This week’s blog topic is about ‘The Power of Visualization’

I’m sure you can refer to a miraculous shot you played from the trees, that you bragged to your playing partners for weeks on end with the gap getting smaller and the curve becoming greater. But why can we hit these dream-like shots from the trees but struggle to access this skill set when from the middle of the fairway?

When we are behind a tree or need to maneuver the ball, we zoom in on the specificity of the shot required. The launch angle and the club needed to help achieve this, how will the trajectory be affected and what shape and how much do I need to curve it to get this back in play or near the green? Asking all these questions is helping us calibrate the perfect shot and inputting the required components into our computer.

Let The Shot Create The Swing

We have all experienced it when we are overthinking our technique, struggling for rhythm, and feeling uptight. This is known as experiencing a heavy internal focus of attention or choking. It must be noted that some players do play their best with an internal attention of focus but there is plenty of research to suggest a more external focus leads to better performance in these scenarios.

Can we access more of our focus from one of those miraculous recovery shots? Start by asking good questions such as: What shape am I going to play here? What trajectory do I want to achieve? Try picking something in the distance and shape it off that into your intended target. If you are good at going to the movies and remembering one of those recovery shots, then try to produce a similar process perhaps creating the ball flight with a tracer as you see on TV. This can be a really refreshing way to play if you are struggling with too many swing thoughts. The power of visualization shouldn’t be underestimated.

Re-Visit The Scenario

Struggling to achieve this from the fairway, why not re-visit those scenarios in the trees and see what you start to experience and then re-visit the fairway and see if you can achieve the same mental preparation?

I remember a very good coach telling me a story about having a language barrier with a player who was struggling with a hook, and he took them to a hole on the course which was a dogleg right, and left them to figure things out. This player started to eradicate their hook by adapting to the environment.

So, channel your inner Bubba and tap into your visualisation tools and combine this with a really good understanding of what makes the ball flight curve and go lower or higher, and you are building a really productive set of skills to shoot lower scores.

– Coach Tim