Game Mentality
Believe it or not, game mentality is pretty much the most important aspect of your game. Every single shot, every putt, is affected by your game mentality. If you can not go into a game with a positive attitude, you can expect to come out of a game with a high score and in an even worse mood than you went into the game. Before you start your game, give yourself a little pep talk, reassure yourself of your capabilities. Set a target score. Do what you need to do to get yourself motivated.
Golf is a excellent way of escaping from the toils and pressure of modern society. This is because, you total mind needs to be focussed on the game, so you can forget about any troubles you may have off the course. To become a good golfer, you must be able to do this. You must be able to put everything else out of your mind. Proffesional golfers have physcoligists and mental trainers. This is obviously not appropriate for an ammetuer golfer. I would however strongly reccomend reading some profffesionally written material on this subject. The best book I have read is 'Golf is not a game of perect' by Robert J. Rotella and Bob Cullen. I would also recommend "The golfers mind" and "Golf is a game of confidence" both by Rotella. I would strongly reccomend buying or at least borrowing books on the subject of Game Mentality.
As I have said many other times, one of the most important parts of any shot is visualising where, and how your shot is going to end up. It is not enough to just do this before every shot, you need to believe you can do it. If you tell yourself enough times that you can do something, you can make a pretty good attempt at something. Of course it is important to be realistic, for example drive the green on a par five, but do not set your sights to low. Aim just above the level you are at at the time. With this you can not go far wrong. Remeber, Perceive. Believe. Achieve. If you have the first two, the third is always easier to come by.
Another important part of your game mentality is not getting bogged down on your mistake. If you do make a stupid mistake or play a bad shot, you have to move on from it. The technique I use is I tell myself if I want to improve on the next hole I need to think only about the next hole and not the last hole. I know in my head and from experience that if I don't, I'm going to ruin the rest of my game. In addition it can sometimes be helpfull to look back and ask, what shots did I play that were good. The results from this can actually be pleasantly surprising. When you actually focus on what shots were good you will see what a good golfer you actually are. The whole pint of this section is promoting complete concentration and a posstitive mental attitude. With this and some hard work on the practise ground, you will be well on your way to becoming a low hadicap confident golfer.
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