News & Reviews

In a thrilling finish to the RBC Heritage Classic at Harbour Town, Graeme McDowell earned a stunning play of victory over US Open Champion, Webb Simpson. On a final windswept day GMac played almost flawless golf apart from a three putt up the last that allowed Simpson into the play off. The 18th was played again and this time he made no mistake by making a solid par to close the deal. Perhaps the KEY moments were a couple of up and down scrambles on 15 and 17 for par. For the last 6 months, we have been working together on some key aspects of his short game using the tools of the Mind Factor. 

I often ask the players I work with ‘how much practice do you do on the GOLF course?’.  The look I generally get is one of ‘why on earth would I do THAT??!! Practice is what I do on the range. Surely I go to the golf course to PLAY golf'. Yet, this single issue is maybe one of the main reasons why MOST golfers know the person who goes to the range, they know the person who goes out to play on the golf course and they are NOT one of the SAME!
 
We are a pretty unique sport in the sense that most of our practice is done in an environment which has little or no bearing on the actual game.  I would imagine a snooker player does most of his practice on a snooker table, a tennis player on a court and footballer on a pitch.  Yet, as golfers we spend hour after hour on a range that is about as far removed from the context of the golf course as it is possible to be.  Remember those two words as you go forward with your game this year, CONTEXT and ENVIRONMENT.  Both of these two factors have a HUGE impact on you psychologically.  Do you behave the same way in the environment called a football terrace as you would in the environment called office? Hopefully not!

We are shaped enormously by the environment and the context we find ourselves in. Our brain ‘codes’ these environments and creates templates of how to respond in these specific locations. The context called ‘wedding reception’ brings out a certain type of behaviour that is structured to respond to the situation the brain is presented with, just as the context called ‘stag party’ brings out an altogether different set of behaviours.
 
Much of the testing and analysis we do with our golf, such as putting labs and fitting centres, take place in an environment which is very different than the one we play in. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn very valuable information about our game with these scientific aids, BUT we must understand they cannot tell the whole story of how that particular person will respond in the environment of a golf course and the context of a competition. The more you are exposed to a particular environment and context, the more your brain will find a way of dealing with the situation and making the best of it.  Yet, if we continually avoid the situation and hide out in the sanctuary of the range, then your brain will constantly feel ill at ease on the golf course.  Maybe this year you decide you are going to do things a little differently and give your brain a chance to adapt to the golf course environment by actually spending more time there.

You can play some wonderful practice games ON COURSE that will have a BIG impact on your game and you will start to find there is less trepidation in playing come tournament time.  Even the very best players fall into this trap.  On a recent trip to Florida, Graeme McDowell admitted he had become a little bit too fond of walking out of his villa at Lake Nona and just bashing golf balls on the range which is right next to his house. This year marked a new commitment for him to play more roll-up game with the members to get his brain tuned into ‘match mode’.

Here are some suggestions as to some ‘games’ to play on the course that will not only develop your game but are fun to do as well.

• 3 Club Challenge – take just three clubs out with you and your putter and see how you get on.  You will be surprised at how creative you can become.
• Worst Ball – only when the course is quiet but play two balls on each hole. You have to select the worst ball all the way into the hole.  This is TOUGH but well worth the effort.
• Iron Off The Tee – play nine holes only hitting an iron off the tee.  Again, you will be surprised as to how low you will score.

Just a few examples of the many games I get the players I work with to play.  The main aspect is to commit to PLAYING more so that your brain gets used to the CONTEXT of golf in the ENVIRONMENT of the golf course.

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It was terrific to see Phil Mickelson win the Phoenix Open in the early part of the 2013 season and come tantalisingly close to shooting the fabled number 59 in the first round!!  His putt to join one of the most elite clubs in golf, spun a full 180 degrees around the hole before the golfing gods shook their heads and said ‘no’ to the 59. It is no wonder Mickelson is so popular with the majority (not all!!) of golfing fans as he plays a swashbuckling game which contains numerous birdies but also with a hefty sprinkle of dropped shots, missed short putts and wild tee shots. Mickelson can seem both indestructible and highly fallible during the course of nine holes, let alone a seventy two hole tournament. Something most of us who play the game relate to very easily. Shooting the fabled 59 has fascinated tour players and the public alike for many years. In all of the thousands of rounds to have been played on the PGA Tour over the years, it has only been achieved 5 times and the European Tour is STILL waiting for its first ‘Mister 59’. I remember one of my former clients, Phil Archer having a putt on the last green to stay tantalisingly high of the hole at Celtic Manor in the Wales Open and he had to ‘settle’ for a 60. One man who didn’t have to settle for a 60 was Al Geiburger who shot 59 at Memphis in 1977 and held the record on his own for 14 years until it was equalled by Chip Beck in 1991 in Las Vegas.

It is interesting for me from the perspective of the mind that in golf we didn’t really get the Bannister effect which occurred with the 4 minute mile in athletics whereby once the ‘impossible’ had been achieved, numerous other athletes broke the iconic sub four barrier. I am not sure of the answer to that puzzle other than the fact a golfer does have a LOT of time during a round to consider the possibility of shooting very low and you now have a situation with modern technology and camera work that, if a player looks like he is going to possibly break 60, the whole world will know about it long before the final putt is holed.

It takes an extraordinary strength of mind to stay ‘on task’ and not get drawn into score thinking with the whole world metaphorically breathing down your neck. But, Al Geiburger DID manage to do it all those years ago. One of the things Geiburger was famed for, apart from the 59, was the tempo in his swing. He had a wonderfully graceful motion which spawned a coaching programme called ‘Sybervision’ whereby you, as the golfer, was instructed to watch the beautiful flowing Geiburger swing on a series of videos from all angles. The swing sequence played alongside some soothing music to allow your brain to soak up the flowing grace he possessed. This was well before the scientific community reinforced the notion that ‘mental rehearsal’ could be a powerful adjunct to training yourself to improve movement skills in sport. For me, I think every golfer can benefit from being aware of the tempo in his or her swing. It is a non-technical frame of reference that doesn’t have you thinking about the individual pieces of your swing but has you much more focused on the whole movement.

A great exercise I have used over the years for players is to get them to ‘trap’ their own ideal tempo. In effect, what you do on the range is :

• hit a couple of balls as HARD as you possibly can. Literally hit the thing so hard you fall off your feet.
  
• On a scale, this is now your reference of 10 on a 1 to 10 scale.
  
• Now, do a super super slow swing which seems to take forever.  This will be your marker of 1 on that scale.
  
• Now hit some shots and ‘call out’ where you think your tempo is within those two extremes.

Your brain now has a comparative to work with and you will find very quickly you start to find YOUR tempo. It may be a 6 or it may be an 8, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you have something to work with other than ‘slow down’. You may not end up with a swing as silky as Al Geiburger but as the great Arnold Palmer used to say ‘a good tempo can cover up a LOT of swing flaws’.

It is a way of getting the best out of your own personal swing!  I think this would make a very interesting topic for us to touch on during my 5 Shots Lower WITHOUT Changing Your Swing evening workshops.  There are very few dates now left.  Make sure your Pro brings The Mind Factor to your club for an enjoyable evening of learning INSTANTLY EFFECTIVE and PRACTICAL tools and techniques NOW!!  Suitable for ALL levels of golfers - and we will have a laugh along the way!!

One of the things I have heard over the years is ‘our members wouldn’t be interested in that mind stuff’ or ‘that is only for good players'.  In fact, my own personal experience is a LOT of golfers are VERY curious about learning HOW they could improve their game in perhaps a slightly different way.
You will, of course, always need to work on your swing to improve your game but there ARE a number of SIMPLE yet EFFECTIVE ideas you can begin to work on INSTANTLY to improve your golf.

I have been very fortunate over the years to present my 'Five Shots Lower WITHOUT Changing Your Swing' workshop to golf clubs all over Europe and it is still something I love to do to share some of the tools and techniques which have successfully been used by some of the world’s best players.

If you are interested in hosting a Mind Factor 5 Shots Lower evening, I have a limited number of slots left for this year. 

Happy New Year to you all and here is hoping 2013 brings you a year to be proud of.

Certainly, 2012 produced some outstanding moments like the Ryder Cup and Rory’s ascent to World Number One capturing his second Major.

I have often thought over the years when I see great players winning tournaments how we focus a little bit too much on what they did that particular week. We analyse their putting stats and their ‘up and downs’, fairways hit etc and we often say they were ‘in the zone’ or whatever clichéd phrase comes to mind. Yet, the win undoubtedly is a CULMINATION of ENOUGH days doing the RIGHT things for the individual concerned. It is an accumulation of FOCUSED effort. If you put enough GOOD days together, you WILL be rewarded by improved performance. The stunning results of the British Cycling Team over the past few years have been put down to Dave Brailsford’s now famous ‘Aggregation of Marginal Gains’. How enough small things done well add up to greatness.

At this time of year with Christmas just gone and the potential greyness of January, it is VERY easy to just curl up and do VERY little.

That said, though, we can either sit and moan about the weather or look at the coming months as a great opportunity to develop our game and put some work in which could result in a great year next year.

I think the first thing to do though is to look back and review the year just gone in an honest and productive way. Look back for the patterns because I PROMISE you, they will be there! Most golfers tell me they want to be consistent without realising they already are. It may be consistently bad but they will be consistent! Review the year and look at how you started your rounds of golf.  Did you tend to start well then fade away or have poor starts with a comeback? What about certain holes, certain shots? Did you tend to get anxious with a possible score to shoot? Did getting angry, upset or distracted cost you a lot of shots? Did you control the ball reasonably well but you just didn’t control yourself?

It would be well worth sitting down with someone who you played a lot of golf with to get their input. Often what we think we do and what we actually do are two completely different things.

Above all, I would say the best investment you could make would be to go to a good quality PGA professional and sit down with him or her and make a PLAN of how you can take your game forward. Make sure you select a coach who covers all aspects of the game not just the full swing. Get involved with a coach who will motivate you and give you a definite practice plan to act on during the winter months. If you have to make some changes to your swing, then NOW is the time to do it. Don’t wait until next year just before the season starts and then HOPE you can suddenly improve your action. It takes time and effort but it will be worth it in the long run. If you are going to set out on a programme of improvement, then try to enlist someone else with you who can be your ‘range buddy’. The research on this is very strong in the sense that when we ‘share’ a goal with others and involve them, we are MUCH more likely to stay on track.

Even in the absolute worst of weather, working on your game INDOORS can be of great benefit. If you are trying to improve your putting stroke or your swing in the normal way, you can have conflicting goals in the sense you want to hole the putt but at the same time change your action. This can often be counterproductive. When indoors you can temporarily remove the target from the equation and focus on the physical move that you want to ingrain. Do this in short but regular bursts of attention.

The research on visualisation and imagery also suggest to us we can enlist the power of our imagination to speed up the process of making changes in our golf game. It has long been established it is useful to visualise yourself making the moves in your swing that you want to change but I have also found it very useful to get players to visualise themselves BEHAVING differently out on the course. If you are an angry golfer, spend some time in your imagination seeing and sensing yourself responding better to dropped shots and mistakes. If you get nervous, then spend some time in your mind’s eye seeing yourself dealing with what you perceive to be pressure situations. This is creating a behaviour template that your brain can go to work on.

Above all else, see the winter as an opportunity to do something with your game as opposed to letting the months drift by and do nothing.

Have a Very Happy New Year and keep me informed of your progress.

Karl Morris

                                            

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Enjoy easy Christmas shopping with the MIND FACTOR!!

• When you hear the word "ROUTINE" what does it conjure up in your mind?
• Does it seem exciting and appealing or somewhat dull?
• Same old routine, it’s just part of my routine.

It may seem we perceive a ROUTINE as being something of a drag to do.

What about the word "RITUAL"?

• What has this got to do with your golf?

Just consider for a moment what you do BEFORE you hit the ball in that 40 second sanctuary of the pre-shot routine is 100% down to you and under your control. The bit in the middle when you hit the shot unfortunately will always come and go a little due to the fact our brain is not wired to fix movement in a totally consistent way time and time again. (has ANYONE in the history of the game got to the point where they NEVER hit a bad shot?).  The phase after the shot is yours and yours alone to determine HOW your react to the shot you have just hit. Phase one and phase three COULD be really consistent which is the good news if we choose to work on them and build a ROUTINE or RITUAL that stands up under any situation.

Have a think how you personally could improve these areas. I don’t mean you shouldn’t work on improving your swing, of course you should, but see through the illusion that this is the ONLY thing going on when you play golf.

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Having the ability to get people to fulfil their potential will be a very VALUABLE commodity in the marketplace.

 

You may have considered becoming a certified Mind Factor Coach in the past but haven’t had the time or the opportunity.

 

The 3 day course in Manchester is packed FULL of cutting edge information to give you the TOOLS and TECHNIQUES to get the best out of YOURSELF and your students.

If the dates or time/travel are a problem then there is ANOTHER option

Have a listen to why I believe you will progress further with my latest product release, MIND TRAPS!!

The latest MIND FACTOR product ready to make a DIFFERENCE to your game and to STOP you repeating the SAME old Habits.    GOLF - THE MIND TRAPS

The NINE thinking sins that ruin your game and how to avoid them.

Some of the concepts you will hear on this programme will seem counterintuitive BUT you WILL be glad to find how surprisingly easy it is to integrate into your game. 

Pretty much all of what you will hear on this programme is a result of the tireless work and research of OTHER people who have spent their lives trying to better understand how our brain works both FOR and AGAINST us.  Experts in the world of sports psychology, social psychology and neuroscience.

Hopefully, this programme distils that research into a PRACTICAL and APPLICABLE programme for YOU to use.

The really exciting thing from the world of neuroscience is that we are becoming a LOT more aware of HOW our brain actually functions and HOW we often get in our own way on the golf course and for that matter in the rest of life as well.

You will notice during this programme how you will find re occurring themes.

If you have worked with some of the MIND FACTOR products in the past, you will recognise the importance of some of these themes.

Many golf improvement programmes which are on the market tend to focus on what you need to do to CHANGE things.  What you need to START doing.  Things like visualisation and believing in yourself, most of the stuff you have probably heard before and possibly had limited success with.

The overriding hard wired desire for life to be comfortable and familiar. 

We keep doing things in spite of these actions being counterproductive.   I would go as far as to say the drive for familiarity is one of THE strongest of all human drivers.

Time and time again, I have been amazed to see people going down the SAME path, over and over again with little or no reward.

The path doesn’t work but it IS familiar.

We will go into much detail during MIND TRAPS of HOW to break these chains which are holding you back.

As this LATEST programme will reveal, this will probably mean avoiding or stopping doing something you have done for a long time.

I will be asking you to challenge some of your own ‘sacred cows’, things you THINK are good for you but perhaps when you really look at it, are getting in your way in your quest to be a better player.

Once you own this programme, you will have a ROUTE MAP to get the best out of yourself and your game but, MORE importantly, you will have the chance to step back and CHANGE some of the destructive and limiting behaviours which have held your progress back in the past. The very WORST feeling is to look back with REGRET at NOT doing the things that you NEEDED to do but you AVOIDED. I am guessing that as you are reading this, you would not want to be one of those people?

You will learn:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Great Masters win by Bubba and amazing display of composure and calmness by Louis Oosthuizen under Major pressure.  What can you take from this?

• Which environment does the player experience on a DAILY basis?
• Who is that person interacting with regularly?
• What CONTEXT do they practice in?
• What context do they CREATE on the golf course?

• What do I REALLY want from my golf?
• What else do I really want?
• Who do I spend most of my time with? (list the people)
• What do they expect of me?
• Do these people GIVE or TAKE energy from me?
• What environment do I spend the most time in?
• How supportive is that environment?
• What environment do I NEED to be in?
• Who else do I need to be around?
• What CONTEXT do I practice in?
• How relevant is that context to golf?
• What context do I create on the golf course? (is it a context of fear or fun?) 

For the 3rd year, another fabulous 3 days in Cascais with Golfferienkurse.ch and their delightful guests from Switzerland.  An exclusive group with the drive to better their own Mind Factor!!  Superbly organised by Iain Donnelly and Andrew Booth.  http://is.gd/jDuo8q

Looking at this fascinating scenario,  you need to be careful of what psychologists call ‘fundamental attribution error’ which is an academic way of saying be careful as to what STORY you come up with as to why something has happened.  However, I personally can’t help but wonder and speculate myself as to what ARE some of the underlying factors that could perhaps explain or a least shed some light on what has happened these past ten years.

I have been fortunate myself to spend a lot of time in Ireland over the last decade and work with a number of these players, having the opportunity to observe certain aspects of Irish golf at first hand.  One of the things which always strikes me over in Ireland is how much the Irish LOVE their sport and how much they tend to admire people who do well. There does seem to be a GENUINE desire from the public to see their heroes do well and I know for a fact the support golfers get from the public is incredible. There doesn’t seem to be quite the corrosive element of build your stars up to knock them down again which some cultures seem to revel in. The game at grass roots is fascinating also in so much as you see the passion to play in Inter Club cups and competitons. To play for your club MEANS something and the desire to play in a very competitive but friendly environment is obvious. The game is both seriously competitive and social at the same time.

• Do we sometimes try to make things a little bit TOO easy for some of our players by always wanting them to be in the most perfect of conditions?

PGA Pro, Stephen Packer and the team did the members and their club very proud over the last 2 nights.   200++ guests attended the workshop, had great fun, learnt some effective and practical tips used by the Pros - and they made good money in the process, too!!   Cheers Guys!

If you could pick ONE mental skill to develop which would make a HUGE difference to your life what would it be?

It is a question I often ask people when I meet them for the first time and we begin to do our 1-2-1 sessions. Often, answers come back like better focus, improved concentration or better anger-management . Yet, there is ONE mental skill or discipline I think outweighs almost all and that is SELF CONTROL or willpower as it is often called.  I would go as far as to say every single one of us should study the latest scientific discoveries that have been released on how to increase our willpower.

Just think of all of the areas of our lives in which we know WHAT  we should be doing to improve but we do not have the willpower to follow things through.
•Do we REALLY need MORE information on dieting or do we just need to get a bit better at actually acting on and IMPLEMENTING the knowledge we already have?
•Do we need to buy ANOTHER exercise DVD or do we actually just need to get IN to the gym and DO what we already know?
We KNOW we need to spend more time on our short game to improve our scores but will we ever DO it?

A fascinating book called Willpower-Rediscovering our Greatest Strength has just been released. Written by one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists Roy Baumeister and his colleague John Tierney, the book gives some remarkable new insights into HOW we can better develop that most UNIQUE of human traits.

For me it was illuminating to discover how willpower on any given day is not a finite resource. We have so much available to us and once that runs out, we will suffer what psychologists call ‘Ego Depletion’. If we have spent all day exercising massive self control by biting our tongue and holding in our emotions in the face of an impossibly incompetent boss, then the chances of us sticking to our diet that evening or going to the gym WILL be reduced. If we have a LOT of issues going on in our life OFF the golf course, then do not expect to be able to maintain a Buddha like composure ON the course. Ego depletion and loss of self control is a problem for us all to consider and work with.

It does also seem from Baumeister’s studies that self control has a definite biological aspect to it. From his experiments, Baumeister discovered that when we exercise self control the brain requires glucose as a key ingredient.  If we exercise a lot of self control, then the glucose levels will dip.  And, if we have LOW levels of glucose, then our propensity to exhibit self control will reduce.

One of his classic studies was of people playing a computer game. At first, the computer game seemed reasonable but it soon became impossibly difficult. Everyone got frustrated as the game went on but the volunteers who had a drink to replenish glucose levels managed to grumble quietly and keep playing. The others started cursing aloud and banging the computer. And, when by a pre- arranged script the experimenter made an insulting remark about their performance, the glucose deprived people where MUCH more likely to get angry.

•Does this tie in with your experience on a golf course?
•Do you find that you begin to suffer from ego depletion at certain points during the round?
•Does your ability to maintain self control weaken as the round progresses?
With the research now available to us it could well be this is a result of nutritional and biological factors alongside other Mind Factor issues.

Baumeister suggests that when you eat make sure you go for the SLOW BURN. The body converts just about all sorts of food into glucose BUT at DIFFERENT rates. Foods which are converted quickly are said to have a high glycemic index.