Over this past weekend the coaches had a match against each other, so I wanted to share this experience with you.

Basically it is the younger coaches against the older ones (you know which category I sit it..lol).  Our past match the younger coaches beat us and they were determined to beat us again.

We had a team match and I had an individual match with one of the coaches.  He is a plus 3 handicap so I was given a few shots over the 18 holes to balance the match.  I am old enough to be his father so as you would think my drives are much shorter than his.  Tough luck Al.....better play well.

So how did we do?  

Before I answer that, let me reflect on simple principles we are going to tackle heavily starting in October...just in time for the GOLFTEC CUP.

The principles include those of the 7 hermetic principles that I have mentioned before.  But now I can put these concepts to practical experiences for you to see.
 
Mentality-  Everything is mental.  The Golfer must think through every shot thoroughly and with purpose .  The pre-shot routine you have worked on is setting the stage for this simple first concept.

Correspondence- In golf the round has give and take, ebb and flow.How will your emotions and decisions (mentality) affect you during the round and each shot? 
As you know, this 'emotion' concept is what you are trying to discover this month in September.

Vibration- Everything vibrates.  The earth vibrates and you are walking the earth as you play golf.  Vibrations have emotional ranges that I have shown you but the key to Vibration and your connection to the earth and your outcomes you want in golf is from your Breathing.

This is something we will tackle the first week of October....it is EXTREMELY important and it is what allowed my success to occur over the weekend.

Polarity -  problem and the solution.  Let us be clear, to play good golf you are the problem and you and only you are the solution.  You are the power that makes the change to play better.  So where you perceive yourself in a match or with a shot or with your first 9 holes compared to the back nine; revolves around you!

So let me recap what happened over the weekend.
The younger guys had given us crap for weeks about how they are going to beat us like a drum.  The other player I am paired with is injured but did play on mini tours 15 years ago.  He has great tenacity to stay in a hole even when I see his tee shot go to adjacent fairways.  He knows he is never out of the hole until he really is.

The course was El Camino CC in Oceanside.  It is complete and total Kikuyu grass, fairways and rough.  I had never played on that grass on the entire course. You get 'flyer shots' from the fairway since this grass is a weed and grass gets between the clubface and the ball. The result, very little backspin and the ball shoots off at times like a knuckle ball. Some greens were very hard and the ball would bounce right off the green even when coming in from the fairway.

Because I had never played the course I had several shots there under clubbed since it was much more of an uphill shot than I thought from where I sat in the fairway.  So overall a nice course with lots of unique odd things that can happen do to grass condition and of course wind near the ocean.

The round.  We tied the first two holes and on the 3rd and 4th hole my playing partner is out of the hole and I survive one of them but not the other.  So quickly I assess my situation and come to the conclusion about POLARITY (listed above).

As you look back up at Polarity you see the concept; you are the problem.  You are the solution.  You are the power that makes the change.  So after the 4th hole that is what I decided.  It is easy to rely on my partner to play to his ability but it is not guaranteed.  So I decided the match will have to depend on me.

I had not played a real round of golf since the Callaway multi day event I wrote to you about before.  Sure I have played in playing lessons with students but that is not playing golf.  I am coaching just going through the motions of playing.

My tee shots to this point were poor so my intuition sent me back in time to my tee shots that I had my last 3 rounds in the Callaway event.  Literally I put my mind back on the tee boxes of Coronado Golf Club where I hit many tall towering tee shots.  So the rest of the round in my pre-shot routine I made a conscious effort to visualize these towering tee shots.  No swing thoughts, just relying on past success.  That decision and precision in doing it during my pre-shot routine saved my day.

The match stayed even basically until I made a birdie on the 8th and 9th holes and the tied was turning.  However the back nine is longer than the front and that was not in my favor.

I had managed to get ahead in the individual match by one shot but lost that on the 14th hole and in the match we were as a team one down.  I missed a birdie putt of 40ft as it lipped out.  My routine with putting was very solid and all day my opponent would never give me any putt.   He kept saying " sorry Al I have to see the putt".  

The last two holes are 445 yards, up hill, into the wind.  Par 4s of course.
I had made birdie on 16 to stay tied and it was demoralizing to my opponent.  He tends to get Very Loud and excited with a good shot or a save of his shot.  This variance in emotions came back bite him on the last two holes.

The 17th and 18th holes my tee shots are in the fairway and about 250 yards out.  The other players have mid irons in, I have 3 hybrid.  No one hits the 17 th green but I put my hybrid in the green side bunker making sure I miss the water right of the green.  I hit the bunker shot to 20 ft.  2 players are out of the hole (in the water) and just my individual opponent is in the hole.  He has made 2 very poor decisions of shots into the green.  He bogeys and I need to make the par putt to win the hole and tie the match.  Boom, it goes in.  I took my sunglasses off and rolled that putt in.  The terminator sun glasses, lol.

18th hole is the same scenario, tee shots  and approaches in.  The other team makes par from the rough and I am short of the green by 10 yards; hitting my hybrid in again into the wind.  The par putt they made was incredible since it was 50 ft away.  I was closer so waited to hit my chip shot. The kikuyu grass grabs my wedge and I come up short by 30 feet.

I had this putt in the match in Coronado to win but was so concerned of the speed of the putt I decided to cozy it up and if it goes in ok.  Just don't 3 putt to lose.

So Saturday I face the same situation but I had just made 30 foot putts on the previous two holes; so I was only thinking make it.

My putting routine is very simple and takes trust lining up my triple-track lines on my Callaway ball to the target.  Somehow I have gotten used to it and simply tell myself "line it up and you are good to go".  This putt was up hill so I looked 2 ft past the cup to give my mind the target distance intended to get up the hill.

I had some anxiety but a lot of confidence and a great WILL to make the putt and shut the opponents up and down.  I stroke the putt and 5 feet from the cup I start walking to the cup since I knew it was in.  BOOM, in she goes, and mayhem occurs near the clubhouse.  

It was great to make great putts coming down the stretch.  It was great to know my pre-shot routine kept me focused on my target and really visually seeing the shots I want before making them.

The reason I really played well was because of what I will show you in October.
As you work on your emotions this month it leads you to the next month.

Back in my Callaway event in August my emotions were all over the place.  So once I used Polarity (in August) and determined I was the only solution, I played better.

But over this weekend, my breathing work before shots and walking to shots kept me very focused and enabled me to be more 'intuitive' to know what shot to hit out of the kikuyu grass and it kept me calm even when listening to all the shit talk I am being given.  The better I played the more they tried to rattle me. But I stayed calm and focused.

Golf is like a puzzle really with your mental game.  There are many pieces but once you understand yourself and how change you flow of thought and emotion and take total responsibility for yourself and only you; then you cam play to higher levels and then higher and higher.

Our drive to dinner and the bar after golf could have been loud and insulting from the 2 younger players.  But it was not and all I heard all night was " how the F.... do you make those putts?  My individual match I win by 2 (the father figure tucks the young adept into bed saying distance and youth are not everything).  And the team match we tie, but with three major putts all made on the last 3 holes it felt like a win.

Pre-shot routine. Intention, Vision. Belief. Calmness.  These are pieces to a big puzzle and that is why you are working on them one step at a time.

Cheers to that round on Saturday!!!  

Golfers have all sorts of emotions during a round.  The key to more consistent golf is to keep your emotions under control.  Generally speaking golfers tend to move to more negative emotions when things go wrong.  I think everyone can relate to that.


Others may tell you to stay positive during a round.  But if you have just hit a ball into the trees off the tee and know you have no second shot to the green; you will tend to feel really poorly and emotions like desperation, despair, hopelessness  will creep into your mind.  So if you feel despair after a shot, how can you go to feeling really positive for the next shot?


The answer is you can't.  Your mind simply is not able to find all the good feelings after a crappy feeling.  So the goal is to find a feeling that is slightly better than the feelings you have. This is what I call 'relief  feelings".


The questions now asks; "what are the range of emotions you can have"?


Here they are from highest to lowest:

• Joy
• Empowerment
• Freedom
• Love
• Appreciation
• Passion
• Enthusiasm
• Positive
• Expectation
• Belief
• Optimism
• Hopefulness
• Contentment
• Boredom
• Pessimism
• Frustration
• Irritation
• Impatience
• Overwhelment 
• Disappointment
• Doubt
• Worry
• Blame
• Discouragement
• Anger
• Revenge
• Hatred/Rage
• Jealousy
• Insecurity
• Unworthiness
• Fear 
• Grief
• Depression
• Despair
• Powerless 

​
​If I go back to the Callaway event in August here is how the above table relates;
We had finished 2 matches and lost, I felt Insecurity and depression as I sat in the cart having Ice Cream in between 9's.  

So my first feeling was one of anger ( which is higher than depression).  The anger feeling got me to an actual higher feeling emotion, although you can't sit in anger too long so you have to look to better outcomes.

That is when I decided to take control of how the holes were measured, front of the green, middle and back and not solely rely on the distance to the pin.
From there I had to visualize the shot shapes I wanted, and begin sense and feel creating pars and birdies.  Basically re-adjust my thought process.

These thoughts lead to optimism and hopefulness as we headed to the first hole of our next match.  Heading into the match I did not wallow in hatred, jealousy of others beating us.  If I had wallowed in those, more poor results probably would have happened.

The key to playing the better matches the last three matches was learning to control the emotions to steer the ship in different directions. 

Golfers can relate to my situation outlined above.  The goal here in September is to monitor your emotions when you play or practice.  This is why you have the journal.  Self Awareness is always needed, so you must become aware of your emotions this month and notice what you do when those various emotions come over you.

The journey to becoming a better mental player will always require you the player the fortitude to understand yourself as you play.  This month is just observation and with the above chart you can see at least a range of emotions you feel.

As I like to state to people; you are where you are mentally".  That is ok because your past has brought you to the present moment.  Once you understand from observation what your thoughts and emotions are; then you can start to lead yourself to a knew you.

Overall if you want to be a better player, improved attitudes, traits and beliefs and emotions will have to be created.  To get to the higher shelf that you want to get to changes will need to be made in regards to your emotions an attitude.

So have fun charting your emotions after each practice session on the range or after playing each round.  Journal what you observe you are doing.  If you do not journal, you basically are committed to become self aware to become a better mental player.