My aim for everyone I work with is to help them develop their own golf psychology when I’m not there – to independently develop their mental golf game. To do this, we need more than mental golf tips for the course – we need to learn how to turn practice into training.

I recently worked with a tour pro who said to me “I work harder than anyone out there on my game, yet I’m not delivering when it matters”. I don’t think you need to be a tour pro to experience this kind of frustration, I suspect most of us can relate to it. So why is it we can practice for hours, hitting the same shot over and over, getting our swing grooved in and then not deliver when it matters? One simple reason:

We remember skills best when we’re in the same state as we were when we learnt them.

If the mental golf you play in practice is different to the mental golf you play when competing, you will simply forget how to play when it’s needed! If you are relaxed, focusing on the shot when you practise, yet under pressure and concerned about the outcome when you compete, you are literally playing two different games.

For us to be able to play well under pressure we need to train with the same golf psychology we would use in competition. To do this we have 2 options:

1. Bring relaxation and confidence into competition, and
2. Bring pressure and consequences into practice – ie. TRAIN

I’ve written a few mental golf tips on option 1 already, so I shall now explore option 2. The following 5 golf tips are some of the most recent applications of golf psychology on tour.

1. Quality not quantity

Stop hitting hundreds of balls on the range. Only hit shots when you have completed your set up routine and feel 100% congruent. 10 fully conscious shots will make a much bigger difference than 100 unconscious ones. Remember, in competition, you only get one chance – so when practising short game, play one ball to a hole and putt out before repeating.

2. Score what’s important

Whatever you are working on, score it – what get measured gets learnt.

1. Score your golf psychology – what percentage of shots did you hold a single clear picture for?
2. Score your golf performance - eg. give yourself goals of hitting 10 shots in a row within 15 yards of your target, then within 10 yards, then 5 yards.

Track all of your stats over time to develop more targets to break.

3. Give yourself good feedback

When you don’t hit the ball to the target, install a feedback process to learn from the shot. The feedback must focus on what you want to do in future, rather than what you did “wrong”. Use the following process:

1. Firstly ask yourself what you would need to do differently to play the shot perfectly.
2. Then imagine yourself doing exactly that.
3. Finally notice how great it feels to have played the shot perfectly.

4. Make training harder than competing

For example, when practising your putting, putt to a tee peg. As it is a much smaller target than a hole, putting in competition will seem way easier. Ernie Els famously uses his old persimmon driver in training as it is much harder to hit than a big driver.

5. The game of consequences

Every training session needs a consequence. The more important that consequence, the more pressure. For example for putting training, only finish your session once you have sunk 50 three-footers in a row. When playing a round, agreeing a decent side bet each time you play is a great way to put the pressure on.

Training this way can be very intense. So finally, just as you would win a prize for winning a competition, after a good training session remember to give yourself a treat!

Each of these mental golf tips will help you turn your practice into effective training so that your golf psychology is embedded when you need it. Make even better use of your practice time by listening to my free audio tipcasts on the mental game.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach