A New Book to Boost Your Golf Improvement

Two things that are key to successfully building a strong mental game and realizing consistent golf improvement are organization and persistence. Organization refers to an organized approach in setting your positive goals and the positive plans to achieve those goals (see blog post from April 4, 2009 for more on positive goals and plans) as well as organization in your practice to make it a more effective "smart practice" or "positive practice." Persistence refers to the stick-to-itiveness to stay with your plans and practice, day after day and week after week. These are the "nuts and bolts" that are at the core of productive change for players at any level. While seemingly basic and simple, they can truly make the difference in whether or not you achieve success. Many a desire for golf improvement has been "lost in the shuffle" of inconsistent thinking and efforts and the lure of the easier path of giving up.

I have learned about a handy new tool to help you stay on track with your organization and persistence and help increase the likelihood of your success in golf improvement. It's called The 20th Hole, Stat Book and Log for Golfers, by Matt Gullo, USGTF Teaching Professional. This recently published book is designed to help you in the analysis and development of your overall game, from statistics to swing thoughts and strategies. Matt's background as a teacher and a player dedicated to golf improvement really show through in this book. It's packed with practical charts and forms to fill out with scores and notes about your lessons, practice sessions and rounds. For example, the Practice Session/Lesson Notes pages provide sections to fill in your notes on parts of the game you worked on, tips to remember, drills to remember, and swing thoughts to remember. These sections act as "prompts" to get you on your toes and keep you on your toes in thinking about these crucial subjects. Anyone who has done training or teaching knows that the act of writing things down helps to reinforce the ideas and keep them fresh in your mind. Having the forms all ready for you in this book makes it even easier for you to do this. The Statistics Pages are also set up in a convenient format for recording your score as well as the number of putts, fairways and greens you hit, and up and down and sand save opportunities. Plus there is an area to record strengths this round, areas for improvement, swing thoughts for the next round, strategies next time you play the course, and what to practice most before the next round. This gets you to think about a lot more than your score and helps give you detailed insight into both your physical and mental tendencies, which is a productive and effective way to improve your game. Another tool in the book which will help your game is the Set and Achieve Your Golf Goals Pages, with sections to write your goals, your plan of attack, the date to be accomplished, and the outcome. Here again, it keeps you on your toes and on-track. The book also offers some good practical tips on swing thoughts, course management, pre-shot routine, how to practice more effectively, and golf in the off-season.

Altogether, this is a practical, insightful and highly usable book that is a great tool for effectively identifying strengths, weaknesses, and trends in your game, which is a critical step in golf improvement that is often glazed over or even overlooked. It also helps with the critical step of looking ahead and developing both mental and physical game strategies, all of which increases the likelihood you will achieve your goals. As an advocate of the "blended" (mental and physical), mindful, organized Positive Golf approach to the game, I give this book a thumbs up for format, content, and usability and encourage other Positive Golfers to consider it for helping with organization and persistence in your golf improvement. You will be more aware of your tendencies and more tuned in to your game! For more details, check it out at www.the20thhole.com.

Here's to great golf!

Rick Semple
Positive Golfer
Co-Founder, TheHeartofGolf.com
http://www.TheHeartofGolf.com

Positive Golf Improvement Project for 2009

While I continually practice using mental golf techniques and other Positive Golf ideas in all aspects of my game, I also pick one area for particular focus as my Positive Golf Improvement Project for the year. This practice gives structure and focus to my improvement efforts and helps to keep me from getting overwhelmed and "scattered" with too many improvement activities. It also helps me to stick with it and stay on track throughout the season. My wife, a beginning golfer, also picks a Positive Golf Improvement Project for particular focus each season as well. You can read about our previous projects in the archives of this blog. This approach has helped both of us experience more success in achieving our desired changes and improvements to our games than when we took a less formal approach of just saying what we wanted to improve but not having any structure to it. I have referred to the term "smart practice" in this blog before, which is practice with structure and purpose; a similar term of "smart improvement" can be applied to the approach of using a Positive Golf Improvement Project.

As we have chosen and carried out these golf improvement projects eash season in recent years, the format has evolved into an approach that incorporates all the key elements of Positive Golf that assure more effectiveness and success, including Positive Goals and a Positive Plan that incorporates both mental and physical elements. You can download a template for this approach by CLICKING HERE. Here are the Positive Golf Improvement Projects for 2009 put together by my wife Christy and me using this template. I will post updates on our progress throughout the season and include any new insights and ideas we have learned along the way. We encourage other golfers to use this approach as well and we invite you to share your feedback and experiences on this blog. When you implement a Positive Golf Improvement Project for one key area of your game, you are sure to see the "ripple effect" of positive improvements showing up in other areas of your game as well!

My Positive Golf Improvement Project for 2009:

Positive Goal:

To achieve a greater degree of balance throughout my golf swing so that I have more solid impact.

Positive Plan:

Physical Elements---

- Practice using better posture in the address position, with straighter, cleaner angles.
- Practice placing the ball a couple of inches back in my stance, so that my hands are more ahead of the clubhead.
- Practice feeling a consistent level of weight pressure on my left foot during my swing.
- Practice moving more weight to my left side by shifting my head, upper body, and hips (as a unit) an inch or two to the left so that I feel an increse of weight pressure directly over my left foot.
- Practice the "rotation drill" to get the feel of the preferred motion that promotes balance.
- Practice the high right hip/right leg "stability post" position by first swinging in slow motion. Strive to feel like my midsection is rotating up to the hip rather than on to the leg.
- Practice in front of a mirror to compare what I'm feeling with what I'm seeing.

Mental Elements---

- Continue to practice letting go of the idea that I need to use extra effort to hit at the ball.
- Practice tuning in to the feeling of a stable lower body foundation as I swing down to impact.
- Practice using the mental image of a totally connected elastic body.
- Remind myself that all motion is primarily rotational in nature, as opposed to lateral or sideways.

Affirmations---
- I tune in to feeling the movement of my hips and legs.
- I allow myself to rotate my weight as I follow through in the swing.
- I trust that my swing is held on a set track that is in harmony with my body rotation.
- I tune in to feeling a stable lower body foundation.

Positive Golf Improvement Project for 2009 for my wife, a beginning golfer:

Positive Goal:

To develop a tempo in my swing that is smooth and consistent, versus a jerky hitting at the ball that results from trying too hard.

Positive Plan:

Physical Elements---

- Practice swinging in slow motion.
- Pratice the "playground swing drill" to get the feel of an effortless swing rhythm.
- Check the grip pressure before each swing and tune in to keeping it consistent without extra tightening.
- Practice the "gravity drill" of letting the hands and arms drop down from the backswing with no extra effort and no extra grip pressure.
- Practice using a consistent pre-shot routine that includes one or two relaxed practice swings.

Mental Elements---

- Practice reducing self-doubt and putting "distance pressure" on myself.
- Practice letting go of the idea that I need to try to hit the ball with extra effort and focus instead on the idea of allowing the natural swing to happen.
- Practice tuning in my awareness to noticing and remembering the feel of the effortless swing motion.
- Before swinging, think "relax, slow down, swing smooth."

Affirmations---

- I release the need to control the club.
- I release the idea that more physical effort alone creates more power.
- I release the belief that I must keep trying harder to hit the ball farther.
- I am tuned in to a greater awareness of a natural swinging motion.
- I relax, let go, and let it flow.

Here's to great golf improvement!

Rick Semple
Positive Golfer
Co-Founder, TheHeartofGolf.com
http://www.TheHeartofGolf.com