Mastering the Mind Game

Mastering the Mind Game

by Dennis M Clark

Most people will acknowledge that golf is very much a mind game but very few will use it correctly or to anywhere near its full potential.

How much of the game is mental? Just about everything. The fact that we’re thinking about it proves that. How do we decide what club to use, what shot to play, or what to do in our swing? We are using the mind.

While we may think that golf is a physical game, we don’t make a move without there first being a mental message sent to the various parts of the body and these are influenced by what’s in our mind. We’ve heard how we practice to create muscle memory but the memory is in the head, so in fact we are training the muscles to respond to a thought. We are training the mind.

The mind is the most powerful tool we have in learning to play golf successfully.
It can be the most destructive force limiting us to a life of golfing mediocrity, or it can be the most constructive possession allowing us to remove the limitations preventing us from playing the game we are capable of.

Most golfers know they are not playing to their potential and yet they refuse acknowledge and train the one area that can make the greatest difference, the use of their mind.

To most golfers the thought of the mind game can seem too frightening and theoretical, as if it’s mystical or you need a PhD to use it. It’s not theoretical, it’s very practical and the average person is using it everyday in other areas of their life.

Once we learn to apply this to golf and refine it we remove a great deal of the unnecessary clutter and confusion from our game. This lighter load allows us to achieve greater things.

While all of the segments below warrant a chapter of their own to explain them in more depth, they give a brief outline on how important correct use of the mind is and some practical ways it can be used to greater benefit.

This is not just for the successful golfer, it is applicable to and achievable by everyone and is the fastest way to improve your game.




Successful Practical mind training

Using Reason

One of the main reasons for golfers lack of success is their failure to apply reason to their approach to the game. They chase unreasonable goals or chase reasonable goals in an unreasonable manner.
Very few face golf front on, confront the real issues and deal with them in a reasonable and thorough manner, getting them out of the way once and for all. We are usually trying to slip past it side on looking for the easy route and some magical piece of information that will offer us a soft option. This of course is totally unreasonable.
By applying reason we can see the game for what it really is and formulate a successful plan which when put into operation will provide a worthwhile outcome.

Discriminating and Prioritising

Nearly every golfer carries excess mental baggage and instead of shedding what is of no value they continue to amass even more. Even if they do discover something of value it is seriously tainted by all the useless gatherings they continue to carry.
Using reason we gain the ability of discrimination in our decision making allowing us to focus on only what is necessary and useful, thus reducing needless distractions and enabling streamlining and fast tracking in progress.
This also allows for prioritizing in training, working in order of most value. This to saves time and effort and quickens the rate of progress.

Developing Awareness

While most golfers have an idea of what they are working on, very few have much idea of awareness. Awareness is the beginning of all growth and it is how we ultimately relate to our swing. Until this is developed to a reasonable level it is extremely difficult for one to fully understand the errors they may be making, the correction needed and to be able to differentiate between the two.
With most golfers, their swings are like a whole series free floating dots that they hope will somehow all fall into place, which they don’t very often and when they do it’s more by good luck rather than good management. Awareness helps you connect all the dots and then get them working as one controllable unit.

It is only by developing this awareness that we are able to gain a basis for repetition in your swing which is the consistency golfers crave.

This lack of awareness would probably be the number one cause of lack of progress in most golfers.

Training your Potential

As we gain awareness this awakens the ability to tap into and develop our natural potential. This is the beginning of an ownership of ability to perform a function to a higher level on a more consistent basis, the thing that eludes most golfers. Ownership is the main point here.

Most people are unaware of the natural talents they possess and more often than not these are ignored and even trained out of us as we try to learn golf.
There are many talents lying within awaiting acknowledgement and development. It is these talents that allow us to make a swing based on true knowledge rather than just information. With knowledge we know, with information we hope.
These inner talents, rather than just swing technique, is what differentiates the great golfers from the rest.


Staying in the Present

While we are playing golf in the present, the only time we have available, most golfers thoughts are either in the past or the future and this is where a multitude of errors occur.
With our minds being elsewhere we are either recalling and reliving bad experiences from the past, or pre-empting hopeful or unwanted results in the future. Both of these are destructive and create negative influences and distractions on the event at hand.
This then leads to an uncommitted thought process followed by an uncommitted action.

The fact is there are no problems in the present, only a situation to be dealt with. By learning to remain focused there it enables us to formulate the necessary plan for the event at hand and perform the function without negative distractions.


Overcoming Doubt and Fear

Doubt and fear are two of the most destructive elements in golf no matter how good your technique is. Golf is a game of confidence, but it is difficult to establish confidence while doubt and fear are present. These elements are present because of lack of trust in ones self to perform the task at hand.
All bad golf shots occur because of one of two things, a bad plan or a bad execution of the plan. Both of these are cause by a bad mind process.

Through true understanding, development of awareness, and the ability to stay focused on the present we gain the ability to take control of a situation thus reducing doubt and fear and increasing trust and confidence.

Turning Liabilities into Assets


Usually we see our mistakes as problems that need fixing and so set out to find a cure for them.
The trouble here is that by doing so we give them power and it is a constant battle to overcome them. The more we fight them the more we empower them.

If, instead of fighting them or just hoping they would somehow magically go away, we took the time to understand them, working with them rather against them, they would no longer be a problem and would not hold power over us.

An example of this is working with an uncontrollable slice. By learning to understand it and refining it, we could turn it into a controllable fade. So instead of being a liability to our game that has power over us we have created an asset that we have power over.

This way you don’t need to cure problems, you dissolve them.




Above are a few of the ways we can make vast improvements in our game without the need to spend countless hours on the range forcing your body into positions it doesn’t want to go.

Without an improved mind game things are never really going to change. We move in a certain direction because of the way we think. If we want to change the direction we must first change the way we view things.

A computer’s hardware will not function correctly if the software is faulty.


Copyright Dennis M Clark 2007