Mental training - samurai golf?

We say that short game is how you make your score. Short game is 70% of your game, so practice it 70% of the time.

BUT golf is 90% mental. Shouldn't we use 90% of our time for mental training? Or training our mental capasity? I have done karate and other matrial arts also. In karate it's easy to empty your mind and let your technique just flow. You do not have time to think!

How can we practice our mental game in golf? (In winter practice I cannot play so any ideas?)

hi
have a look at "the winter workout " there a few tips there.
bill

Ian started the thread about winter workout. I added my comment, but I do not want to mess up that discussion.

One way to keep calm is to do the same routine before you swing, but I think there has to be different ways to practice it. Samurai philosophy is about having an empty mind. That is very difficult in golf as you have a lot of time to think about your next move.

I think that 3 meters springboard diving might be similar to golf in consentration. Diver just repeats the same dive as he has practiced.

Does anyone know how they practice?

It would be impossible to have an empty mind for 5+ hours during a round, unless you were either drunk (not too bad a thought), or just plain "empty minded" to begin with.

So the real trick to to be empty only for the 30 seconds you are done evaluating your position and have your shot in hand.

This is the drill at the driving range, where you are in the middle of your session, play 10 identical shots without thinking about the swing at all. All you are doing is going through your full pre-shot routine. This puts your head into a very confortable, predictable and thoughtless state.

Practice this enough on the range, and you become better at it on the course.

After the shot on the course, relax, have fun, chat, yell what ever makes you happy playing while you move to the next shot, but when you get to that 30 second pre-shot again for the next shot, revert back to your 10-ball pre-shot driving range routine again. This will make you as empty-minded as you can get.

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I'm a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn't help me. They'd have to put me in prison, and then I'd talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play. ~Lee Trevino

I have not used it but I know of others who have great success with it - google "clear keys".


One think I have been trying to do is read the "Book of Five Rings" and relate the concepts to golf.

http://www.samurai.com/5rings/

Enjoy the winter.

Site www.clearkeygolf.com was not working when I tried it. I think you meant it?

5rings is something to read in long winter nights. I have some 20 years of martial arts history so I need to use it. We all have to find our own way.

I like Gregs practice for a routine. The only thing that I do not like is the range. On the range the situation is stable, standard, but on the course we need to adjust our swing. Not much, but still it's always something different than a basic swing.

In karate you have a large range of techniques. So classic is to learn something well before taking the next step. Well means that it is automated - you can do it with out thinking. (Often technique is trickered by a movement from an opponent.) In golf the tricker might be the pre-swing routine? Or the last exhale before back swing starts?

So - golf is not a five hour match but 80 x 30 second rounds?

Get the book - Zen Golf

I got the book. It's very much same ideas as I was thinking about. Of course much better written and far more than I had thought about.

A very good book for me at this moment.

THanks rharris

Hi Hannu,

Some years ago I was a very good "range player". Any club, no problem. But when I went to the course I was not the same player. Any club, no result.! This did my head in no end and I just could not understand why. Then my playing colleagues told me the honest truth. On the course I was the slowest player they had seen, as well as taking an eternity on the tee box. i could not get to grips with their advice of "just hit the ball" So many thoughts would go through my mind I would end up a nervous wreck before I hit the ball

Well, I eventually came to understand that if I did not have some kind of routine for every shot that this game was not going to give me any pleasure. This past twelve months I have transformed my game to a routine. Recently I was delighted to break 80 and score 79. What I am trying to say is that we must combine a solid routine with a positive mental approach. Once we come to understand this, everything else is really of no importance. of course there will be times when we hit a bad shot, but doesnt everybody? So my advice to you is get that routine working and the rest will follow. Maybe I am talking rubbish, but I think there is something of consequence in there

Cheers,
Robert

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"Play to your ability, not your expectation"

Thanks Robert,

I have a routine, but it's not working. Well, it works at the range. I'm not a slow player. (I even tried a routine with out a warm up swing.)

I beleave that there is a lot of truth on finding a good routine, but it's much more than doing things the same way. It might be a state of mind?

My latest round have been good. I have a mental image that I sweep with my club face and move the ball to the green - about 200 meters or what it need. (Not hitting, but just using the flat are to for moving the ball.)

This is not an empty mind - maybe I need to practise more - so that I don't have to think about anything?

Dont force emptyness yet. That comes with repetation. Go ahead and work on your swing thought (singular), then after a while when you are not worrying about that swing thought, it will just happen...............................n o t h i n g.

This photo is taken today. In the morning - just befor leaving for work.
I just wanted to show you that golf season is over for this year. It's time to start to work on my swing and mental exercises. No chipping in the backward :-)

Hi Hannu,

We have talked before about this many times and still we have no answers other than one I have discovered for myself.

There are two people involved in the golf swing the Body and the mind, the body once trainied is a finely tuned golfer that is capable of hitting the ball perfectly well.

The mind however interfears with this process, the design of golf courses induces the interferance like the bunker in front of the green etc etc, they are there to question our ability or distance judgement, the mind also induces doubt if we have never achieved the shot before.

When we are playing well the mind tends to be quite, confidence kills the mind we only hit good shots when we have a clear picture of what we want to do, if we think the next shot is easy because we have practiced it many times the mind 'shuts up', if it is difficult the mind interfears.

As for training I have a simple but stringent idea, only ever work on your swing at the range, never ever for a second on the course, as Greg quite rightly says, walk, talk enjoy the view.......then pre-shot and empty the head............trust your body to hit the ball.

Even at the range I practice 'empty head' with the last twenty balls, when you do this often it takes three or four ball before you completely empty your head.

As you know I love the mental side of the game, but even I cannot do it all the time, neither can the pros.......all I can say is my best rounds have always happened when I don't think for the couple of seconds before I hit the ball..................remember the body can do it........is my practice thought.


Deep I know.


Ian.

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Once you learn the swing, your next step is mastering golf psychology................

Thanks Ian,

I stopped going to range in June, because everything worked fine there and but when playing I was too uncertain. The shot at an actual round was too important for me. So I figured that I will play so many rounds that I will understand that missing a shot on a round is not the end of golf (life). I think I played about 100 round (18 holes) in four months.

Now I am ready to practice on a range again. And looking outside of the window... we are getting more snow :-)

Wow Hannu,

We only get a few day a year like that, suggest you set a chipping mat up in the garage maybe a home putting green.


Does look very nice though, just no for golf.


Ian.