Every week, I write about the latest on what makes golf psychology work. Great scores come from a great mental golf game. A great mental golf game comes not from thinking great thoughts, but from seeing great pictures and feeling great feelings.

Here’s how THINKING DOESN’T WORK …

• “Negative thinking” – imagining things going wrong and giving yourself a hard time about it when it does – very popular, very useless!
• “Positive thinking” – “pop” golf psychology, if you’re trying to tell yourself you’re great when you feel rubbish, you simply won’t believe it!
• “Neutral thinking” – if you love golf, why would you want to feel neutral about it? Are you mad? If you don’t care, you won’t commit.

Great golf comes from loving golf – loving golf comes from committing to feeling good. I’ve written about managing emotions and confidence under pressure. I now I want to give you 5 simple ways of using golf psychology to feel great EVERY round.

1. COMMIT at the start of each round… before you step on the first tee, commit to loving each round of golf. Redefine success by making it more important than swinging well, striking the ball well, scoring well and beating your partners all put together!
2. GO when it feels right – Only step up to address the ball when you feel 100% ready, happy and excited about the shot.
3. STOP when it feels wrong – If you’re about to play your shot and suddenly feel unconfident, clouded, or lose consciousness, step away from the shot and start your routine again.
4. RECOVER quickly – Even though you committed to loving the round, you may play poor shots. The quicker you can recover for next time the better – imagine playing the shot again, this time seeing it go perfectly and really loving the feeling of how you played it. This way you only move on when you feel good.
5. RE-ENFORCE success – You don’t have to use unnatural fist pumping to re-enforce good shots and good feelings – do whatever is natural to you. Your body loves praise when it’s played a good shot – so smile from ear to ear as much as you want!

If you would like more help using golf psychology to score less without changing your swing, I’m giving away audio mental golf tips through a series of six free tipcasts to help you through the toughest parts of the game. Sign up for my newsletter now if you would like to receive these.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling