When people write about the top professionals, they tend to talk about the externally visible aspect of their game - their swing technique. Those same writers rarely tell you about the golf mind secrets of those professionals.
So what about Jack Nicklaus and 90% of golf in the mind?
When I started out in golf in the late 60's I recall hearing Jack Nicklaus talk on TV about golf being 90% in the mind. However, when I eagerly read his first book, The Greatest Game of All published in 1969, I found very little information about golf psychology. In fact, two thirds of the book was biographical and the remaining third was about the golf swing. Maybe that was what the public wanted to hear or what Herbert Warren Wind, his co-writer, wanted to write about. There wasn't any more about golf psychology in Jack's Golf My Way published 5 years later.
Surely Ben Hogan's secret was about swing mechanics?
I only recently found a similar contradiction about Ben Hogan in an online article. Now I got interested in Ben's ideas a few year's back when I first bought my Explanar swing trainer. I had a series of lessons with its inventor Luther Blacklock up at Woburn Golf and Country Club. Now Luther is a real advocate of Ben Hogan's swing technique and has published a well thought out instructional DVD called The Lost Fundamentals of Hogan. Luther demonstrates these lost fundamentals on his DVD while looking like, swinging and dressing exactly like the great man.
So what was the contradiction? Well, the article suggested that Bob Rotella, one of the golf psychology greats, interviewed Ben Hogan shortly before Hogan's death in 1997 and asked him what his real swing secret was. Hogan told Rotella that his technical secret was related to how he cupped his wrist at the top of backswing.
Hogan went on to say that the real secret, behind his starting to win major championships, came when he eliminated all swing thoughts from his tournament play and focussed instead on imagination and instinct. I would describe that as trusting his unconscious mind. Hogan added that he only told people about his technical swing secrets, because that's what they wanted to hear about.
Well what about other top professionals
How many other top professionals are being similarly misrepresented? Well, two that I've played with, a long time ago admittedly, are Tony Jacklin, in a fourball in 1970, and Nick Faldo, in an open amateur competition in 1976. That was the Hertfordshire Stag at Moor Park and not long before he turned pro. Oh, I am a name dropper, aren't I?
Tony talked a lot to me about his cocoon of concentration, that helped him so much when he won his majors, but most of what I've read about him refers to his swing and his life in general. There's very little said about his mental strength and his golf psychology techniques.
When I played with Nick Faldo, he was very impressive mentally and, watching him later winning tournaments and major championships, no one would doubt his mental strength and focus., However, at the time, all the media focus was on his swing change and everyone was so surprised when he later appointed a golf psychologist to help with the Ryder Cup team he captained.
Even with Tiger Woods, and no I haven't played with him, we hear more about his swing and prodigious length off the tee than we hear about his amazing mental resilience, his obvious use of self-hypnosis and the fact that he's had a mind coach from a very early age in Jay Brunza.
So who's suppressing the mind golf secrets?
For some reason the golfing media doesn't think it's that important to promote golf psychology as one of the key secrets of golf success. I wonder if the golf equipment manufacturers have something to do with that. They are a powerful lobby and all this talk about golf psychology hardly helps them to sell more golf equipment, now does it?
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.
Visit his website http://www.golf-hypnotist.com for information on how to get the most success, pleasure and enjoyment from the wonderful game of golf. More specifically, it's about how to improve your golf by working on the 90 percent of the game that's played in the 6 inches between your ears. Sign up for the free Golf Hypnotist ezine at http://www.golf-hypnotist.com and get your free 25-minute "Your Own Virtual Caddy" golf hypnosis MP3 that goes with this article.
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