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6 Feb 2018 admin

Slow Play

By Cole Golden, WGTF Master Golf Teaching Professional

By now, everyone has seen or heard what happened at the Farmers Insurance Open in January at Torrey Pines on the 18th hole with J.B. Holmes. For those would like a recap, Holmes was down two shots to the clubhouse leader and needed an eagle to tie. His two playing partners also had a chance to win, one with a birdie and the other with an eagle. J.B. took over four minutes to finally play his lay-up shot (we can discuss this in a later article).

J.B. is renowned as a slow player, even though he has worked on speeding up over the course of the past few years. Throughout the day, he would take 5-10 practice swings before each shot. The overall round took almost six hours to play; no speed records were being broken, to say the least. During the conversation with his caddie, the wind was swirling, making the decision a tad harder. You can give him a small break due to the wind and the situation, but not four minutes.

There are numerous reasons to have a shot clock or wanting play to compete in a timely manner. To put it into perspective, let’s look at other sports and how they measure time. Basketball has a shot clock, football has a play clock, and even in poker, the clock can be called on a deliberate player. When a basketball player is going to shoot free throws, they are given 10 seconds to complete the shot. If the game is on the line with no time on the clock, 10 seconds is all the player will receive to perform the shot.

In golf, slowing the game impacts several parties. Your playing partners are impacted the most. It is not fair to have to wait an ungodly amount of time while waiting on someone to play their shot. Golf is such a mental game, and if a player is in a rhythm, standing around can really change the course of the game. The tournament needs to adhere to a schedule due to TV, fans and the possibility of a playoff.

I understand that playing for millions of dollars would cause most of us to freeze, but these players on the PGA Tour are professionals. This is what they do week in and week out. They are also role models for the average golfer. At some point, the officials must step in for the betterment of the game and start to penalize slow play. Slow play could be added to the list (including stuffy and over-regulated) that gives the sport of golf a bad reputation. As golf teaching professionals, let’s ensure we are addressing a healthy pace of play, especially with our younger players.

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5 Feb 2018 admin

Get Your Students Into The Zone

By Dr. Gregg Steinberg USGTF Sports Psychologist, Nashville, Tennessee

Everyone wants to be in the zone. The zone is this magical, mystical place in which you feel so confident, your focus is so sharp and your emotions are completely calm. The zone is being at your best in whatever you are accomplishing. It would be wonderful if we can help our students to get into the zone as much as possible on the golf course.

Here are two easy steps to helping students to get into the zone more often:

1) Become aware of their zone experience. Your students need to be aware of which emotions occur during the zone experience.

2) Emotionally prepare for the zone state. Your students will need to develop a personalized routine that will help them get into the zone more often.

The zone experience is unique to everyone. Some individuals may be highly anxious when they are in the zone, while others can be very calm. Some individuals will be thinking a lot when they get into the zone, while other individuals have a clear mind.

There is not one set pattern of emotions. Thus, our students need to be aware of their individualized zone template. This process is known as self-monitoring and is essential to developing a clear understanding of their zone experience.

To help your students become aware of their zone template, the instructor needs to have the student address two different situations. First, ask your students to recall a time when they performed at their best. Then, the teacher should ask the following questions related to five levels of this particular “best” performance state:

1) Was your nervousness level high, medium, or low?

2) Was your confidence level high, medium, or low?

3.) Was your energy level high, medium, or low?

4) Was your enjoyment level high, medium, or low?

5) Were you thinking or just reacting?

To develop a better understanding of the zone state for your students, the teacher should ask a question about the contrasting situation. Students should recall a time when they performed at their worst. Again, this can be in the sport of interest or in a different performance situation. The teacher should also address the same five levels of this “worst” performance state, asking the same five questions listed above.

This set of questions concerning contrasting performance situations – best vs. worst – will give teachers all the information they will need to understand their students at a deeper level. For instance, some students may perform at their best when they have low energy and at their worst with high energy, while a different student may be at their best with high energy and at their worst when their energy is low. Or, one student may be best when they are reacting and perform at their lowest when they think too much, while a different student follows the opposite pattern. Gaining knowledge about best vs. worst performance is essential before moving to the next step.

Emotionally preparing for their zone state. The next step of this process is to replicate the emotions of the zone state for the student. There are three ways to help your student accomplish this:

1) Create an emotional buzzword that represents that zone state.

2) Create a behavior trigger associated with that zone state.

3) Use a visual image that represents that zone state.

Emotional buzzwords help to elicit the same emotions that the student felt during their zone state. As an example, I had a high school golfer, Ron, describe his zone state to me. When he described it to me, he said he felt extremely aggressive and confident, like nothing could shake him. When he performed at his worst, he felt he lost confidence and he was very passive, with low energy. I suggested the cue word “bulldog,” and he loved it. Ron said that is exactly how he felt at his best, like an aggressive bulldog on the mound.

I then asked Ron to describe how a bulldog would feel. He said that a bulldog would always keep his head high. So for Ron, we created the behavior trigger of “chin up.”

I then asked Ron of a visual image that reminded him of when he was confident and aggressive. He said he had a picture of himself smashing one of his longest drives. I told him to put his picture on his phone (he had one of those fancy iPhones), and to look at this picture as much as possible. But more importantly, when he looks at this picture, Ron is to recall feelings of confidence.

The last step is to create a personalized routine. That is, Ron is to put all three processes (buzzword, behavioral trigger and image) into his pre-shot routine. Specifically, at the start of Ron’s routine, he is to say “bulldog.” As he says this, he is to get his chin up, and then he is to recall that image of him smashing that long drive. All three will help him instantly get into the correctional emotional state for his upcoming shot.

To help your students play at their best, help them become aware of their best (zone) state and then help your students create a personalized routine that will lead to their most effective emotions. This is a simple but incredibly powerful method that will lead to your students playing their best golf.

About the author: USGTF member Dr. Gregg Steinberg has been recognized by Golf Digest as one of golf’s great sports psychologists. He has been a frequent guest on Golf Channel to speak about sport psychology. He is the sports psychologist for the USGTF. Go to www.MasteringGolfPsychology.com to become a certified mental game expert by the International Golf Psychology Association, sponsored by the USGTF.

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2 Feb 2018 admin

Editorial – Members Weigh In on Teacher Honestly

By Mark Harman, USGTF Course Director

Last month, I wrote about my dilemma on how honest I should be with a student while at the same time not destroying their enjoyment and aspirations for their games. I asked my fellow members to weigh in on how they handled such situations, and a good number of you replied. Here are some of the responses:

Joe DeLorenzo wrote, “First, we must clarify expectations; improvements are not likely to happen overnight. Instructors can only provide information for improvements, provided the student is willing to put in the work. Goals must be staircased, so measure gradual improvements over time. If the high-level goal is to improve scores, start with baselines for each course the student will play, and try to break the personal best, but this comes after the following measurements: Lower-level examples of goals to measure might be reducing the number of three-putts per round, the success rates of ‘up-and-downs,’ fairways hit vs. missed, greens hit vs. missed, number of mechanical errors, number of mental errors, etc. Instruction should target the problem areas first.”

Mike Dugan wrote, “The main thing I do with older golfers that are trying to get more distance is put impact tape on their clubface and make sure they’re somewhat in the center of the clubface with their driver. If they’re way off the toe or way off the heel and I can get them more centered, that usually gets them 10 more yards.”

My good friend John Linton wrote, “In this case we need to be honest with the person, just remember it will burst his bubble, and we should NEVER DULL A MAN’S DREAMS. So we have to learn how to step on a man’s foot without messing up his shoe shine. I believe I would try to tell him what is needed for him to accomplish his goals and point out where he falls short. Next, I would try to help him look at his situation realistically and show him what he needs to get to there. In the end, the truth will set you free.”

Finally, Robert Vitti wrote, “Whether the student understands his strengths and limitations or not, it is the teacher’s job to make clear and actively manage expectations. It is also wise to set small, more attainable goals that support mutual expectations. A student normally responds more positively when he realizes a small improvement on the way to his goal, especially if they feel they are attaining realistic goals along the way. It is also wise to re-visit expectations on a regular basis to ensure that you are both working toward the same end. This should always be a positive discussion, even if the expectations are being tapped back from time to time.”

Great thoughts. Due to space constraints, I couldn’t print all responses, but I want to thank everyone who wrote.

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2 Feb 2018 admin

Same Struggles For PGA Tour Players

By David Vaught, USGTF Master Teaching Professional

The common perception, and common sense, frankly, is that the players we marvel at on television each week have this golf thing all figured out. Yes, they hit the ball different than everyone else. If you stood in close proximity to the top players in the world, it looks different, sounds different and appears to be a different game than we play. When attending a tour event in person, I am often reminded of the Bobby Jones quote after observing a young Jack Nicklaus: “He plays a game for which I am not familiar.” But believe it or not, tour players struggle with the same mental issues that average golfers, new golfers and your students do.

Recently, I was fortunate to spend a couple of days listening to several instructors that can boast a long list of famous, modern-day tour players on their resumes. One of the striking points they all made was how human and normal these “gods of golf’ are.

The names herein will be protected, but every story, with names, that was relayed to the audience was funny but calming. Calming because it is a comforting feeling to know that the 25-handicap student I had 10 years ago is really not that much different mentally than these millionaire golf professionals.

Have you ever had a student or friend struggle mightily with putting during a round, (meaning several three-putts and very few made outside six feet), yet wants to go to the range right away and hit his driver? Well, according to the tour gurus, many tour players fall to that same bad temptation. The point is, they sometimes they have no clue where their strokes go. Like the rest the of us, they might be so upset about that one bad tee shot that they cannot think of anything else. The subject of this recent tale hit 13 of 14 fairways that day!

Another classic example is the tour player warming up before the fourth round of a tournament. He is leading the tournament. As he is striping great shot after great shot, he turns to his instructor with an amazing query. Believe it or not, he was worried about his swing mechanics before the round and was contemplating a change – to the shock and disbelief of his instructor. After a reassuring lecture that they should just keep doing what they had been doing the last three days, the player relented and did not follow through with a swing change that day.

A favorite student type of mine, tongue in cheek, is the “rabbit ear” student. Amazingly, many tour players suffer from the same exact syndrome. This is one of the most difficult things to grasp for me, but I have had many famous instructors over the years relay their long-eared tour player horror stories. Can you imagine your income and career relying on how this player performs, yet he is listening to everyone and their brother on what he should change in his golf game?

A frustration that all golf instructors share is that your students often get sidetracked with bad advice or bad self-advice, lose all confidence in themselves and just honestly have brain cramps that you find hard to believe. The afflictions of the mind that can derail the progress of your students are as normal and common as the sky and the sun.

Next time you get frustrated by your student’s mental pitfalls, take heed. It is the same feeling you share with the most famous of instructors working with the most famous of players.

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