You know - the ones you are constantly playing - on the links, and the daily sidewalks of life... The incessant chatter and story-telling.  Night and day.  Awake and asleep.  In times of bliss and stress.

Fact, or fiction?  And just who is yapping, hinting or whispering, and when? You don't really believe there is only one person 'in there,' do you (like our female urinal user)?

Relax, rejoice, and remember: it is all just an inside job.  And you are in charge :) 

Click on the anxious, high-heeled hottie above, turn device volume UP, sit back - or better yet - move around (it's how your brain functions best, whether on a boring conference call, or over a testy chip shot) and take a listen to our boys from Foreigner, circa 1979.  Then, get your head - you can leave your body behind for now - back CS' way for some ideas on how to accept, organize and enjoy your own head games...

Like Alice tête à tête with the hookah-smoking caterpillar.  He asks tough questions - the type we need to ask ourselves, and others - when it comes to the best way for each of us to swing a golf club, play the game, and go through our very own adventures in wonderland. 

Caterpillar's memorable phrase is a breathy "Whooo ... are ... you?" Well - do you know?  Who you are when you perform your best?  Who you become when your golf ball starts miss-behaving?  Oh, it's shifting, friends, trust me.  It's why "you and I" (but they're both 'you,' BTW) fight. 

But there's help, a way out my fellow Alices- a solution - but not if "you won't show, you won't show how you feel..."

Here's your elixirious mantra:

"You've got to feel it, to heal it." 

Feel the emotion.  Go into it.  Through it - not around it.  Get to know it.  Embrace it.  Understand it.  Oh, this ain't some fantastical 'head game,' it's there, dwelling in your mind & physical body.  Wanna run and hide?  Hope and pray it just goes away?  Avoid (how much of this do you do in your non-golf life?) and constantly distract?  I understand. 

Dr. Debbie Crews is an expert at identifying your sub-personalities, helping you better get to know them, and guiding you to a place of peace and performance.  Space still available in her seminar tomorrow, August 16; details below.




'Something ain't right'  in your full-swing motion? Maybe you've been smoking the "rotate your pelvis/hips as much as possible and flatten the shaft radically on the way down," emanating from trendy So Cal, in your hookah? 

You're gonna have some long nights indeed if you think that's the best, and only way to swing it.  And swing it powerfully.  Launch it. SEND IT!  But don't believe me - just take a look above at 2018 U.S. Open and PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka's hips and pelvis thru impact.  What do you see?  Massive rotation of torso and pelvis through impact?  Uh... not quite.  Again: not sure just what you are smoking, seeing, and believing...

Rather:

- Pushing out of ground with left leg (hard!)

- Minimal clubface rotation

- ARMS (pretty closely connected to aforementioned golfing stick, last I checked) swinging super fast, body rotation following its 'lead'

And, you may not have Brooks' biceps - but you can sport what's covering him.  Click above to find your jam from my brothers & sisters at Nike Golf.



Don't know if all your fears are 'real' or not...??? Something that might happen?  Could hit it OB?  Might leave it in the bunker? Should be able to make this shortish putt?  Who's that talking? 

And you think you have doubts?  What about the kid named Eldrick pictured above?  "Wonder if I'll ever be able to play with my kids again?  Let alone play golf... And with what swing?  With what kind of speed?  At the highest level in the world?"  

Some 'Major' doubts resolved, I'd say, over the past few weeks in Scotland and St. Louis.  64 on final day Sunday last week, despite hitting it like a pig in his range warm-up, and 'zeroing' out (there - you happy now all you TM disciples?) on fairways hit on the front 9...

We tend to marvel at the prodigious length, power and ball-striking of the two players above (and many at the highest level), don't we know?  Yet without the mental toughness, grit & resilience - competitive response - + deftness on and around the putting green, no glory, no trophies, no low scores. 

In search of some further ideas on how to become more mentally 'competent?' To adapt, adjust and navigate the oft-treacherous seas of the mind?  Click on TW just north, to find a brilliant, short & simple offering from Dr. Crews.

Not to miss - a few spots still available for tomorrow's seminar.

"If not now, when?"

More on Dr. Crews here:

Dr. Debbie Crews is an Adjunct Faculty in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, and sport psychology consultant at Arizona State University where she has worked with the Men’s and Women’s golf teams since 1979.  She has conducted over 35 years of research on attention in sport, primarily golf (in addition to working with dozens of LPGA/PGA and Champions Tour players), and is the Chair of the World Scientific Congress of Golf. 

Dr. Crews was the founding Editor of the International Journal of Golf Science.  Her research has been published in scientific journals as well as being featured on Scientific America Frontier and NBC Dateline. She is a Master LPGA instructor, an Ellen Griffith Teaching Award Winner, and serves on the LPGA Education and Research Advisory Board.  Dr. Crews was ranked in the Golf Digest Top 50 Women Golf Instructors, and the recipient of the Golf Digest Best Science in Golf Award in 2001. Currently, she is the CEO and Founder of Opti International, a feedback company for performance optimization.

 

Agenda

"Mental Training & Toughness + Yips Management" Seminar

Eugene Country Club Clubhouse

Cost: $75 members; $85 non-members; $50 juniors

Thursday, August 16, 2 PM - 6 PM

Friday, August 17, 9 AM - 2 PM

Individual one-hour sessions with Dr. Crews

Eugene Country Club Teaching Center

Cost: $125 for members; $140 for non-members; $100 for juniors

SOLD OUT !

Space available in the Thursday morning seminar.

Christopher@ChristopherSmithGolf.com
 

But all these are only the by-products, the casual gains, of walking alone.

The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind."

-- Kenneth Grahame