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Handle Fear on the Golf Course with Golf Psychology, Self Hypnosis and NLP  

Article by Andrew Fogg

Fear on the golf course can come in many shapes and sizes and it can result in a multitude of problems ranging from lack of enjoyment, through poor scoring and frustration to outright anger. Most golfers will have experienced fear on the golf course, either personally or from watching a playing partner.

As an amateur golfer, although my golf is very important to me, my livelihood does not depend directly on my ability to score well. However, I can think of many times, especially in my younger days, when I was uncomfortable, nervous, scared and downright terrified on the golf course.

You may have read on another of my articles. entitled Channel Your First Tee Nerves into Unconscious Golf Resources for Better Golf, about my nerves on the first tee in the Golf Illustrated Junior Vase at Hexham in the early 70s. When the starter announced on the loudspeaker system that they were expecting great things from me after my hole in one there the previous day, I could hardly stand up, let alone hit a good drive down the middle.

I’ve experienced similar feelings when I’ve arrived on the first tee and found I was playing with some or other golfing celebrity. I’ll never forget Bill Shankland, my then golf coach, asking me to stand in for him in a game in late-June of 1970. Bill explained that he was injured and could I take his place in a friendly fourball the following day. He went on to explain that there’d be no pressure as I was playing at my home club and partnering the club pro, Colin Christison, a man I’d played with many times before. Bill also mentioned that one of our opponents would be Ian Connelly from Welwyn Garden City, later to become Nick Faldo’s first coach and someone I also knew. I was a bit nervous plying with two pros I’d watched playing in the Agfa tournament at Stoke Poges, but I knew them both and felt I could handle it.The next day, I got to the club and as I joined my playing partner Colin walking to the first tee, I noticed that there was quite a crowd of my fellow club members behind the tee. I nearly collapsed when I walked through the crowd and Colin introduced me to our other opponent. It was Tony Jacklin, back in the UK to prepare for the British Open after winning the US Open a few weeks earlier. I was terrified and it took a lot of quiet calming words from Colin to get me through the first nine holes. I started to enjoy the experience as I loosened up on the second nine.

Like most people back in the early 70s, I had no knowledge of golf psychology and the best advice available was to pull yourself together and get on with it. That was difficult and the effect didn’t last!

I’m sure that I would still be very nervous if I found myself unexpectedly playing with a US Open Champion. The difference is now that I have the means to relax myself using a variety of golf psychology techniques and really get the most from the experience. I’d probably play my normal game.

So what techniques would I use? Well the quickest technique would be to use my finger-thumb NLP Resource Anchor that would both relax me and get me into a confident and resourceful state. If I was still nervous, I could use self-hypnosis, some simple deep breathing exercises or, even better, the Balance Your Golf Mind and Body for Better Golf – Focus on your Hara technique from another of my articles.

About the Author

Andrew Fogg, the Golf Hypnotist, is an enthusiastic golfer, hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. He is a practicing golf psychologist and author of a soon to be published book “The Secrets of Hypnotic Golf” and a series of golf hypnosis MP3 programmes.

Sign up for the Golf Hypnotist ezine at http://www.golf-hypnotist.com and get your free 25-minute “Your Own Virtual Caddy” golf hypnosis MP3.

www.sports-psychology-tips.com Golf Psychology: What Other Golfers Are Shooting And Vijay Singh’s Mental Toughness Secret Hi I’m Lisa Lane Brown from the Courage to Win and golf psychology is about mental toughness and to unleash your true mental toughness, you must understand what you’re up against in golf. In other words, what do you expect to shoot? Let’s compare your score to the average scores of American male golfers. The National Golf Federation states that only 20% of all the golfers in America consistently break 90. In fact, 60% shoot between 90 and 116. The average score among all American male golfers is 94.3. What happened when you compared yourself to these stats? If you’re like most golfers, you feel better already, because you’re probably already scoring better than most golfers. Now I just gave you these numbers, but what you need to know about a winning golf psychology is that once you start golfing, you should not be focused on your score. Think about your last great round of golf. If you’re like most golfers, you were not thinking about the score during the set up your short, or during your swing, or when you were draining a putt. A winning golf psychology happens when you focus on what you are actually doing – the specifics of the game — and a good score will just happen. That’s how pro Vijay Singh won the 86th PGA Championship. He admits, ‘My focus two months ago was on the wrong thing. I was focusing so hard on the No. 1 spot that I started not …