Last year we recommended a great new product called Golf Mission to you all, it seems we were not alone in endorsing this innovative method of improving your game and having fun at the same time. We are pleased to write that Golf Mission has been awarded the Golf Europe Best Training Aid Product of the year, and the product line just got bigger and better.

New for 2011 are 5 new games ideal for every level of golfer:

Designed for juniors, beginners or handicaps of 19 and above, the StarterPack is a less challenging version of the original award-winning game with 2 9 hole and 2 18 hole games cards.

The PowerPack sets you recordable drills on the three practice areas to hone technique while a MatchPlay card takes you out onto the course with a mission to achieve on every hole. Ideal for a solo practice round or a competitive team game. Suitable for all abilities.

The StarterPack and PowerPack work in unison to progress golfers and makes an excellent tool for the Coach or Pro to prepare players technically and mentally. These two resources are now endorsed by the Golf Foundation and used in their national learning program. A donation is made to the Golf Foundation for every game sold.

Once your handicap begins to drop you can step up the challenge on the course with the Original Game and also begin using Point Practice to hone technical skills with meaningful drills that give every ball a value.

Competitive Practice accustoms you to playing under competition pressure and one-on-one real play situations as you compete against opponents both on the practice area and on-course events.

MatchPractice drills creates focus on the practice ground as players compete to win drills and the on-course MatchPlay game really stretches you with challenges on every hole. It also makes a great focus tool for solo practice rounds keeping you mentally ‘in the game’ right up to the 18th.

GolfMission is a highly effective improvement program to use alone or with the help of your pro or coach.

Golf Mission lends itself perfectly to corporate branding and provides a lasting reminder to your clients of your golf day or event.
We are not the only people to think this is a great product, just look at some of the testimonials below:

“I liked the cards from a number of perspectives. Firstly it gave me a number of different goals outside of just my score or how I was doing in the match. It also helped focus my mind more when I came to a hole that was one of my specific goals. A third benefit was that even if I was out of the hole or match or competition I still had something to help give pressure. An example was that one task was to have no more than two putts at any par five. I had a disaster on one of them and reached the green in five. Normally the putts would have been meaningless, but my mission still had to be completed and so the three footer to finish it actually meant something.”
Kyle Phillpots
Director of Training & Education
PGA of Great Britain

“One of the challenges in golf is to find process goals that can help you focus while playing, in practice or competitively, in order to maximize your performance. Golf-Mission sets you simple targets during the round that will both increase your enjoyment and lower your score.”
Peter Mattsson
Director of Coaching
English Golf Union

“For so long in the game of golf we have missed the point that it is how we practice that keeps so many golfers stuck in the mire of mediocrity. Finally we are beginning to wake up and understand that we need to practice differently to get different results. Golf Mission provides you with a unique opportunity to take your game to a new level by practicing in a completely different way than you have done before. It will be your loss if you do not start to utilize these brilliant games to elevate your game”
Karl Morris
Europe’s Top Mental Coach
Clients include recent Majors winners Graeme McDowell and Louis Oosthuizen

“GolfMission is exactly what we look for in golf promotional items and struggle to find – something novel which is fun and yet helps improve the game and which we can easily brand.”
Geoff Riddell
Chairman of Global Corporate & CEO of Asia Pacific & Middle East
Zurich Financial Services

“After playing this wonderful game for more than 45 years, I thought I’d played every imaginable variation possible, GolfMission proved me wrong. It really was a refreshing change, adding a new dimension to a normal friendly game of golf. The endless variations to the tasks keep you totally focused throughout the game. I enjoyed the challenge and feel that GolfMission can be played and enjoyed by golfers of any standard. ”
Parnell E Reilly
Immediate Past Captain of the PGA

“GolfMission creates another opportunity for golfers of all abilities to become enthused by all aspects of the game. It also provides a tool for coaches to use with their players by providing structured practice and challenges in between coaching sessions, enabling golfers to reach their maximum potential.”
Justyn Branton BSc (Hons)
AA Class PGA Golf Professional
Regional Coaching Development Officer (South West & West England)

“GolfMission is not only a great game, it is also a great coaching aid that gets golfers to focus their mind ”
Lee-Jay Barnes
Head Golf Professional
The Celtic Manor Resort (Ryder Cup 2010)

For full details about Golf Mission click on the banner below.

Golf Sense by Roy Palmer

Some years ago I picked up a book on “The Alexander Technique” the technique takes its name from F. Matthias Alexander a 19^th century Shakespearean actor who developed vocal problems for which his physician could find no physical cause. Alexander discovered, from observing himself in multiple mirrors, that, he was needlessly stiffening his muscles in preparation to speak and this was the sole cause of his vocal problem. The book I read approached the technique very much from a thespian’s view point but I did feel there were benefits that could be applied to golf but for whatever reason I forgot about it and took it no further, until now.

Thanks to Roy Palmer’s book, “Golf Sense, Practical Tips On How To Play Golf In The Zone” I now very much understand how the technique can be applied to golf, and just about every other sport.

How often do we hear golf commentators use that trite statement “he just needs to stay in the present”, easy to say but one of the hardest things to do, especially when faced with an 8 foot left to right downhill slider for victory. In the work I do with players and in the workshops I present I provide tools to help quieten the mind to give people a better chance of “staying in the present” Roy’s book is crammed with practical exercises and tools to help you achieve just this state.

The quickest way to change how you feel is undoubtedly through the body, we really need to learn to listen to the wisdom of our bodies, Fritz Perls said “we need to stop thinking and come to our senses”. But to do this we need to tune into our body first and understand what is really going on, what we think we do and what we are actually doing are usually 2 very different things. In his book Roy provides many exercises that will allow you to become much more in tune with yourself and get you self-observing your behaviour, if you want to change your behaviour, first you must observe it. The great Australian bowler Shane Warne said that the single biggest benefit to his career from his time at the Australian Institute of Sport was learning to take control of his body language. With the tools provided in “Golf Sense” you will definitely find yourself able to take more control of yours.

During a round of golf you are actually playing the game for no more than 15% of the time, do you think that 85% of the time can have an influence on that 15%? Of course it can, and does, using the exercises in Roy’s book you will discover the tools to enable you to switch off and on to the moment much more easily. In 2000 having played some of the greatest golf of his career Tiger Woods said that having realised that it was not possible to concentrate for 5 hours the greatest skill he had learnt was the ability to switch off and on between shots.

Roy also maintains an excellent website full of useful resources articles and tips. I highly recommend this book, follow the exercises explained by Roy and you will find yourself walking taller, getting to the “zone” more often and definitely enjoying your golf a whole lot more.

You can find Roy’s book HERE (USA)

HERE (UK)

About Roy Palmer

Roy is a teacher of The Alexander Technique. He has over thirty years experience of competitive sport and has spent the last fifteen coaching golfers, tennis players, athletes, footballers and people from many sports on how to achieve a peak performance. Roy’s approach combines the mind and body using practical techniques to help players get into the right state of mind to perform at their best.

The ‘66ProTour’ kicked off its’ second full season at Hankley Common this week, and we’re very pleased to be able to report a win for a long time friend of this site Andrew Marshall, even better, Golf Psychology Online’s own mental coach Nick Madgett was on the bag for ‘Marshy’, what might some mental coaching do for your game?

Mind Factor Coach and Caddie for the day Nick Madgett with winner Andrew Marshall

A full field of 72 were faced with strong bitingly cold winds and some very tricky greens, birdies were always going to be hard to come by and the final scores reflected this. Many past and present European Tour members were taking part, including former European No.1 Ronan Rafferty, Portuguese Open winner Mike McLean, Adam Gee, Sam Little, Daniel Gaunt and eventual winner Andrew Marshall.

Only 3 players managed to break par, James Ablett, James Webber and Andrew Marshall all posting a 2 under total of 69 thereby forcing a sudden death play off. Having found the penal heather with his tee shot at the first extra hole Webber could do no better than a bogey 5 and was eliminated by the regulation pars of his opponents. At the par 3 second Marshall found the green with a perfectly struck iron while Ablett pulled his shot left of the green and despite an excellent chip to only 4 feet was unable to hole his putt to match Marshall’s par and take the play-off any further.

66 Tour Sponsor Lamkin International's owner Malcolm Clark makes the presentation.

Click Here for more about Lamkin International.

Next week the tour moves to this years Open venue, Royal St Georges, where former Ryder Cup star Paul Broadhurst will be part of the field all trying to stop the Marshall/Madgett team making it 2 in a row.

Whether you are looking for a fund raising idea for your club or a great addition to your corporate golf day, a MIND FACTOR WORKSHOP with certified coach Nick Madgett will guarantee you an entertaining and enlightening event. Read More………

Yacht Charter Greece
Garmin Approach G5

Tiger Woods Peak Performance Zone.

Tiger explains how he feels when he hits his peak performance zone.

Golf State Of Mind – Recommended Site.

I want to introduce you all to my good friend David MacKenzie and recommend that you pay his excellent website Golf State Of Mind a visit. David is an inner game coach and publisher living in Washington DC and we having been swapping ideas and discussing our thinking about the mental side of golf for some time now. David currently coaches both professional and amateurs golfers and his teaching is based upon years of playing golf at a competitive level and an in-depth study into psychology, zen and buddhist philosophy, hypnosis and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming).

You will find a wealth of great information on David’s site, but I also recommend that you sign up for his free 2 week intensive mental game course which will get you shooting lower scores without any change to your swing whatsoever. To sign up for David’s free course now click here!

In play and in practice you should focus only on things within your control. How often have you heard golfers, maybe including yourself, bemoaning a lie or the weather, speed of play or pin placements. This is a complete waste of time and emotion, you have no influence on and can do nothing about these things. Focus only on that which you can control.

Learn to focus only on what you can control and lower scores will surely follow.

Golf Psychology.

I don’t know if you picked up on it but the European Ryder Cup team have had motivational videos constantly running in the team room. The videos have been showing all the team, receiving trophies, holing putts, chipping in, in fact a constant reminder of all their best and greatest moments.

What is this doing – It’s reinforcing good memories, showing them how good they are, reminding them of their great achievements of before.

YOU SHOULD ALL HAVE THIS – Of course I don’t expect many of you to have too many videos of your greatest moments, but, you do have your memory.

It’s vitally important that when you hit a great shot you attach emotion to it. Most amateurs and even some professionals attach a baggage load of emotion to a bad shot but little or none to a great one. After each round you should replay your good shots in your head, not your bad ones, they are gone, never think about them again. Of course, if there is a technical problem you need to work on it, but don’t replay the shot. Your good shots are gold, a foundation for the future. Having replayed your best shots, pick your best 3 and write them down in a notebook, refer to it regularly and imprint them in your mind. What you are building is your own motivational video; Tiger has over 100 shots in his. Make yourself very, very familiar with your shot library and use it on the course bringing to mind your past successes.

IT WILL PROVIDE FOR MORE IN THE FUTURE.

Golf Psychology

Last night I had the pleasure of reminiscing about the 1991 Ryder Cup, and of course looking forward to this year’s contest, with my old friend and one of the nicest guys to ever swing a golf club, Steve Richardson. Of course Steve’s opponent in the singles of 1991 was this years USA captain Corey Pavin, Pavin came in for huge media criticism for some of his antics during that tournament which became known as the “War on the Shore.” Even before play commenced a local DJ launched a ‘wake up the enemy’ campaign urging listeners to call the European’s hotel with constant pre-dawn calls to the players rooms, add to this a partisan and patriotic crowd and the appearance of Pavin and Steve Pate on the first day sporting camouflage hats and the scene was set.

The 1991 cup was held at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, a new Pete Dye designed punishing course that caused Ray Floyd to remark “It’s so hard it’s unbelievable,” Floyd said of the course. “If you had to play this golf course with a scorecard, I don’t see how you could finish.”

I first asked Steve about that Sunday singles match

“At the 2nd Corey holed out from off the green, the crowd of went wild and he seemed to feed off their energy but at the same time they were feeding off him. This set the scene for the rest of our match, at this point I have to say that at no time was I the subject of any ungentlemanly conduct or verbal abuse of any sort from Corey or the crowd, they were just willing their man on and he was using their energy to spur him on. He was so pumped up he was inspiring himself and thereby the crowd so the cycle became self perpetuating. At the time he was either leading the US rankings or close to it and was capable of some amazing things, tee to green we were pretty much the same but his putter was just hotter than mine on the day. I did get the match back to all square with 3 or 4 to play but then I missed the green at the par 5 and it just went away from me. At 17 it looked like I could be back in the match when Corey got an impossible lie in the greenside bunker, he barely got the ball out, maybe it cleared the lip by a couple of inches but it then took the slope from the back of the bunker rolling onto the green to about a couple of feet from the pin.”

This was the often shown episode with Pavin scaling the face of the bunker and following his ball waving it toward the hole which came in for so much criticism at the time. Did Steve feel this was over the top – no pun intended.

“It’s all about doing the right thing at the right time and Corey had done just that, you have to get your energy directed correctly, I think that if you can leave every bit of your passion on the course for the round you just played then you can ask no more of yourself.  It’s like when people speak about first tee nerves, of course you’ll be nervous but you have to learn to embrace that feeling and don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re the only one feeling that way every one of the other 23 guys out there has got the same feeling, it’s just who deals with it the best.”

I said that I thought Ian Poulter was one of the best I’d seen from his very first year on tour at looking totally in control.

“ Yes, I think he’s brilliant, great physiology, shoulders back head high and the way he raps those putts in, and he really does give them a rap, he’ll be very influential this week.”

Last night the European team had a 10 minute call with Seve on the team room speaker phone, how do you think that went down.

“It would have been awesome, fantastic, and very emotional, if anything will inspire a European Ryder Cup side it’s Seve, the Cup means so much to him and the guys would have been pumped by it. It’s very different now from when I played with motivational speakers and so on we just didn’t have that then, when I played all the senior guys in the side, Ballesteros, Woosnam, Faldo etc were great, they all said anything you want to know just ask, they were totally open and there to help, looking back I wish I’d asked more”

And what of Mr Pavin as a captain?

“I’ve been a bit surprised at how subdued he seems, but he’ll probably have something up his sleeve. As time goes by I have to say I tend to admire him more and more, can you believe at 50 he gets into a playoff for the Travellers, ok he lost the playoff but at the first extra hole Bubba Watson hit wedge second shot, Verplank hit 7 iron and after a bit of a skied tee shot Pavin was going in with 3 wood, you have to play some great golf with creative shotmaking when you’re that far behind in distance to even be there with a shout.”

And of course, finally, who’ll win?

“It’ll be close but I’m going for Europe to edge it”

My thanks to Steve for his time, he still keeps his game in great shape playing regional events, pro-ams and is much in demand for corporate days. Should you require any information about Steve’s corporate work you can do so through the contact area of this website.

Golf Psychology

I’m indebted to Ronan Rafferty for taking time out before travelling to Celtic Manor to speak at length with me about his Ryder Cup Experiences and what he’s looking forward to this week.

In 1989 Ronan was Europe’s No.1 golfer and looking forward to playing his first Ryder Cup. Two years earlier Europe had won the trophy at Muirfield Village, Ohio under captain, Tony Jacklin, the first time the Americans had been defeated on home soil. This time the pundits were split on where the cup would go.

Ronan takes up the story:

“In the opening foursomes in 1989 I was paired to play with Bernhard Langer at The Belfry against Mark Calcavecchia and Ken Green. I thought, ‘that’s great. Bernhard’s been there and done it. He’ll settle my nerves.

As we reached the first tee I recalled the time that Mark O’Meara had sliced his opening tee shot into the tented village and was thankful that as we were to be playing alternate shots and Bernhard had agreed to hit the first drive, it wouldn’t happen to me.

There were hundreds crowded round the first tee and lining the fairway as far as you could see.

Bernhard came over and asked how I was feeling. Trying to appear nonchalant, even though I was churning inside, I said I was okay.

“Good,” he said, “I’m sh***ing myself. You hit it.”

And he wasn’t kidding. Suddenly it was all there right in front of me. Fortunately I managed to hit a toe end lob 200 yards into the left-hand fairway bunker but I was never so glad to get off a first tee in my life. “

I asked Ronan what he felt at the time about this incident and he said “bemused, amused but most of all excited” he went on to say that he might have been a rookie in Ryder Cup terms but he’d been waiting for this day for a long time, he was ready for it and relished his chance. Indeed by this time he had already won the Scandinavian and Italian Opens, represented Ireland 3 times in the Alfred Dunhill Cup, winning in 1988, 4 times at the WGC-World Cup, as well as representing GB&I in both the Eisenhower Trophy and Walker Cup. Ronan was quick to draw parallels with the so-called rookies this time around, he says,

“ Can you really refer to the likes of Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, the Molinari brothers, Ricky Fowler, Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar as rookies. Between them they have won 16 main tour titles and over $50,000,000, they are all inside the top 33 of the world rankings and have numerous representative honours between them. I believe these guys hold the key to cup success and just hope the reigns are let off them to play as they know how and prefer. I remember one ‘senior’ partner telling me that the shot was a safe 4 iron down the left side of the fairway, I don’t play golf that way, never have, the only shot I could see was a driver so get down there and get your wedge out buddy because that’s all you’re going to need, and it was. In 1997 Nick Faldo was given the job of playing chaperone to a young Lee Westwood, Nick had the good sense to see that Lee’s game was it great shape and the last thing he needed was telling how a shot should be played, he just said ”just play, your game is awesome”. You have to remember that how you have been playing and practicing coming into the tournament has a massive bearing on how you feel, I believe these young guys, who I’m sure are just jumping and buzzing to get going, are relishing the challenge. They’ve all been playing well, moving up the world rankings and this is just a natural progression in their career, and they are going to feel more relaxed about their game than someone who maybe hasn’t had the best of times of late. Pairings will of course be key, and I believe Pavin has a marriage made in heaven with Woods and Fowler, I fully expect to see these two guys playing together and I know they will be really tough to beat, for Europe everybody obviously expects to see the Molinari brothers paired together with McIlroy and GMac being another natural partnership.”

I asked what part the crowd plays in the event?

“Enormous, not just in their support for the match they’re following but in the noise they make that can be heard all over the course, as you hear one roar after another, normally if you are on home soil meaning good news, it really fires you up. Never underestimate the effect of the support, many times we have seen the score boards turn from a sea of blue one minute to red and then back again the next as the guys dig deep to change the tide their way.”

Ronan believes that these sides are to close to call, there are no weaknesses on either team and it could just come down to one putt made or missed or a single piece of genius on the last day, three of the current major champions are on show and talent abounds in both teams. I should point out here that in 1989 Ronan won his Sunday singles match by capturing the scalp of Mark Calcavecchia, the then Open Champion, and thereby helping Europe retain the Ryder Cup. There will be an advantage for Europe being on home soil, no doubt, the American players themselves always remark on how great the Eurosupport is but they’ll have their fans too who will, as always, make themselves heard.

Whatever happens we both expect a great tournament, full of drama and excitement.

For more information on Ronan Rafferty go to www.raffertygolf.com