I guess that like many of you out there, I was glued to the TV on Sunday watching Tiger Woods and his golf hypnosis prevail over Sean O'Hair in the last round of the Bay Hill Classic. It was great to see Tiger prevailing despite not producing a really outstanding last round. It was also great to see his self-hypnosis induced mental strength prevailing even when his game is not quite up to his best. Now that's a bit outrageous isn't it, Andrew, are you saying that Tiger's not back to his best? Well yes I am to an extent.
I would contend that Sean O'Hair outplayed Tiger in all the physical and technical aspects of the game - he just let himself down on the mental side of the game, especially in the area of self-belief. Just look at this quote from the loser.
"It's not like it's The Tiger Show and I'm just out there to watch him. We're trying to win golf tournaments, and he just happens to be that good. But just because he's good doesn't mean we're out there watching him."
Now does that sound like a man who believes he's going to win or even one who thinks he can win? My hypnotherapy mentor says that anyone "trying" to do something has already accepted the possibility of failure and that doesn't lead to self-belief, does it. Now you may think that some doubt is reasonable given Tiger's undoubted abilities, but you have to go out believing you going to win or you'll capitulate just like Sean O'Hair did. Sean's not alone in this; you only have to look at the history books . Almost every time Tiger wins from behind on the last day, the people playing better than him capitulate mentally.
Now I'm not blaming Tiger for this or even the media that hype him up so much, although that must weigh down on his opponents. The fault has to lie with their mental preparation. Nearly all of them have highly qualified mind coaches, yet they can't be making the best of the advice they get from them on the course. And then if those mind coaches were worth their salt, they would be running on autopilot like Tiger and they're clearly not. I wonder if Tiger's the only one using self hypnosis to reinforce the mental coaching he gets from Jay Brunza.
Andrew Fogg, the Golf Hypnotist, is an enthusiastic golfer, hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. He is a practicing golf psychologist and author of a soon to be published book "The Secrets of Hypnotic Golf" and a series of golf hypnosis MP3 programmes.
Visit his website www.golf-hypnotist.com for information on how to get the most success, pleasure and enjoyment from the wonderful game of golf. More specifically, it's about how to improve your golf by working on the 90 percent of the game that's played in the 6 inches between your ears.
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