1. Hole on home Course where you own vs no matter how well you are hitting the ball, it owns you. Why?
  2. The visual Brain Using Brain Scans from MUP
  3. Couples Quote / Snead Quote
  4. Scorecard
  5. Play with Scorecard
  6. Recall shots from Scorecard
  7. Putting Visualization in Play
  8. Visualization and Nervous System Activity
  9. Vision Study at Centinela

Visualization: Integrating Mental Balance

My entrance to golf in the mid 1980s was mental. My first golf book, Mind Under Par, was published in 1992 and revised and published again in 1996. This book was made up of over 500 referenced quotes from PGA and LPGA Tour players describing how they think on the golf course when they have their best performances.

Routine instruction on visualization, when it is present in coaching, coaches players to "visualize" their shot without any further instruction on "how" to visualize. First, it is important to understand the neurophysiology of visualization. It is no just something you can do as there are several disruptors that block our ability to visualize. I will describe those disruptors later in this narrative.

Let's look at brain scans to show how visualization works in the brain. These scans were from Neuroscientist, Dr. Peter Fox in 1991, at the Brain Imaging Center, University of Texas San Antonio using Positron Emission Tomography or PET scan. A PET scan is done using the intravenous injection of radioactive glucose, the food of the brain. The radioactive nature of the glucose "lights up" regions of the brain that are activated with changes in blood flow and related metabolic processes.

The first image shows tongue movement.

Notice the activity on both the left and right side of the brain.

This image shows brain activity with right hand movement.

The S.M.A. region is called Supplementary Motor Area. The SMA activity precedes all behavior. It prepares the brain to "act" or behave. The Sensorimotor area is the performance of the behavior.

This image is what visualization of right hand movement looks like.

Notice the absence of the Sensorimotor activity (behavior) in this area. Notice the similarity of the SMA to that of the actual right hand movement. Research in this 1992 study showed that when we visualize we use up to 80 percent of SMA region as when we perform the behavior we are visualizing. The bottom line is that visualization prepares us to perform and it is imperative in all novel behavior. Every golf shot is novel.

When I first started in the golf industry in the 80s , I would have tour players hit 10 shots and rate the shot on a 1 to 10 scale. Then I would have them hit another 10 shots with a precise image of their target from behind the ball and working on holding that image in their routine and through the swing. I asked them, after each shot, to rate the quality of the image of the target and a rating of the shot on a 1 to 10 scale.

The above illustration is PGA Tour player Pat Burke's results with visualization of target. PGA Tour player Dennis Paulson held an image of ball flight through his swing. He also focused on a feeling of his swing behind the ball.

Visualizing Backwards

I worked with 3 players (Ramon Brobio, Kevin Stadler and Dan Ahmad Bateman) who finished number 1 in putting on their respective tours in the late 90s and early 2000s. Two of 3 of these players told me that on the green, they stand behind the ball and read a putt backwards out of the hole, something I had never considered. Now, that is how I teach green reading. Players tend to over read the green when starting this process.

The same process, visualization backwards, is important standing on a tee box and planning how you are going to play the hole. For example, before pulling a club on a par 4, see yourself tap in on the green. Then visualize the approach shot you would need to hit from the fairway to tap in. Then visualize from that fairway shot back to the tee box. You just picked your target line, target and tee ball distance and you have seen the ball flight that will create your tee ball and approach shots. You are ready to choose a club for your tee shot and you have "managed" the hole visually.

Your average player pulls driver on a par 4 and hopes to hit the fairway. Then they go look for their ball and set up, ideally, to hit the green. Before you get in your car, driving someplace novel, you first picture your destination, your target, then you work backwards to the roads and freeways, etc that will take you to that destination. Our day is filled with backwards visualization. We stand in our shower thinking (visualizing) about the errands we need to run during the day. We organize those target images or destinations in order for our most efficient outing. When we don't, our performance is less efficient and more time consuming. You would never leave home without a visual plan. Start playing golf the way you visualize your errands (backwards) and you will manage your game at a higher level.

Visualization Disruptors

There are 4 basic emotions that will impede your ability to visualize: 1. Anxiety / Fear 2. Anger / Frustration / 3. Sadness /Depression 4. Excitement / celebration. Remember that all of these emotions reside emotionally in the future and past, not the present. When you hear a player in any sport talk about staying in the moment, they have insight into the fact that their best performances occur when they are totally present and focused.

Anytime you place value on performance, anxiety rises. Something as simple as studying for an exam for which you "over prepare" that you perceive is of great value will disrupt performance. For example, you study late into the night, you sit down to take the exam and read the first question. You know the answer, you studied it, but your ability to retrieve that information is compromised by the physical arousal the exam created. That inability to retrieve the information occurs for the first 3 or 4 questions. Finally, on the 5th question on the exam you recall the answer and your " "mental block" evaporates. You finish the last question on the exam and return to the first 3 or 4 questions and you have absolutely no problem recalling the answers. Anxiety (arousal) levels were so high that your ability to retrieve the answers, which we do visually, escaped us.

The same inability to recall information is impacted by anger and excitement. Both of these emotional states and anxiety disrupt our ability to focus on any one thing.

When you are mentally "out of the moment", regardless of reason, you are placing yourself at a distinct disadvantage in performance. When you go to the first tee with high anxiety, it is difficult to capture pictures that enhance performance.

Sam Snead described play in a match in 1936 before his first PGA Tour event at the Greenbier GC in White Sulfer Springs, West Virgina. The club pro had put together a match between Sam, two former US Amateur Champions and a former US Open Champion.

Sam was the last one to play on the first tee. There was a large gallery. Sam said he was so nervous, his hands were shaking and it took both hands to get the tee in the ground. He said when he stood up the ball was a total blur. Then he said: "I began to do something that I had been practicing. I began to think about a combination of all the great drives I had ever hit from that tee box. I set up with thoughts of those great drives and swung. I heard the crowd gasp. When I looked up I had hit a 280 yarder. Thirty yards past andy of the other drives."

The upside to visualization is the impact it has on swing tempo. Experienced golfers hold a picture of their landing area with a pitch shot. They soon realize that the clearer their picture the better their performance. What they may not realize is that their swing tempo quiets as they get more and more focused on their target. That is the way the brain works. The singular focus of a picture of a target, ball landing, etc quiets the physical movement of the body, tempo.

Visualization Practice Strategies

If you look at great players, past and present, they are visual and FOCUSED. They see the ball flight or the ball rolling in the hole and have the ability to maintain those visual images through the swing or stroke. Jack Nicklaus described his visualization during his routine a “Hollywood Spectacular”. He also said he didn’t swing until he had a clear picture. Seldom is this instruction found in contemporary teaching.

Tiger Woods describes working on putting when he was 3 years old. He said his dad told him to picture the ball rolling in the hole and that is what he does to this day.

Harvey Penick would place a student behind a tree and tell them to learn to hit over, around or under the tree. He would leave them to that practice, not show them changes in path or launch angle to produce the various shots. Peter Green, mentored by teaching great John Jacobs, described a similar style when he played with Peter Allis and Christy O'Connor. He said Christy O'Connor could shape his shot in any way he wanted, high, low, left to right, right to left and he didn’t know how he did it. When Payne Stuart struggled with his swing, he didn’t work on his swing mechanics. He would go to the range and begin to work the ball, much like what Christy O'Connor would do. He would “repair” his swing through a focus on hitting different shaped shots.

PGA Tour veteran Fred Couples says he never hits a shot in practice or play without thinking of that same shot he hit well before. He said if he had an 8 iron at Bay Hill he recalled (visualized) that same 8 iron he hit at Riviera during the west coast swing.

Your Home Course Visualization

Consider your home course. You have a hole on your home course that "fits your eye", a phrase I have heard many times over the years. No matter how you are hitting the ball, you almost always hit a really good tee shot on that hole. You also have a hole that no matter how well you are playing you struggle on that tee box. Please take a moment and consider those 2 holes and your performance on each of those holes.

Now, as you approach the tee box on each of those holes, what are you picturing. On the tee box you "own", you are focused on the great shots you have hit from there, correct? On the tee box where you struggle, you have images of your misses. Revisit what Fred Couples said about how he plays: "I never hit a shot in practice or play without thinking of that same shot I hit well before." Now that takes practice over and over and over to first trust and then follow through on that practice during play. The "Mind Under Par" score cards are a simple guideline to begin that practice.

Practice on the Range

This video shows how I work with players of every level from a double digit index to Tour Player. Yes, a double digit index. This process obviously requires a good set up in balance. Once I have a player in balance, I tell them to focus on me, the baseball glove or anything other than the white dot in the center of that glove. This video shows LPGA Tour Player, Anne Marie Palli demonstrating the visualization exercise.

When working with a high index player, they immediately express concern that they will hit me, thinking that is not a lot different when set up over any shot. Perhaps not "fear" but a concern about missing the shot. Pictures drive our behavior. The brain does not discriminate do from don't. We respond to pictures. I assure them that I have never been hit (and I haven't) so not to worry. They may "buzz" me a few times. As soon as I ask them to rank their level of focused visualization on a 1 to 10 scale, the missed shots are always rated 2, 3 or 4. I tell them: "I don't care where the ball goes. All I want is for you to have a 9 or 10 picture of the spot in the glove. As soon as they shift there focus from a fear of hitting me to getting a clear picture of the target, performance improves immediately

Learning to Focus

Learning to "Focus" and be in the moment to capture a picture is so very important. Learning to hold that image for the duration of a golf shot at the least and ideally for the duration of the entire routine takes extensive practice.

Great players developed strategies to enhance focus on their own. For example, John Jacobs said he would take 10 to 15 minutes to put his shoes on. Johnny Miller said he would take 20 minutes to shave and when John Daly won the British Open he said he was always "out front" tee to green. During the Open he purposely slowed down and worked hard to be last in his group tee to green.

University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) basketball coach, John Wooden, had a 27 year tenure winning 10 NCAA titles during that time. During the first practice each year, Wooden had his players take 30 minutes to put their socks on.

I have developed audios for practicing concentration and relaxation exercises for my students. Below are links to audios for concentration. Mindfulness by slowing movement and breathing are hallmarks of this practice. I developed these audios in the late 1980s for pain and headache treatment and they were adapted for golf in the early 1990s.

INSERT AUDIO LINKS FOR CONCENTRATION AND AUDIOS.

In the mid 1990s I began working with Ramon Brobio, a name few of you have heard. Ramon won Junior World 3 times and finished 2nd his fourth time. Ramon grew up in the Philippines. He was the Tiger Woods of his era. Ramon’s goal as a Junior Golfer was to win Junior World in every age group and receive a college scholarship in the US. Ramon received a full scholarship to attend Brigham Young University (BYU). Masters Champion Mike Wier was his college roommate. Dean Wilson, also a PGA Tour Veteran, played on that same team. After his last Junior World event, as he moved into college golf, It was projected that Ramon would be a world beater, and he should have been. Upon arrival at BYU, Ramon was told that he had to have a swing coach to play on the BYU Men’s team. To that point, Ramon was self-taught. He described practicing on the ranges of Manila until the lights were turned off and then sneaking back on the range to practice after it closed. This was routine for Ramon. He never thought about his full swing, he saw the shot and shape he wanted to hit and set up and hit it.

I have worked Ramon since the mid 90s and watched him practice and play. To this day, I have never seen a player make a short practice swing, freeze the position of their swing twice, as Ramon does, and then hit the shot. Ramon was taught positions by his swing coach in Utah. We worked to get Ramon to make a practice swing in his routine and then swing without freezing positions. Ramon persisted with freezing the position of the club in his back swing indicating that he couldn’t play without doing that. That move was so ingrained in his preswing routine, he believed he couldn’t hit a shot without it. He said he had been taught to freeze positons by his swing coach at BYU.

Fortunately, Ramon didn’t have a short game coach. In fact, Ramon was number 1 in putting on the Asian Tour in 2003 I have never seen a player as good as Ramon from 100 yards in, including Brad Faxon, Tiger or any other PGA Tour player. I have seen Ramon hit a 30 or 40 yard shot on a “rope”, from the short side of the green, under trees, land next to the pin, spin and stop within a foot of the flagstick. That is one of numerous short game shots he has in his bag. One day I asked him to teach me to hit that shot and he said: “I don’t know how I do it, I just see what I want to do, stay focused and hit the shot.” That says it all. I didn’t ask Ramon to teach me that shot again, knowing that was all he needed to do was to see it and hit it. I recalled what Chi Chi Rodriguez said about putting instruction. He described himself at that point in his career as the "best putter on the planet". He said he was paid $100 to write an article for a golf magazine on putting. After breaking down his putting stroke he couldn’t putt worth a darn for quite some time after that article. I wasn’t about to ask Ramon to break down that shot and teach me how to do it.

I asked Ramon how he became so visual in his play. He said that, on his own, at the age of 7 or 8 he would sit with a golf ball, pick a target in his room, capture a picture of that target and bring that image back to the ball and time how long he could hold that image without an intrusive thought. He said in the beginning of this practice he could only hold the picture for a few seconds. He kept up that practice day after day for years. He would do the same thing on the range when he practiced. By the time I met Ramon, he could hold a picture of his target for over 40 seconds without losing that focus.

We need to revisit our history and practice how great players played before moving deeper into swing mechanics and the technology of present day. I believe there is a place for a launch monitor, video, ground reaction force and 3D assessment. I have used all of these in my research, but not in teaching. I still work on set up and all variables that impact balance at address before swing motion begins. After all, balance is the origin of the swing. Then I work on visualization drills off the course and learn to develop a routine on the course that integrates all of these factors. There are not too many things other than anger, anxiety,or depression that balance won’t cure.

Alignment

I don't care how good your swing is, if you are aligned 30 yards right of your target, you will change your swing path to get the shot back to the target. I have never had a lesson with a tour player who didn't have alignment issues.

Which hand

Which hand you hold the club in behind the ball determines what you see and the lines you are ideally drawing to your target. This video on the putting green will guide you through how to determine for you and your student can determine which hand to hold the club in for best