The Sports
Psychology Blog
This Sports Psychology blog offers a simple tip to help golfers improve their golf psychology.
Golf: Improve Your Game...Follow The Arc Of The Ball
It's interesting providing sports psychology services for professional golfers. Many of them, after hitting a tee shot, stoop down to pick up the tee and march off. It's automatic. It's the mark of a job done. Nailed it. Very few follow the arc of the ball as it soars through the air. Unless it's going out of bounds. This, I believe, is a mistake.
I encourage my players to wait. Wait and watch. Don't worry about the pressure from the next player to tee up. It's your shot. Your time. Watch the ball as it soars through the. Watch it reach the peak of the arc and keep watching as it lands.
Why? The purpose of watching the arc is two fold. Firstly to build strong visualisation patterns in the mind...by watching the flight of the ball again and again it becomes so much easier to visualise the arc of the shot you want to make. You become a conniseur of flight. Remember the clearer the picture you paint in your mind of the shot you want to play, the better the shot.
Secondly it will slow you down. Slowing down will enable to take more control of your speeds and your game. You will thus play at your pace not everybody else's. This is confidence! it's classic sports psychology.
Posted By Martin Perry - Confidence Coach & Sports Psychology
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Your comments
Joe Dolan 2007-06-21 11:58 am
Interesting advice. Have always wanted to spend longer watching my shots but felt the pressure to pick up the tee and let the next player tee up. Will try to be a bit mentally stronger.
Mark Jacks 2007 -06-24 13.00pm
Wow! I tried that advice at my morning 4 ball. Spending time watching the arc of the ball does make a difference. I found my drives went longer and higher after doing this. Cool!