What Does The US Open Have To Do With Your Game?

So you may be wandering just what does the US Open Golf Tournament have to do with my game? Well if you want to perform well in your own club tournament it could have a lot to do with your success. When you go to the driving range to work on your swing and pound ball after ball it’s only one small part of practise. This is what is called the practise makes perfect method. But if you have played golf for any length of time you know that it simply isn’t the truth; practise doesn’t make perfect! Perfect practise makes perfect. So practice what is really necessary to play at your peak. Your mental game requires the same attention .

To play well with pressure you must practice with pressure. When it counts the most and you need to pull off a great shot the stress of the moment you have forced on yourself increases 10 fold for some golfers. The trial by fire approach to improving your mental game of golf toughness and performing under pressure is a haphazard method. Yet it’s the only method that most amateur golfers know.

By entering more competitions and tournaments they have the false notion that this is going to improve their mental game and concentration skills. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work that way. What do you see happen most of the time with this typical tactic? Yes you guessed it; the vast majority of players never perform up to their own potential because they lack mental game preparedness.

Inevitably when they fail it’s chalked up to experience and they simply hope to be in a position to win again. They call this strategy the natural way. Simply get in position as many times as possible and you’re sure to win. This is a very hit and miss mental game strategy. Well this might be true, since a player will succeed eventually if they give themselves enough chances.

I want to submit to you that the more times you are in contention and don’t win that what you are doing is increasing the likelihood of losing again, not of making winning easier. What the problem is; it’s a lack of mental game preparedness . You have built a mindset of losing in your unconscious mind around not performing well under pressure. It will drive your behaviour (your thought processes and the swings you make under pressure ). You will instinctively reproduce the experience of losing that you are accustomed to.

It certainly is a hard pill to swallow but if you want real and lasting change then mental game preparation can save you months, and even years for some golfers, of pointless inner turmoil around pressure, performance anxiety, competitive stress and its influence on your golf game. So what if you could replicate  the US Open championship pressure when you practise and then were able to take that mindset out to the course when you play?

What if your practice included a mental game imagery process that mirrored any and every pressure filled setting you might face and incorporated it into your practice routine? Do you think you would be perhaps a step or two ahead of your average player with the “natural” approach? You most certainly would.

By using visualization and actually feeling with your mind’s eye you can produce the precise kind of pressure you would feel in competition. Your subconscious mind will absorb these sessions and add them to your mental game library and integrate them into your golfing self image. They become real situations in your subconscious. This procedure provides the body and mind with sensory specific information of what pressure is and how you need to operate when it’s present.

You are, in very real terms, preparing your mind and body to act and perform in a preferred way when under pressure. When you are at the range hitting golf balls imagine you are in the US Open. Give yourself only one shot to hit your desired target. Establish a scoring system to examine how well you do when practising this way. crank-up the pressure by taking only one drive, then one iron, then a chip shot if you miss your imagined green with your approach shot. Try to pay very close attention to how your perform when using this technique.

If you want to accelerate your mental game progress and begin to play well under pressure then it’s imperative you simulate pressure in your practice sessions . What other way is there to get ready to face the inevitable? Do you really want to rely on the time worn routine of entering more and more tournaments and matches with the hopes of getting used to it? How much time money are you prepared to lose before you make the changes needed?

Grab a hold of your potential and start to develop a dependable mental game. Your overall mindset on the course, your mental game, your sense of clarity and inner confidence under the gun, and a list of other benefits will enter your game. Not just occasionally but for a lifetime. You will be amazed how the little things that used to distract you before no longer enter your mind.