Here are my top 10 mental golf tips to help you develop excellent golf psychology:

1. Focus on what you want

The fundamental principle in golf psychology is that you always get what you focus on. If you think you won’t play a good shot, you won’t! Only play when you have a single confident picture in your mind. If you have pictures in your mind of the shot going wrong, stop, and start your set up routine again.

2. Stick to a routine for every shot

If you want to play consistent shots, you need to play shots consistently – both in mind and body.

• Picture your shot up to 3 times from behind your ball
• Walk up to your ball picturing the shot
• Set up everything (feet, hips, shoulders) square to the target to keep things simple
• Have up to 3 “preview” swings until you feel like you have played the perfect shot
• Commit to your shot and play

3. Remove nerves by staying present for each shot

Once you have a clear picture of your shot, focus only on what you are doing in that moment. Enter peripheral vision to keep your target in your mind’s eye and to keep you outside of your head and any thoughts. In this state it is neurologically impossible to feel nerves and helps you detach from the outcome.

4. Swing and walk with the same tempo

Develop a rhythm that suits your body, personality and energy levels. When you play, use the same rhythm to walk, follow routines and play your shots. When the pressure is on, knowing your rhythm is your foundation to stay focused.

5. Move on from anger

When you play poor shots, allow yourself first to feel the frustration, then ask yourself what you need to do differently next time to play it perfectly. Picture and feel yourself playing it perfectly next time and notice how good that feels. Complete this process within the first 10 yards of your walk to the next shot.

6. Develop your putting stroke indoors

Remove outdoor variables such as slope, wind, grass grain by developing your stroke indoors. You will receive more simple feedback to learn from. It also helps detaching from the outcome of where the putt goes.

7. Practice for Pressure

Don’t just hit lots of balls when you practice. Dedicate time to hitting one ball to a hole and finishing off with short game shots and putts.

8. Spend two thirds of practice on short game and putting

Knowing you can finish off from anywhere around the green gives you huge confidence to freely play your long game. Driving is for flash, short game is for cash.

9. Score what you want to change

If you want to change your golf psychology with a new approach, score on your card how many shots you followed this new approach. This will give you a percentage of your total shots where you used it, which you can track over time.

10. Love every shot

The single most important thing you can do to help your mental golf game is to really enjoy the feeling of every shot. This single golf tip will help you swing softly, trust your swing, be patient and love the game more and more.

If you implement just one of these mental golf tips, your game will rapidly improve. Mental golf tips alone are sometimes not enough so if you want to develop your golf psychology further, check out the other blogs and free audio tipcasts.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach