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High School Golf: The Preshot Routine – Part 2
Trust, my automatic golfer, that controls all those movements of the putting stroke,
to do the rest. Alright? So here’s the formula of what I just said. I’ll write it down
here. It’s connect, direct, and trust to play unconscious golf.
Connect this is what I talk about where I said to name it. Today when you walk out of
here say tonight, “Hey! I’ve got this unconscious mind and I’m going to name it.”
I personally just call it my unconscious mind. That’s fine. You can just do that. I just
say my unconscious sometimes. But you can name it or you can call it “Self 2: or something
like that. That’s all you need to do. Just say “I have it and that’s it!” The best
way to connect your unconscious mind is to just assume you’re connecting your unconscious
mind. Alright. So this is also the part of you that
stores all your memories. It knows how to sink a putt straight around, excuse me, left
or right break, uphill or downhill. It knows how to do all that because you have done it
before. It knows how to pull the file for the 120 yard slight draw or slight fade or
perfect straight or back up. It knows whatever how to do it if you’ve done it once.
That’s the connect part. This is what we’re going to tell it what to do – direct. Tell
it. I should just call it tell, same thing. How are we doing this over here in the pre-shot
routine? Right here… and here. These two: picking small targets and visualizing it.
So look at this, this connect is triggered. Alright. I literally go up there and touch
my head and go, “Alright buddy, let’s do this.” I like to call myself buddy. Nobody
hears me. Nobody thinks I’m crazy. This is all inside, you know? And some people do
think I’m crazy. By the way, I remember one day I said my golfer
kid, he is in the backseat. You guys ought to appreciate this. We’re cruising up to
McDonald’s and he has got his three basketball buddies that I had just picked them up. And
we order all our stuff. And I start telling him something about this. Something about
the unconscious mind and I give him some crazy quote like I’m doing with you guys. And
he is looking at me with these eyes like… and I go, “What’s up? What?” He goes,
“Dad half time with my friends we don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
It was so funny. I thought it was hilarious, but that’s okay. When I’m in my sessions
with like, Michael tells you we have worked together, when I’m in my sessions with teens
and younger. I work with kids as young as six, seven, and eight, who I try to explain
a lot of this stuff in much easier terms and more simpler ways. I give them stories and
it’s telling them about other people have done certain things.
But the point about that is, it’s okay if you don’t get it all. Because it’s sometimes
part of my helping you learn, by just blowing you away with a ton of information. Somewhere
in the middle here, you kind of halfway check out and then I’m talking directly to your
unconscious mind. Isn’t that cool? So even if you don’t pay attention, you’re going
to get something. Isn’t that great? “I do that in class everyday.” You do!
That’s exactly right! Yeah! Except it’s kind of got to be tougher to do that with
what do you guys study? Trigonometry, Calculus, I don’t know. Yeah. It’s a heck of a lot
harder because it’s not always that interesting. At least I throw in an occasional golf story,
you know? Something about a golfer. Alright! So this formula over here kind of goes through
everything we do. We’re connecting with our golfer, we’re telling it what to do,
we’re telling it what to do by picking our small target, then visualizing our shot. Okay?
Who can describe to me how they visualize their shot? Tell me how. Have you visualized
a shot here lately? Tell me how you do it. “I just like see the ball not really my
swing, but just looking at it going straight.” Okay… good. So at what point do you do that?
When and where do you do that? “If somebody is hitting on the tee, then before I walk
up there. Or like if we’re riding on the bus to the match, then I’ll go through.”
Good. Good. All visualization anywhere, everywhere is all useful and helpful as long as you have
you outcome in mind – you know? Sinking putts, hitting your spots, picking your landing
area for your chips, things like that – right? Now here’s how you get to be a little more
powerful. Besides dialing in and making it a small target, what you want to do is engage
all five senses if you can. Go through in your mind. Usually it’s not going to be
a lot to smell and taste, but quickly give that a thought. Right? And don’t just see
the ball. Imagine seeing the trees around and the sky and the grass underneath. And
what’s our normal vision see when you hit a shot like that? Do you see the club base
following through? Do you see your arms – right? Try to dial into everything. The more real
you can make it, the more you’ll take advantage of the Olympics and what the USOC found out.
And you’ll be actually be hitting perfect shots in your mind. And your unconscious mind
will go, “Oh!” If you’re connected, and how do you know that you’re connected?
Just assume you’re connected. You’re just talking to it. You’re saying, “Okay buddy,
here’s what I want you to do.” Like I’ll go in my pre-shot routine and
I get this one shot that I hit and about five years ago I was down in… Running Why. Anybody
ever heard of that organ? Really beautiful course resort down there. And I just hit this
best drive of my life. It was close to 300 hundred yards, but of course elevation air
it’s not that many yards, but it was just perfect. It landed and it rolled… wow! It
went right on the spot. Today every time I go into my pre-shot routine
I roll that movie in my head and I say I tell my unconscious mind, “Yeah give me that
one again. Yeah… I’ll take that one. Please pull the file for that one.” It’s just
a quick little thought. I don’t actually talk out loud like that, but that’s telling
and visualizing. You can include talking like I just said,
but you can do it your way. That’s my point about visualization. Do it your way. Everything
will be good. Bring in as much detail up out of your senses. Do it backwards and forwards
if you can. Now here’s the big key. You will hear a lot of golf instructors, pros,
and sports psychologists, they’ll tell you that you need to visualize. And you need to
see this and you need to see that. Look at this and look at that. And I would use those
words here too, but here’s the… I’m going to make it even easier for you.
So I really had my eyes opened a few years back when I watched a YouTube video of Tiger
Woods being interviewed. And he was a big student of Nicholas who said you have to visualize
everything. Nicholas was a huge visualizer. Tiger said, “I was in my teens and everybody
was telling me and I was reading Nicholas and I had to visualize this and I just had
the worst time doing it.” He said, “Whenever I would do it, my shots would be all distorted
and it was like looking in a fun house mirror in my mind. It wasn’t clear like everybody
said it was suppose to be.” Right? It’s not always just like we’re
looking right now. You close your eyes and wacky things kind of like a dream. Then he
said something very instructive and I had this proven to me using… or in my experience
with clients. He said, “Then one day my sport psychologist,” who was a guy named
Jay Brunso, who also uses sports psychology and hypnosis with them, which is what I do
as well. He said, “Jay said,’Tiger, just feel it.’” He said that freed him up to
do it his way from then on. So he said in other words, believe it or not.
Tiger Woods is not a big visualizer, but he still imagines the shot going where he wants
it to. He is more of a feel guy he said. So in other words, in his mind, when he visualizing
the shot… and visualizing is just a word. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you close
your eyes and see exactly what you saw. It may be. Like 70 to 80 percent of the population
is like that. Really close their eyes and see what they normally see or fairly close
to it. But a small percentage like 10-20 percent, we’re not very good visualizers. Alright?
So he said he would just close his eyes or in his pre-shot routine or as he is going
to bed or on the bus, he said he would just imagine the crispness of the ball coming off
the club. He didn’t actually see anything in his mind. And he would hear the ball thumping
on the green and maybe he would see the ball backspin towards the hole or something like
that. So everyone can improve their visualization
skills, but the biggest thing I want you to get here is you can do it your way. And it’s
always right. Always correct, but don’t let anybody tell you that you’re doing it
wrong – okay? We can always improve, including me. And the way to improve upon that is to
just do it. On the bus, before you go to sleep at night.