Equipment For Your Mind “Bogey Man to Birdie Man:” How Chris Couch overcame his mental demons.
Imagine your life in four short days going from missing the cuts, living paycheck to paycheck and then to barely making another cut and becoming an instant millionaire with your first tour victory; this is the story of Chris Couch.
Equipment For Your Mind
Chris won his first PGA tournament last Sunday at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. This win places Chris on the PGA radar as one of the new young guns. How did Chris go from barely making cuts, including just making the cut at the Zurich, to winning his first PGA event? The answer is in his mental approach to his game and to winning.
In Chris’ interview after winning he was asked, “What would be the best birthday gift someone could get him?” Chris said he thought to himself “If I could win this tournament that would be the best gift!” Thus his mental shift started.
As Chris began making shot after shot, his mental approach was the “feeling” of winning that check. In his mind, he had already won it. This took his mental game to the next level. By allowing his mind to focus on the end result his shot making then became automatic. He was no longer focusing on making birdies. Instead, he just allowed his body to reproduce successful shots, one after another, after another. Chris did what every weekend golfer seeks to do, allow his best golfer to come forward and shoot career rounds.
How can you do this same transition with your mental game? We’ve all heard the suggestions of visualizing where you want the ball to go. We’ve all “tried” to do that at least once. What typically happens? You set up. You look at your ball. You look at where you want it to land. Then, once your eyes have rested back upon your ball, I bet that most of you then would say to yourself, “But don’t hook it!” “Don’t slice it!” And the favorite, “Don’t hit the water!” That is your conscious mind talking to you. When you go play this weekend take your conscious mind out of your game and allow your subconscious to play the game for you.
Before each shot simply look at where you want the ball to go. Lock that ending location in your mind. You do not need to visualize it or “super-focus” your attention on it, just look at and lock it in that is where you want to go. There is no other place for that ball to go with this shot. That is where the ball belongs. Focus your mind to the end of the shot. The ball has already landed there in that spot you’ve chosen. All you are doing now is acting out the process by which it happened. Last step, just allow yourself to swing a ¾ swing and watch your score improve.
When you take your “thinking” out of the game you allow your best self to come forward. How many times have you either become so frustrated with your game or were distracted by the friends/family you were playing with that you weren’t even thinking about your next shot? My guess is that many of you then hit a fabulous drive or perfect putt. Interesting, isn’t it?
Some 90% of your life is on autopilot, including your heart beat, blood pressure and metabolism. They are all handled by your subconscious mind without even a second thought from your conscious mind. Why then would you expect your conscious mind to handle a golf swing? It takes every muscle in your body moving in a dance of precision that cannot be organized by your conscious mind. Think about this; your best golf has been played when you weren’t even thinking about your score, what club to hit, what the distance or even the break of your putts. You just hit the ball where you wanted it to go and your personal best score was automatic!
Allow yourself to be your best by being automatic in your process and taking your “thoughts” out of the game. Let your subconscious mind do the work so you can enjoy the game, “Beating the Bogey ManTM” and becoming a Birdie Man.
ABOUT DR. TRAVIS FOX
Creator of “Get Psyched Series” & “Get Psyched …. Secrets to Lower Golf Scores”
HyPerformance SportsTM Coaching System
Travis Fox, DCH, PhD teaches mind management techniques for the golf course and author of the new book being released on June 10, GET PSYCHED.
Dr. Fox has been practicing for 19 years, holding doctorates in both Psychology and Clinical Hypnotherapy. Reaching beyond the common uses of hypnosis, he has perfected the use of hypnotherapy to help people improve their lives in a variety of areas including weight loss, addictions, phobias, competitive athletics and more.
Dr. Fox conducts various workshops and seminars throughout the nation including. He is also repeatedly invited to make personal appearances at corporations, conventions, on television, print and radio, to help the public understand the truth about hypnosis, hypnotherapy, psycho-linguistics and “HyPerformance Behavior ModificationTM”.
Dr. Fox teaches clients to refine their automatic processes, interrupt negative thoughts and arrive at a higher degree of mind management. His personal experience competing in golf at the amateur level was the impetus behind the development of the Beat the Bogey Man™ series. He realized that the physical game was not enough. Simply beating balls on the practice range was not going to cut it. He found that no matter how perfect his technique was, a bad day mentally can lead to a bad day on the course.
For More Information contact: Karen Ammond, KBC MEDIA – Publicist kbcmedia@att.net