PACE-OF-PLAY & CREATIVE VISUALIZATION
Posted on October 7, 2015
A frequent question wrestled with on-the-course has been what impact the use of creative visualization has on pace-of-play. A recent personal experience has been that concern with maintaining pace-of-play can be a major distraction when attempting to use imagery during the pre-shot routine. When pace-of-play is of concern, my choice has been not to take the time to either be the ball or be the golfer. My experience has been that it is much easier to forgo the visualization process; go through my normal pre-shot motions; and just hit, pitch, chip or putt the ball.
As discussed in Golfer’s Palette, slow play is the most perplexing problem in golf today. A slow player can ruin the day for all players. In the interest of all, players have an obligation to play at a reasonable pace. An added variable in the pace-of-play equation is the number one revenue producing item on the golf course: green fees. Course management has an obligation to its board to fill as many available tee times with foursomes as possible. From this perspective, pace-of-play becomes a team effort between golfers and course management. Read More
VISUALIZATION & BALL FLIGHT LAWS
Posted on September 27, 2015
As discussed in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, there are five ball flight laws that golfers dance with on every shot. These laws have been proven to be invariable under given conditions; and they are absolute in influencing the flight of a golf ball. Three of these laws influence distance: clubhead speed; centeredness of contact of club with the ball; and angle of approach. Two of these laws influence direction: path of swing and clubface position. The purpose of this blog is to share how the practice of creative visualization has enabled this golfer to move knowledge of these fundamental ball flight laws into the bank of useful experience on the golf course.
To review, the practice of visualization your author is using has evolved to be three-fold: during pre-shot routine, make an estimate of the situation; creatively visualize being the ball; and visualize being the golfer. The learning experience surrounding the five ball flight laws has occurred during practice of being the ball. This part of the pre-shot routine has involved sensually “being the ball” from where the ball is to its final resting point at the end of the shot. The six-point, mental menu, amended in this blog with some of the recently experienced ball flight laws, is as follows: Read More
GOLF-PIANO CONNECTION
Posted on September 15, 2015
Could there possibly be a golf-piano connection? In Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, John Eliot Gardiner remarks, “…the more clearly you scrutinize the music from the outside as listener, and the more deeply you get to know it from the inside as a performer, the better are your chances of uncovering the wonders it has to offer…” Read More
CREATIVE VISUALIZATION
Posted on August 21, 2015
Increased awareness, understanding and commitment to the skill of creative visualization have inspired anxiousness to move the new learning to the course. The purpose of this blog is to share some of the learning and practicing experiences with a view toward keeping you posted about results on the field of friendly strife.
What is creative visualization? Visualization, or imagery, is experiencing performance in the mind and is the equivalent of playing movies in your head. As Macy & Wilding-White suggest, this video needs to be vivid, controllable and positive; and it requires engaging the senses to really see, hear, smell, feel and taste the experience. With learning and practice, this mental rehearsal skill has the potential to increase confidence, sharpen concentration, control nerves and strengthen motivation. This technique of using the imagination to create what you want and to create a clear image, idea or feeling of something you wish to manifest can be quite inspiring. As Bubba Watson remarks, “My golf game is all about imagination turned into something real.” Read More
LOVE PUTTING & THE SHORT GAME
Posted on June 25, 2015
As offered in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, if our goal is to save strokes on-the-course, it demands that we learn to love putting and the short game: chip, sand and pitch shots. Why? Because putting and the short game account for 60-65% of the strokes we take during a conventional round of 18 holes of golf. Speaking of data, read a couple days ago that the PGA Tour average from 30 yards to the hole is 2.5 stokes. This probably puts an average golfer about 3.5 to 5.5 strokes from 30 yards to the hole; and certainly suggests that if we have limited practice time, the short game needs to be at the top of the practice list. Just yesterday, my putting and short game accounted for six lost strokes: two missed, 3’ putts; and a pitch shot and three chip shots that stopped more than 6’ from the cup. Let’s take a peek at some putting and short game practice guidelines: Read More
What change?
Posted on June 16, 2015
Having recently read Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (American Empire Project) by Andrew J. Bacevich, I believe it is essential for “We the people” to carve out a more palatable path for America. Reflecting on Bacevich’s central message that “Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war” is disturbing. As a two year combat veteran of the Vietnam War-see Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fearlessness to Help Others-it is disconcerting that elected leadership re-creates and recycles national security policy and continues to plod down a rather dim path: bankrupt and unending war does not sound like peace and prosperity to this combat veteran, spouse, dad and grandpa. The past must identify our scars and lessons; and not direct us where the future needs to go. Our Founding Fathers would be unhappy with us! Read More
National security and our human condition
Posted on June 3, 2015
As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More
National security policy and our human condition
Posted on June 3, 2015
As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More
What is a golfer’s palette?
Posted on May 27, 2015
It does not matter whether we are talking about golf or life, we each have an inner artist waiting to be uncovered and unleashed to create either a desired golf shot, a minuet, a painting or a facet of life we dream to experience. A golfer’s palette is symbolic of the mental and technical skills and talents we golfers choose to practice and make available for use when putting the inner artist to work to create a golf shot or a putt. As a painter needs an easel, a canvas, brushes and dabs of paint on his-her palette, a golfer needs equipment, club and body mechanics and body-mind mastery “tools” to create as master at golf. It is no secret that playing winning golf implies focusing on saving putts, hitting fairways, hitting greens in regulation and consistently making ups and downs. As outlined in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, the palette of skills and talents can include: Read More
What is the concept of 100% responsibility?
Posted on May 17, 2015
Quite simply, the concept of 100% responsibility offers that life happens because of me and not to me. Committing to the 100% responsibility challenge is just accepting that it is our relationship to this changing life that determines our happiness or sorrow. As the song says, “Let it be.”
In 1988 a beautiful person by the name of Hyler Bracey introduced the concept 100% responsibility, along with a multitude of other leadership and management tools, to the Adolph Coors Company. Hyler was President of the Atlanta Consulting Group and his team of consultants had been hired by the Coors family to facilitate re-organization and transition from of a number of dependent, vertically organized companies to a few independent, horizontally organized companies. Read More