A few years ago when Oprah announced that Tiger Woods would be on her show, I didn't want to miss it. And I don't even play golf! She asked a few mundane questions, but three lucky members of the audience got the chance to ask their questions. The third question was the most revealing to me. "When you are in sudden death and you hit the ball into a sand trap, what are you thinking about?" Tiger's face went blank and he stuttered a moment before answering. "Well, I'm not thinking about anything. When I approach the green and you see my hands waving all around, I am trying to sense what the shot is going to feel like."
There are a couple of recent posts to this thread about the mental aspect of the game and how to take your practice session to the tournament setting. Could it be that we are thinking too much about where our elbow is and not trusting our stroke as Max Eberle has written about?
Timothy Gallwey has tried to explain this phenomenon in his books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf. I'm not suggesting to throw out the baby with the bath water. Ask Tiger Woods how he got so good and one of his responses is that he hit thousands of buckets of balls. Is drawing the cue ball 12 inches instead of 14 inches more a matter of how it feels than how low we need to strike the cue ball and whether or not our cue is level?
There are a couple of recent posts to this thread about the mental aspect of the game and how to take your practice session to the tournament setting. Could it be that we are thinking too much about where our elbow is and not trusting our stroke as Max Eberle has written about?
Timothy Gallwey has tried to explain this phenomenon in his books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf. I'm not suggesting to throw out the baby with the bath water. Ask Tiger Woods how he got so good and one of his responses is that he hit thousands of buckets of balls. Is drawing the cue ball 12 inches instead of 14 inches more a matter of how it feels than how low we need to strike the cue ball and whether or not our cue is level?