Tales From The Bunker

In recent blogs we have been discussing establishing rhythm prior to playing and sticking to your pre-shot routine. Perhaps the most difficult part (at least for me) of a routine is visualization.

Nick Faldo has stated “Your body will do what your mind pictures – that’s golf in a nutshell”. If it was only that easy! But I do have some suggestions on improving you visualization ability.

When visualizing, the word “don’t” cannot be in your mind. If you are thinking “Don’t hit it into the lake on the right“ the ball will undoubtedly go into the lake. You cannot ignore the existence of the lake but rather acknowledge its existence and turn that to your advantage by focusing with even more urgency on positively visualizing where you do want the shot to go.

The cornerstone of visualization is painting positive pictures of what you want the ball to do. And the more detail the better. Visualize the ball all the way to its finish. You don’t want to only see it start out on the correct trajectory because the mind might think its okay after that for the ball to slice or hook.

On the tee work backwards from the green to visualize how you are going to play the hole and then you can more easily visualize each shot as you execute it.

For me it can be mentally tiring to visual all of the shots in 18 holes. At times my mind does wander and the result is usually not pretty. I find it less tiring if I take one hole at a time and try to be in the present. I can only hit one shot at a time so I try to only think about the shot that is next, what club am I going to hit and what will it look like. Thinking about one shot is not overwhelming; thinking about 18 holes is definitely overwhelming.

Yes it is hard but the more you practice visualizing your shot the easier it becomes. The sooner you start the sooner your golf scores will improve.

As always, keep ‘em in the fairway.

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