get a grasp on the mental part of golf and accelerate in their game.  The book is called 
Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza.  As I mentioned, I have read hundreds of books on how the mind and body work to create your every day life, and this is the one book I suggest you read!  Even if you are not a golfer, this is a tremendous book to assist you manifest things in your life.

On the golf course golfers react to different challenges, shot situations, lies in a bunker, long distance tee shots and water to the right ( and you slice the ball).  All of these reactions have an electrical charge to them.  Dr. Joe Dispenza's book explains all of this; so the point here is these charges you feel or basically emotions that are accompanying the thoughts you had when facing any situation.

Yesterday I gave a playing lesson to a 6 handicap golfer and though I never dove into the subjects in that book I did guide the player to control his thoughts.  As he settled into his round after 2 holes ( it is nerve racking when your golf coach is playing with you for the first time) we began to simply work on what he is intending to do?  As  a 6 handicap he has many good holes but as he mentioned to me on the first tee; 'By the back nine I get tired, and if I hit a bad shot I tend to spiral out of control, especially if I hit a few poor shots in a row."

When I heard this then my job was simple; make the player play with simple intent of what will happen for each shot.  As we approached the 3rd tee, a par 5, he was one under par and he wanted to bomb a few shots down the hole  and birdie again.  He hit a poor drive to the right ( he was aimed right ; which he did not know until I showed him the video of the tee shot) and in his mind; out of position for the hole and already telling himself par will be hard.  

I coached him to hit a 5 iron back to the fairway leaving him about 130 yards out.  He puts it on, two putts and he as par. The next hole, good drive, and the pin for the second shot was back left.  He was between clubs and as I mentioned, he should be able to hit the same distance shot with either the 9 or 8 iron.  He went for the hard 9 and flew it past the pin left, chipped past the cup and bogeyed the hole.  Back to even par.  Our goal for the round was 72 (not that we were talking about it much but I suggested to him on the first tee he is certainly capable of 72.

As his emotions rose from the bogey I told him he and all golfers have habits when they play.  If they see a poor shot, many will begin to think and assume the good string of shots they had going is now gonna run out and scores will begin to spiral away from a players desire.

These habits of thought also have habits of emotions accompanying the thoughts.  So in small ways a player gets used to seeing the bad shot pop up, and they get used to the emotional reaction with it.  Golfers are creatures of habit, and just like you wake up and shower and have breakfast about the same way in the same routine, this habit is there.  

My point here is that when the bogey appeared he immediately asked me about this hands on the club, his grip.  Did that cause the bogey?  As a golfer I am SURE you react to different situations with thoughts about your swing, etc.  That is a habit I guarantee you have in some way , shape or form.

I told him, we are not even going to approach that question.  We are going to the next tee, decide the best club for the tee shot, to leave us the best 2nd shot to this short par 4 with a pin tucked front near a false front.  This is no time for swing theory, this is a time for action, belief and focus. In short, small situations came up on the course just like this every 2-3rd hole.  Every time it did , I put the focus back on the shot needed.

His habit was to wander away from the course in his mind since that has an emotion with it.  The emotion of lack and expecting to do something wrong.  I simply kept him focused on what each shot needs and even if he gets off course he can still recover and play well.

We approached the last 3 holes, the temperature had dropped from 63 degrees at 12:30 to 54 degrees at 4pm. The ball was not flying as far, he was tired and mentally exhausted too.  Did I change tactics mentally? NO.  16 hole is a par 4 dogleg left calling for a drive from his tee of 240 yards leaving him 120 up hill to a back left blind pin location.  Drive hits the fairway , we determine the club with the up hill shot and temp change and we commit to the shot.  He hit is just to the left fringe, chips and one putts. Par.

Same thing on the par 3 17th , but now into the setting sun.  Pick the correct club, long will not hurt you.  He hits it only pin high even with the longer club chosen, was tired and had a 'good miss' as you hear tour players comment.  2 putt , par.

Par 5 18th, good drive, tired 2nd shot which was weak and hooking too much, third shot was a long distance, uphill, he swings hard and out of balance but misses hole high left fringe.  All the time I am telling him, use the strategy we have and do not fall back to your old needs of swing thoughts or reactions to bad shots.
He chips up, pars the hole with another great 10 foot saving putt.

We get in the cart and he says; " I am amazed at how I played today.  Every time I wanted to freak out, you would not let me.  Every time I waned to swing excuse or swing question, you would shut me up.  Every time I had a bad shot, you gave me simple focus on what to do.  I was so calm".

​He added that it was like he had changed score cards at the start of the round and there were no multiple bogey holes.  He reflected that if he actually visioned for himself different outcomes, and change his reactions on the course he knew he would play better.

The picture above is a picture of my student Larry, putting for par 5 on the 18th at sunset; cold, and a challenging fast putt on a slippery hard green.  He made the putt, and shot 73.  1 over par for a 6 handicap player.  If you create a different picture in your mind of what your score card could look like and did not react negatively on the course when shots go sideways, then you to will begin to lower your score.

Change your thoughts, change your habits of emotional reaction you have and your scorecard will change to. By the way.....get that book!

It is the start of a new year, and like many other golfers you may be asking yourself what goals do you have for this coming 2020 year?  Tiger Woods wants another Green Jacket and Rory wants another major....but what about you?

Though it is easy to sit down and jot out new goals it is also just as important to reflect on how your last golf season ended the way it did?  I am based here in San Diego, CA and each year Esther Hicks of Abraham-Hicks visits San Diego  here in LaJolla, about 2 blocks from where I coach for GOLFTEC. She gives a seminar at the Marriott Hotel on the law of attraction and how your thoughts and emotions affect your reality.  She is due here again this February.

At one of her Seminars I attended she mentioned to the audience that everyone in the room has dreams and visions of where they want to go, or what they want to create.  Since she talks a lot about the Law of Attraction she always mentions a persons feelings or emotions; she calls it your Vibrational  Energy.  I have always liked that for golfers, because as we golfers know, we have many emotions and feelings when we play.

But she also stated to the audience that you have these dreams of what you wish to create for your future,  but that is not here now.  She stated; "You are where you are, but you are wanting to get something or do something in the future".

Because you have just finished the 2019 year/golf season, I think it is a good idea to look at where you are now?
How has your season ended? What did you like about it and what did you not enjoy? What strengths in your golf game did you gain and what pains in your game still bother you?

Self assessment is never easy and sure as a swing coach I can assess your swing motion, the arc of the club, low point and the clubface and determine what parts are sufficient and what parts of the swing need improvement.  

However I bet if you have reflected on other previous years you probably have found similar situations and feelings about your game.  Thus 2 or 3 years ago what did your "You are where you are" answer look like?  Probably similar in some ways.  Why is that?

Golfers are funny because they put so much emphasis on the swing and not enough acknowledgement as to what they think or how they feel when they hit a shot on the course, practice on the range or even visualize their future game which they wish to create for 2020.

Golfers are creatures of habit (as is everyone) and those habits are basically mental programs you acquire over time and these habits of thought have feelings associated with them.  For example, you sit on the first tee here at Torre Pines and the rough is 5 inches deep today in preparation for The Farmers Open hosted here in 3 weeks.  You say to yourself;" I do not want to  hit my tee shot in that long rough".   That thought has an emotion attached to it, one of fear, anxiety, even depression.

Your mental programs are not only around golf, you have them about your work or your home.  Next Monday most of the work force will return to the office, the highways will be jammed in rush hour traffic and probably Sunday night you will begin to think about your week coming up.  Those thoughts of being back in your office, around certain people you do not like or about a situation you will have to handle will also have an emotional attachment to them.  I call them 'emotional charges'.

No matter where we are in life we are creatures of habit, we wake up at the same time most days, our first thing we do is probably look at our smart phone.  You take a shower, get your coffee and head to work, probably the same route you drive every day.  We see the same people at work, and probably eat lunch at the same places most of the time.  You get the idea.

On the day you play golf you head to the range to warm up, and you probably have many thoughts about your swing and those thoughts lead to emotions you will have as you warm up.  If you miss-hit a few shots as you warm up, you may panic and worry about what is about to happen and of course those thoughts have emotions too.  I bet if you look back at your season last year you can see many times where something happened on the course and a thought then occurred (your reaction) and that thought had an Emotional Charge to it.  Can you see what I am suggesting?

Golfers become creatures of habit even if they are not aware of it or they do not like the habit.  

Your golf swing is a habit also.  In fact your swing is like a program you have on your computer.  Your brain has a mental file your driver swing, on iron shots, on wedge shots , and on putting.  These are all mental programs that you have a habit for.  These habits are Subconscious thought patterns and they occupy most of your mind and daily routines you take for granted.  How much do these subconscious programs take up in your mental computer bank you call your mind?    Are you ready for this astonishing answer........95%!  Yes, 95 percent of what you do daily is a mental program, from how you shower, get your coffee, get to work , do your tasks at work and of course your golf swing. 

What is alarming about the fact of subconscious programs we have is that they are not only a thought and action pattern but they also have an emotional reaction to them.  In golf if you hit your tee shot in the rough on the first hole at Torre Pines and then cannot get out and advance the ball far toward the green you will have an emotional reaction to that situation because you fear the lack of distance of that shot you just hit, increases your chances of bogey, or double bogey as you play the first hole.  Your past loops of thoughts and actions have placed you where you sit today!

You are where you are today.....based on your past thoughts and emotions.  Yes I hear some of you beating the drum of "what about my swing" but what you create in your game first begins with thought.  Nothing can be created without first the thought of creating something and then you would visualize the thought and have an emotion associated with it.

Because 95% of your life is Subconscious programming that means you have 5% available of Conscious thought to create something new.  This blog post is not about how the 5% works, it is simply here to nudge you to reflect on why or how "You Are Where You Are"?

As I mentioned, self reflection is not easy but in my new book "Alchemy of Golf" it dives you first into understanding how you got to where you are now.  The book has two challenging areas that golfers will have to take on and look into away from the course to help them see how the past has dictated their present and what they can do in the present to create the more empowered future. The book is due out this spring but until then you can reflect on your past of 2019.

So these next few days, I would suggest you humbly look within and see how you have arrived in your golf game as you start the new year? Yes you have goals, and I get that.  But you also have past thoughts and feelings and emotions.  As you reflect you will see you have had similar subconscious programmed thoughts before.  Those habitual thoughts have been there quite a while, longer than you will want to attest to.

But to make real change in 2020, the old thoughts and emotions you had that have limited your performance in the past will have to be changed.  If they are not, you can re-read this on Jan 1 2021 and probably feel the same then as you do today!