©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

Why Your Game Is About To Get Better!

Hello and welcome to Golf State of Mind! You’ve made a wise choice in
signing up to improve your game. Very few players (mostly elite golfers)
come to realize the importance of a more “holistic” approach to improving
performance, and now you are on that same path to higher performance.

Because you’ve decided to download this eBook, it tells me that you know
that your mind can influence how well you are able to access the skills you
have. The good news is that regardless of your current skill level, you can
change your “state of mind” (no physical skills are required to improve your
mental game), and have your mind help you perform better. But this takes
practice…

Learning a better mental game is not unlike improving your technical skills
– it’s something that gets better with practicing in the right way and
creating habits.

“I’m almost making more time to practice my mind-set rather than to be

on the range.” – Rory McIlroy

Throughout the past 10 years that I’ve

been a mental coach for golf, I’ve
worked diligently to refine the way I
teach (my system) so it’s as effective as
possible and gives my students a clear
pathway to better performance and
lower scores.

In this eBook, I’m going to share the 7 Key Mental Strategies of my

mental game system, so you can get started immediately with your mental

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

game training and begin practicing your mental game with the same energy
and commitment that you do your swing.

These 7 strategies or “fundamentals” of my system are the traits, behaviors

and habits that my most successful students (and all The World’s best
players) have in common. These players were not born with these traits,
they were cultivated over many years. With practice of these strategies,
you’ll be able to adopt more of the conscious actions and subconscious
behaviors of the world’s best. You’ll find yourself with more confidence,
more focus and consistently pushing yourself to higher levels of
performance. More good news…these are all “transferrable”, human skills
that will help you achieve more success and happiness in all areas of your
life.

The Goals Of A Better Mental Game

• By shifting your focus away from results and future consequences,

and more towards process and what you are doing in the present
moment, you will alleviate pressure and create freedom

• By setting small incremental goals for your practice and play, they
will eventually become subconscious behaviors and habits

• By improving your focus and playing sensory golf (instead of “playing

golf swing”), you’ll being able to access your “athletic mind” and find
the target more often

• By shaping your mindset, you’ll be able to more easily overcome

challenges and adversity (develop a winner’s mindset)

• By getting to know yourself better, you’ll learn how to access your

“Optimal Performance State” more often

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 • By learning how to talk to yourself in the right way, you can stay
confident and optimistic

• By practicing in a more effective way that simulates playing, you’ll

learn how to improve playing skills and focus under pressure

• How to manage performance anxiety and calm yourself down under

pressure

An Important Mental Game Fundamental:

The first thing to highlight is that your Body and Mind are intimately
linked. 99% of golf instruction is aimed at improving technical skills, but
unless you are in control of the mental side, you won’t be able to access
your skills no matter how good they are. If you are anxious, unable to focus
and full of doubt, then your movement will be inhibited, and you will
underperform. It’s important that you work on training both the technical
and the physical simultaneously.

Just like you train your swing, your mind is ready to improve also (your
mindset and mental performance are not fixed). The Golf State of Mind
coaching and training program is designed to help you improve these skills
every day, and give you the confidence and focus to access your best game
more frequently, especially when under pressure in tournaments.

Let’s get started on your path to success…

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

The purpose of the Golf State of Mind teaching is for you:

To - deepen your learning, increase your awareness, self-belief and

confidence so you improve and enjoy
By - opening your mind, building effective routines, deep practice and
developing the mental toughness to stay focused in the face of adversity
So that - you stay positive, confident, and decisive
To be able to - use your skills naturally without the negative interferences
that would normally hold you back.

Mental Strategy 1: Make Your “Process” The

Goal

If you are going to play your best under pressure and break through to new
scoring levels, it’s imperative that you train yourself to focus on what you
are doing in the present, rather than how the outcome of your actions might
affect your future. You’ll need to learn how to become immersed in your

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

“process”, not living and dying by the outcome of every shot and being
fearful of the future.

When you're too focused on what the result of a shot or round might be,
you’re speculating about something that uncertain. No one in the history
of the game has been able to say with 100% certainty where the ball will
finish or what score they will shoot. Of course, the intention is to hit the
target and to play as best you can, but that’s different. An example of this
would be: “I have to get off to a good start and par the first few holes” or
“If I make this putt then I’ll be on ___”. What you’re doing here is setting
an expectation of: “If I achieve this outcome, then I’ll be happy and if I
don’t, I’ll be disappointed.” The uncertainty of whether you’ll be able to
achieve happiness and avoid disappointment creates stress, fear and
performance anxiety (increased heart rate, tense muscles and poor focus).

However, when you are process focused, your focus shifts towards what you
can do now to increase your chances of a good outcome. The process is
100% within your control and you can achieve it with certainty.

By being in the present, and making process the goal for each shot, it
prevents the brain from triggering the stress response, and will allow you to
play from a calmer, focused and athletic state of mind.

One aspect of my mental coaching is to find out what these process goals
need to be to get you, to maximize your chances of success. Different
players have different ways to optimally connect with the golf shot and
perform their best. To learn more about how to build your process, you can
check out my Ultimate Mental Game Training System and one on one
sessions.

Process goals should be actionable things that you know you do when you
are playing well. We can put these into “routines” that are easy to follow
(when practiced). Even though each player will have a variation on their
shot routine, it will generally include the following phases:

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Thinking Phase
Rehearsal Phase
Athletic Phase
Evaluation Phase
Acceptance Phase

Once we’ve determined your process goals, we need to make them the
primary measure of success of a shot. My students take a “Mental Game
Scorecard” with them to the course to hold themselves accountable to their
process goals. Look out for my mental game scorecard in your next email.
The process needs to be practiced, as what might seem easy when you are
playing casual rounds, can be harder under pressure.

Mental Strategy 2: Learn how to quieten the

mind, improve focus and relax the body

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“I just stay in the moment…I never think one hole ahead. I’m not thinking
about tomorrow. I’m not thinking about the next shot. I’m just thinking
about what I’ve got to do right then and there. It’s very simple.” – Brooks
Koepka

The ability to focus or concentrate on what you choose will provide you with
a supreme personal development tool that transcends golf. Daily practice of
even a minute or two will train your brain to be more present and give you
the ability to choose which thoughts to pay attention to, and which to
ignore.

Concentration can be defined as: “your ability to stay focused on what you
choose, while you choose to.”

Golfers heads tend to be filled with mental chatter: “what if this or that
happens?”, “don’t hit it there” and over-analyzing their technique. Their
minds get pulled in every direction, which burns mental energy, affects
their mood and creates tension in the muscles.

Studies suggest that we have 3 negative thoughts for every 1 positive. In

other words, your subconscious mind is producing negative thoughts all the
time, in the attempt to keep you safe away and from danger. Every player
and every person have them enter their consciousness during a round.
Without the ability to choose what we focus on, it’s easy to get caught up in
these negative thoughts, which if given attention/power can become
emotions and tension, which can weaken the performance state. It’s hard to
access your best skills when you are playing with anger, frustration, regret,
anticipation, and even excitement.

So how can we practice being able to watch our negative thoughts at more
of distance and to be less emotional, while we’re playing?

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

Being in The Present

Being “in the present” is so important in golf. It frees up your mind,

allowing you to focus on what’s most important to access to your best skills.
The ancient practice of meditation and mindfulness is all about improving a
person's ability to access the present moment and be accepting of how they
feel in that moment and not try to change it. This creates freedom. I advise
all my students to start a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness, as it
has so many benefits (beyond golf). With this practice you will become
more able to clearly focus on the things that are most important and reduce
the noise from those things that are not.

Samurai Warriors adopted Zen Buddhism and meditation because it

allowed them to fight with an “empty mind”. For these swordsmen, having
an empty mind was vital during combat as it freed them from doubt, fear
and focus on technique. Of course, they trained technique, but when
combat began, all thinking departed, and the purity of the action took over.

Being in the present, is when your attention (focus) isn’t on what’s

happened or what will happen (consequences), only on what’s happening
now, e.g. your pre-shot routine or your walk in between shots.

In between shots, direct your focus of attention to your breathing and what
you see and feel (the trees, sky, surrounding landscape, the wind, the
ground beneath your feet etc.). This will bring you to the present - you are
alert and aware but not thinking.

It’s also a perfect way at any time to come out of “negative” emotions,
regret, anger, anxiety – fear is always ‘future’. Excitement suggests thinking
about results, regret suggests thinking about past mistakes, instead, just
keep playing the shot in hand until they run out.

Here’s an exercise for you…

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

Ask yourself “I wonder what my next thought will be?” and ‘notice’ how
long it is before a thought comes in. Keep practicing until you can extend
that time to several seconds or more.

If it’s easier, focus on something, a glass, a golf ball, your breath etc. (be
very specific e.g. the light sparkling off one dimple of the golf ball). Now
hold your attention and see how long it is before a thought comes in, then
notice if your mind drifts, and if it does, gently bring it back. Practice, daily
at first, then often to maintain the skill.

Being “Mindful” Of Your Thoughts and Emotions

When your mind is quiet, you can become better at observing your thoughts
and emotions, without reacting to them. It’s the resisting and reacting that
causes anxiety and tension. Emotions come from thoughts. If you give a
thought too much attention, you give it the power to become an emotion
and change your mood.

With practice, your inner voice can be listened to impartially, without

judgement and reaction - you just gently bring your attention back to
what’s happening. One day you’ll catch yourself smiling at this inner voice!

If you’re truly present, you won’t be evaluating how you’re playing or keep a
running total or be thinking ‘if only’. You’ll be quietening your mind and
accessing the “Golf State of Mind”. How to meditate and be more mindful is
a section in the Mental Game Training System.

Breathing

“When I learned how to breathe, I learned how to win” – Tom Watson

Quietening the mind and relaxing the body requires “getting control of your
physiology”. Perhaps the best way to do this is through proper breathing
techniques. At any time during your round, you can focus on deep belly

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

breaths to lower your heart rate and muscle tension and keep your mind in
the present.

Mental Strategy 3: Connecting with A Golf

Shot (Playing “Sensory Golf”)

“What is my target?”

This is a simple yet profoundly powerful concept. Without focus on a clear

intention, your mind can drift towards what you want to avoid. Your
subconscious mind (aka your belief system) isn’t able to judge something as
positive or negative (“don’t) e.g. what happens when you say to yourself,
“don’t think of a pink elephant”. The same thing will happen when you’re
standing over a shot telling yourself “don’t hit it in the water”. Your body
will respond as if your ‘thinking’ is real, positive or negative;

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

Your subconscious will reconcile the event of going in the water with a
future threat, and trigger stress leading to a poor swing. Sure, it’s a good
idea to think of where the “bad miss” is (in the photo above it’s clearly the
water), but once you’ve factored that to your shot/target selection during
the “Analysis Phase”, all your energy has to be focused on your intention.
Once you have a clear intention for the shot, we need to connect with that
intention and focus on it 100%, not get distracted by what you don’t want to
happen. Here are some ways to do it.

Visual Connection, or “Visualization”

“When I think about process, it’s the process of making a good decision,
visualizing the shot the way I want to play it, and just making a good
swing and that’s really it.” – Rory McIlroy

Many of the world’s top players talk about being able to visualize (in detail)
a shot before it’s happened. The reason this works is because it speaks to
the subconscious mind which is where athletic movement comes from.

There are too many moving parts in the golf swing for you to be thinking
about them while swinging. If you can be more “externally focused” – that
is, on what the intended outcome of your movement is (in this case, the
visual projection of movement or the ball flight), the more likely your
mind/body will organize movement in a way to produce that outcome.

On a basic level, from behind the ball, try “visualizing” the ball flight and
landing area. Perhaps give the path the ball will take a colored line, like you
see when they use the ShotTracer technology on the TV coverage. Try
holding onto this for as long as possible into your shot.

Connecting with a golf shot in this way and having a very clear intention for
it, not only tells your body what to do during the shot, but it increases
commitment and lowers distractions. The result is better execution and

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

better shots. However, not all of us find visualization easy (or useful) but
there are other ways to engage to produce the optimal movement patterns…

Kinesthetic or feel

How will this shot feel? What will impact be like and how will the club feel
in my hands throughout the swing? How do your feet feel during before and
during the swing? For putting, feel players won’t necessarily be able to put
the line/speed into words, but rather it’s just a feeling. They can imagine
what the ball will feel like coming off the putter face, and that creates the
stroke.

Auditory or Sound

What will the rhythm of this shot be? What will the shot sound like? This
helps more “auditory” thinkers access their athletic mind.

The deeper you can connect with a shot using your senses, the more you’ll
get out of your head (turn off thinking) and the more athletic you’ll be.
Finding out what your dominant sense is, takes some experimentation with
exercises you’ll find in my Ultimate Mental Game Training System.

Remember:

• Your mind and body are one system and affect each other directly
• Therefore, focus on the positive outcome you want and the sensations
of the action to produce it

©Copyright Golf State of Mind 2020

Mental Strategy 4: Developing A Limitless
Mindset

Pushing your performance to new highs is going to require a change in

mindset. Studies done on human performance show that high achievers (in
any field) have a different perspective from those who under-perform…

Professor Carol Dweck of Stanford University is one academic who has

studied mindset and her studies conclude that more successful people have
more of what she calls a “Growth Mindset” vs those that are held back by a
“Fixed Mindset”.

People/Athletes that have more of a “Fixed Mindset” tend to be constrained

by the outcome or result of a performance. They believe that they are only
as good as their last performance, so if it was good, they are happy, but if
not, they can be deeply affected by it. Because success for them is so tied-up
in the outcome, they often play with a lot of emotion and ups and downs. It
makes mistakes and failure hard to deal with and they will often give up
when it’s not going well, with the excuse that “I’m just not good enough”
and other negative self-talk to protect their ego. This puts tremendous
pressure on each shot and round, that they often don’t play to the best of
their ability.

They have a short-term view of success and they are often chasing approval
or respect from others through their play.

"I never learned anything from a match that I won." – Bobby Jones

On the other end, we have People/Athletes that have more of a “Growth

Mindset”.

These players have a longer-term view of success than just their recent
rounds and are keen to learn and improve regardless of the result. They see

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a performance more objectively, rather than through the tainted lens of
emotion - their self-worth or view of their ability isn’t tied to their scores.
Because they see each round as a learning opportunity, they are less
affected by mistakes and failure. In fact, they see a positive in those tough
rounds, as they are better learning opportunities than good rounds. The
limitless performer is one who sees setbacks as an opportunity to grow and
take themselves to new levels of performance. They can be more “stoic” and
play with less emotion.

The bottom line is that talent is not fixed, it’s nurtured. This is
especially important when coaching juniors – work ethic has to be instilled
and performances need to be looked at honestly and objectively, without
emotion. For parents and coaching of juniors, avoid emotional responses to
their play. When you are happy and overjoyed with them for a good score or
result in a tournament but look disappointed when the result is not so good,
you are inadvertently creating a fixed mindset. Let’s have every round be a
learning experience regardless of the result and reward that player for their
mental performance.

Mental Strategy 5: Know Your Best “Player

Self”

“Know Thyself” - Socrates

Who are you when you are playing your best golf? Are you happy,
confident, excited, relaxed, intense, strong, powerful, in control?

When we define this, we call it your “player persona” and it’s part of your
mental training to live (or “act”) into that role every time you play.
Consistency in your scores is not achievable, but consistency in your mental
approach is, and this is one way to achieve it.

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We all have different roles we play in our lives. You could be playing a
different “role” (or show a different side to yourself), when you are on the
golf course vs when you are at home with your family.

Identifying your best “player persona” can help you detach “the self” from
your play and instead be a “performer” on the golf course. By acting into
that role, we can tap into our subconscious associations & bring out the best
version of ourselves as players, regardless of scores or what's happening
outside of golf.

It can help to find something or a person that embodies the player that you
would like to be in your next round?

When I asked one of my junior players to tell me which player embodies

how he would like to be on the golf course, and he said, “Brooks Koepka”.
Another player described himself as a “lion”. When they are on the golf
course, triggering these roles can help bring out the qualities within
themselves which they associate with it.

Mental Strategy 6: Goal Setting and Tracking

Progress
Knowing where you want to go and where you are now, is key to improving.
The key question is what do you really want to achieve in golf? Desire will
only survive with so many other things clamoring for your attention if you
nurture it and stay focused. This is achieved through clear goals, having a
strong purpose for those goals, and staying committed.

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The strength of your goal setting system depends on your….

Your Desire (What)

How much better do you think you can get this year? Let’s identify that
goal.

Your purpose (Why)

The next question is why you want to achieve this goal. Life is short and
time is precious. What is it about this goal that will satisfy you? Your
purpose is your underlying motivation.

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Performance and Process Goals (How)

Next, we need to get a clear understanding of what your baseline is and

what your current strengths and weaknesses are. What are the biggest
opportunities for improvement to take you to your goal?

Let’s break your year-long goal down into 4 quarters (of 3 months). So, if
your year-long goal is to lower your scoring average to 75 and currently
you’re at 79, that’s one shot per quarter. To reduce your score by 1 shot in
12 weeks, where do you need to start?

Work mostly on your weaknesses

At the end of the 2018 season Rory McIlroy realized that putting was his
biggest weakness and he was 97th in Strokes Gained Putting. Hence, his
no.1 performance goal for 2019 was to improve his SG putting, which he
achieved. By doing so, he made 2019 a highly successful season (winning
the FedEx Cup) and finished 24th in SG putting.

For each goal cycle, set (specific) primary and secondary short-term goal,
that will be your priority. E.g. to improve my scrambling % from 30-40%.
Short term goals keep you focused and motivated. When you achieve them
you’ll build confidence and increase momentum.

Setting goals for your mental game

Here are some sample questions I ask my students:

“What is it mentally that holds you back the most?”

That would be our priority and we would set a goal for changing that.

“What are your mental goals for a round?”

These are player specific goals that will serve as reminders to you to be the
player you would like to be and to help you develop those habits.

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The “Mental Game Scorecard”, will hold you accountable to these goals
during your rounds and increase your self-awareness going forward.

Mental Strategy 7: Effective Practice

To achieve your goals and improve performance, you’ll need an effective

and focused practice regimen. This is another area where the Golf State of
Mind Training helps golfers.

You need to set the process goals required to achieve the performance goal.
e.g. your practice regimen, fitness, or commitment to specific
improvements. You will need to have a structured practice plan to make
sure you’re using your time productively. Success will come only when you
do the right things, repeatedly and patiently.

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Using the Golf State of Mind system, we establish a goal for each practice
session and then divide practice into 3 parts of Block, Variable and
Competitive skills practice. Block practice is about consciously grooving a
new movement pattern, Variable practice is about trusting your skills -
teaching your body and mind to adapt to different situations (random types
of shot and distance) and Competitive Skills Practice - putting your
game under pressure by introducing consequences to missing.
During each practice session you will go through a cycle of Learn (Block),
Trust (Variable) and Test (Competitive).

Summary

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading through the GSOM Mental Game

Fundamentals. By following these, your game is heading in the direction of
improvement.

Remember…Keep your sense of humor and perspective and strive to enjoy

your golf!!!

If you’d like to learn more about my teaching, I’d be more than happy to
share more with you! There are a couple of options: you can check out my
Ultimate Mental Game Training System, Practice System, Putting System
or Pre-round Confidence Booster Audio Sessions.

Alternatively if you would like to discuss one on one options, please use this
link to book a free 15 minute consultation.

If you are a teaching professional and want to find out more about how Golf
State of Mind can enhance your teaching sessions, then please email me at
david@golfstateofmind.com

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