In my quest for furthering the field of mental golf, I’ve been studying Tai Chi for a few years now. I consistently find its principles fantastically useful for developing one’s golf psychology. Tai Chi has been around as a martial art for hundreds of years and has principles that develop huge speed and power, yet great precision and feel. Interested?

Just as in a good golf set up, it teaches how to have a solid foundation, driven by the feet and legs. This frees up the upper body to be fluid, creating a whip like movement for striking. This approach ensures muscles are used in the optimum way to generate maximum accurate power as opposed to using clumsy brute force and strength.

I’d like to share with you how to apply 3 key principles to develop your own golf psychology so that you are playing the mental golf of a martial artist.

1. Feet - Start with feeling your feet on the ground, so stand up now. Make sure the contact points on each foot have equal weight across them so that all of your weight passes through the centre of both feet. Imagine you’re extending your weight down through the centre of each foot, like growing roots deep into the ground. Notice the solid foundation this gives you.

2. Mind – Focus on a spot in front of you at eye height and allow your focus to spread out to the periphery - soften your gaze. Allow your awareness to keep spreading out until it goes all around you – in your mind’s eye, see all around, hear all around and feel a connection with everything around you. Notice how your mind becomes quiet and relaxed yet alert.

3. Movement – From this state of readiness, imagine all movement coming from your centre – a tiny ball behind your belly button. Imagine the ball rotating on the plane of your swing. Notice that as this ball rotates to the right (for righthanders), your body wants to rotate with it along the same plane, so that your backswing slowly gets swung for you. Notice the softness and precision of movement this creates. Now turn the ball to the left, allowing it to speed up as the body gets used to the feeling. Notice the whip like effect this starts to create as your hands catch up with your centre. Keep practising this motion, right then left, and remember, don’t turn your body, turn the ball and let your body be turned.

These 3 key principles alone will help you hugely in developing your golf psychology way more than most “normal” mental golf tips. If you learn to apply them well, you will develop a quiet mind, a solid foundation for consistency, a simple “on plane” golf swing for accuracy, far greater feel and rhythm, and if that wasn’t enough, a flexible coiled spring for maximum power.

As always, I’d love to hear your experiences of using these simple yet progressive mental golf tips. I’m passionate about taking golf psychology to a deeper level – check out my free audio tipcasts to take your game to your next level.

Love every shot!

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach