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

How are the body & mind connected in golf?

Posted on May 11, 2015

As our golf game evolves, literature suggests that 80-90% of on-the-course performance becomes mental because of the continuous flux of external conditions. Learning and practicing a meditation skill can enable the golfer to be in chaos and yet deliberately calm the mind and trust the club and body mechanic skills to unleash the artist within to deliver a shot to a visualized target. As Tim Gallwey offers in The Inner Game of Golf, “I am convinced that the happiest and best golfers are those who have realized that there is no single gimmick that works and that good golf is attained only by patience and humility and by continually practicing both Outer and Inner skills.”
Having experienced that awareness and simplicity are my best coach and caddie, the inner and outer seeds that bear fruit and are deserving of continued nurture are daily meditation practice and practice of set-up and one-piece take-away. As golf technical literature offers, 80-90% of a decent golf swing requires good set-up and one-piece take-away. Read More