Mental Golf and Golf Psychology

This section is brought to you together with Michael Anthony, author of the unique and highly successful mental golf training program THE MENTAL KEYS to Improve Your Golf.

You probably have heard many times that your greatest opponent is yourself, not old man golf. The following is a brief explanation why.

Your brain or computer starts working at a very early age. Approximately three months prior to your birth, your brain starts recording while you are still in your mother's womb. It continues to record everything you do and experience during your lifetime accumulating a data base on YOU. For simplicity sake we will refer to your brain's data base as your TAPE. Your tape is a conceptual representation of the entire history of all your previous thoughts and actions which comprise your present performance level.

The concept of your tape is important to comprehend because your brain or computer is programmed to make similar decisions in accordance to what is in its date base or tape. Since your brain is programmed to make decisions similar to what you have done in the past, the biggest challenge you will face when trying to change your thoughts and actions to improve your golf is your tape.

Your brain will use all of your strengths and weaknesses recorded on your tape to keep you at your present level of performance or within your comfort zone. To improve your golf, you must overcome your programming to repeat what is on your tape. This may seem like a simple explanation of what you are up against, but it is crucial for you to be aware that your tape will control you unless you exercise control over it.

Fortunately, you can change your past tendencies because the most current portion of your tape has the biggest impact on your decision making process. But make no mistake, it will be a battle between your desire to change or improve and your brain's programming to have you repeat what is on your tape. Your tape doesn't care if it's positive or negative, its job is to have you repeat the same thing over and over.

When you go to sleep, your brain reviews all your thoughts and actions for that day. If you do something different from your normal routine, your brain has to decide to either assimilate this new behavior or reject it so it can make spontaneous decisions once you awake. This is why the best time to give your tape new instructions is just before going to sleep and immediately upon awaking. Otherwise, you will more than likely go right back to the previous responses on your tape.

By successfully putting new thoughts and actions on your tape consistently for a period of 30 days, your brain will assimilate these as new habits and they will become part of your normal tape response. Remember that you control your tape or your tape will control you. It is your choice and will be reflected in your golf score.

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