Thank you for downloading this free ebook. I’m sure it will help you improving your game help you improving your game as much as it did for me. Feel free to pass this ebook on to anyone who might be interested as iFeel free to pass this ebook on to anyone who might be interested as it is now in the public domain.
Should you be interested in more golfing tips and tricks, I recommend visitinghttp://www.learn-golf.info
To your golfing success,
Mark
(The Table of Contents is on pg. 15 of this document.)
Author of "How You Can Bowl Better Using Self-Hypnosis" Copyright
ILLUSTRATIONS TROUBLE SHOTS
Here is a player exhibiting the technique of recovering from a sand trap. Note the apparent ease of the swing. He has not allowed conscious fear to create tension in the muscle movements. Fear-produced tensions cause "freezing." Self-hypnosis enables you to conquer conscious fear when you are faced with trouble shots.
PUTTING FEARS Even the experts are sometimes thwarted by "jitters" on the putting green, which are uncontrolled fears influencing muscle action. Self-hypnosis, which provides an explanation of the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind, reveals how these fears are created and how they can be kept in control.
CONCENTRATION AND RELAXATION
Here is an excellent example of what the experts mean when they say the golfer must concentrate and yet be relaxed. Note, the attention is focused on the ball, while there is no hint that the muscles have become tense. It is through self-hypnosis that the dual state of concentration and relaxation can be combined to produce the correct golf swing.
EYES ON THE BALL
The controversial subject as to whether the eyes must be kept on the ball and the head down during impact is well illustrated in this photo. The player has not "forced" this position. It is a natural result of concentration of the conscious mind upon the ball, while the subconscious mind automatically controls the rest of the movements in the swing.
FOLLOW-THROUGH Here is a picture showing excellent followthrough. It is evidence of how well the stroke has been "grooved." Note the player's relaxed muscles at the finish of the swing. This relaxed position is only possible when the stroke has been played with the muscles controlled by the subconscious mind.
CONTENTS1. H E R E I S A P R O M I S E F O R B E T T E R G O L F . . 19
2. T H E S I X - I N C H C O U R S E ...................................... 27
A P P L I C A T I O N F O R B E T T E R G O L F .................... 35 4. W H A T Y O U S H O U L D K N O W A B O U T
S E L F - H Y P N O S I S .................................................... 45
5. H O W T O A C H I E V E S E L F - H Y P N O S I S . . . . 55
6. B E T T E R G O L F T H R O U G H
M E N T A L P I C T U R E S ........................................ . 67
7. T H E C H A M P I O N S ' S I X - I N C H D R I V E . . . . 77
8. S E V E N H O U R S P R A C T I C E I N
S E V E N M I N U T E S .................................................. 89
9. I F D A N D E L I O N S W E R E G O L F B A L L S . . . 97
10. M E N T A L B U N K E R S ............................................. 105 11. T H E 1 9T H H O L E ................................................... 116
Chapter 1Why is it that the good golfer appears to hit the ball with such ease, while the duffer, "giving it everything he's got," appears to be using a rubber-shafted club and a steel ball?
Have you ever strewn divots all the way around a course while concentrating on the theories of the straight left arm, steady head, hip turn and right elbow down? You know all there is to know about the mechanics of the golf swing and can recite the theories forwards and backwards. The only thing you don't understand is your score. It seems the more you know and the harder you try, the worse you get.
If it is true that you know the fundamental movements of the golf stroke yet fail to play well, your failure must be in your mental play.
"And just what," you ask, "is mental play?" Let's go to the experts to see what they have to say.
"The average individual," says sports writer Grantland Rice, "has given almost no attention to mental control, which in golf should be an absence of conscious thinking as the stroke is played." Psychologists call this automatic mastery a conditioned reflex.
"The subconscious mind is probably the most important factor in being a good golfer. It keeps distractions on the course from ruining a good round. You should practice, develop your swing, and do most of your thinking on the practice tee so that when you play in competition, you can hit the ball automatically." That's what Wiffy Cox, the nationally known pro at the Congressional Golf and Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, has to say about it.
"Trouble shots are surprisingly easy if you activate your imagination. You simply must be able to imagine exactly what flight the ball will take before you can play any shot well," advises the great Walter Hagen.
The great "Slammin' Sam" Snead writes: "First and foremost, you must have confidence. Your second mental problem is concentration. Think the shot through in advance before you address the ball. Draw a mental image of where you want it to go and then eliminate everything else from your mind, except how you are going to get the ball into that preferred spot."
The experts have spoken! The only problem is that they have told you what you must do, but left out instructions on how to do it. What do they mean by "Do most of your thinking on the practice tee," "Activate your imagination," "A fairly blank mind, after the backswing has started, is a great help," "Eliminate everything else from your mind," "Absence of conscious thinking" ?
As you can see, most of the instructions on the mental approach to golf are so vague they are difficult to understand.
One of the reasons why professionals who sincerely attempt to share their knowledge of the game with less proficient players are thwarted is because they grew up with the game. As caddies, they developed their golf swing and golf thinking at an early, formative age. They learned to play by imitating good players. The facility to learn through imitation is reserved almost exclusively for youth.
"When a person reaches maturity his conscious mind develops its true function: to question, to doubt, to challenge all facts presented to it. It demands to know the reason for all actions, thereby eliminating the ability to imitate without question.
An infant feeds himself, walks and talks by imitation. A youth learns to swim, ride a bicycle, or swing a golf club by imitation. No question is asked, so long as the action produces the desired results.
Instructions for an adult must not only include being shown or told what to do, but must contain a reasonable explanation as to how and why it should be done in that way.
Another stumbling block for instruction on mental play has been that it is often given in terms of what the student should do, rather than how he should do it. This is a statement of effect, rather than cause.
The difference between the good player and the poor player is his mental approach to both the swing and the game. The good player knows not only what to think, but how to utilize his thought to make his play effective. The poor player, unable to visualize such terms as concentration, blank mind, relaxation and tension, struggles hopelessly in a mental fog. He is like the person who owns a telephone, radio or television set. He knows there are certain mechanical parts that are operated by electricity. However, without complete instructions he could not put one together and make it operate, even if he had all the parts.
The instruction for assembling the mechanical parts of the swing is the mental side of golf. The power to operate it is hypnosis.
Should the term hypnosis connotate mystery, black magic, stage trickery or fear, disregard it. Upon closer examination, you will find you are not only familiar with it, but have been using it while thinking of it in other terms such as self-discipline, positive thinking, automatic response, muscle memory, suggestion or unconscious desire.
Hypnosis is not a new phenomenon. Its recorded history goes much further back in time than that of the ancient and honorable game of golf. Whereas some authorities claim golf originated with the early Romans in a sport they called "Paganica," references to hypnosis have been found on stone tablets, unearthed in Greece, dating back to 3000 B.C.
The only thing new about hypnosis is when you, yourself, become aware of it. Then, its great power to influence the mind becomes known to you.You will learn to use it effectively, because you will understand how to channel its forces to tap the hidden resources of your subconscious mind.
Hypnosis, like the golf stroke, to the uninitiated is a mystery, not so much in what it is, but in how it is accomplished. Every good golfer, whether he recognizes the phenomenon as such, employs self-hypnosis in his play. Realization of this fact and an understanding of the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind will inevitably result in better golf.
Would you like to curb that "killer instinct" off the tee? Would you like to thaw that psychological freeze when faced with hazards, cure the "jitters" on the putting green, and put both power and direction in your shot-making? This is what you may expect by applying self-hypnosis to your play.
In order to reach these goals, it is necessary to assimilate the directions step by step. You must promise to treat this book as you would a mystery thriller, by not peeking ahead to find the answer sooner. Unless prepared by an understanding of the process involved, the induction of selfhypnosis may seem so easy that you may find it difficult to believe such amazing results are possible with so little effort. The study of hypnosis is similar to a course in higher mathematics, in which deduction, analysis and logic are sought, rather than the obvious answer.
The request to follow the pages in order is not made for the purpose of impressing upon you that a great, new, and secret discovery has been made. Rather, it is to instruct you in self-hypnosis in order to improve your golf score. Proof will be found in your own lowered handicap.
Book stores and libraries have racks filled with volumes on physical golf. Analysis of the play of champions, back to the time James I paired with his cobbler to wrest the title from the Stuart Clan in the sixteenth century, is dealt with in detail.
Autobiographies by professionals reveal, with the frankness of confession story writers, how they "feel" during every movement. Doctors have written golf books dissecting the swing, with detailed descriptions of each part of the anatomy involved.
Theorists treat the aesthetic qualities of both golf and golfers with nuances usually reserved for poetry. Endless "tips" appear in newspapers and magazines aimed at improving the game of the average player.
You will probably agree that any further discussion on the physical side of golf was precluded when the champion of champions, Ben Hogan, published his informative Five Lessons — with illustrations by Ravielli. It shows every movement of bone and muscle that the game of golf brings into play and is worthy of being a surgeon's manual.
Why are there so many players seriously seeking improvement when the golf swing has been so completely revealed, charted, and plotted with the thoroughness of a geographical map ? Why do they find it so difficult to hack their way around the course under 100 strokes? What keeps them from breaking 90, or coming close to par?
If it is true that the average player knows the fundamental movements of the golf stroke, yet fails to play well, it must follow that his failure is in his mental play. Through hypnosis, the way to obtain a mental effect may be explained, understood, and put to use. It reveals the mental side of golf with the clarity that high speed cameras disclose the physical movements of the golf swing.
Prior to "magic eye" photography, many fallacies existed concerning the golf stroke. These errors were made by the players when they attempted to describe what they thought they were doing. Only when stop-motion cameras were used was proof as to how they were doing it finally established. Just as these cameras were used to prove the mechanics of golf, so does hypnosis give proof as to how the champions think.
If you have studied numerous books on how to play golf, you probably reached the conclusion that either all of these books were written by the same ghost writer or that there is only one correct way to swing a golf club. Close study of the professional form in sequence photographs shows conclusively that there is only one way to swing the golf club. To be effective, it must follow a certain path to contact the ball in order to propel it any distance in a straight line. In golf, the shortest distance to par is a straight line.
Should you have any doubt that there is only one correct mechanical stroke, take a piece of tracing paper and outline the basic movement of the champions from their sequence pictures. You will find that one will fit over the other. The only variance will be the physical difference in their height and weight.
The golf swing is physical. It is performed mechanically by the use of muscles. However, all muscle movement, both conscious and subconscious, is controlled by the mind. Selfhypnosis allows both the conscious and subconscious minds to perform their separate duties with a minimum of effort for the best results.
In the popular King Features syndicated newspaper column, "Mirror of Your Mind," the question was asked of Joseph Whitney: "Can hypnosis improve your golf game ?"
He answered: "Properly performed, hypnosis is capable of changing mental attitudes at the conscious level. If faulty mental attitudes are responsible for a golfer's inadequate performance, a change wrought by hypnosis could help him improve his skill."
Dr. Conrad Gayle, New York City, Diplomate of the American Board of Hypnosis, said recently, "Hypnosis cannot correct the basic mechanism involved, for example, a golfer's slice, but it can make it easier for him to learn to correct his slice by relaxing tensions at the conscious level."
Through the use of self-hypnosis, you will learn to relax your tensions at the conscious level, allowing the subconscious to assume its power role in the golf swing. This alone produces the automatic grooved swing of the champions.
Remember, conscious effort is a swing-wrecker! Subconscious control is the par maker!
Chapter 2THE SIX-INCH COURSE
Most amateur golfers are bitten (and infected beyond cure) by the golf bug after they become adults.
The age of imitation has long passed. They attack their game as adults. They research it deeply by reading every book on how to play golf they can find. Then, they go out on the course and practice diligently. They even take instructions from a teaching professional, thinking this is all they have to do to master the game. Well, is it?
Remembering everything you have ever read about the mechanics of golf, do you still find yourself hooking and slicing on the course until you feel like wrapping your club around a tree?
After a thoroughly exasperating game you go home, and there on the sports page is a "tip" from one of the masters telling you exactly what to do to correct a slice. What he says sounds pretty reasonable, so forgetting how tired you are (and ignoring your wife's call to dinner) you pick up your clubs and balls and head for the back yard.
With considerable danger to the grass, you imitate what you have just read in slow motion. You continue practicing until the thought strikes you, "I can't see myself, so how do I know I'm doing it right?"
Then, it comes to you. There is a full length mirror in your bedroom that was made for just this sort of emergency. Closing your mind to your wife's threat she'll divorce you if you harm her beautiful mirror, you pass her with a muttered, "Well, it's my house, too."
What's the matter with women? Don't they know that a mirror is an excellent means of checking such highly important movements as knee bend, hip turn, and steady hand?
There you stand looking at yourself and thinking, "After reading all those books by the professionals, I feel I know how to use every golf muscle. I am confident that with a little intelligent application I can duplicate the swing of the pros."
So you practice, and practice, and practice, and practice. First, you do it slowly. Then, you gradually speed it up until you just know that you've got it.
Black despair engulfs you the next day when your new technique fails to stand up under the pressure of real play. For some elusive reason, the "fool-proof" form depicted in the bedroom mirror deserts you on the course.
This is the point at which you find yourself at night, after hours of wakeful contemplation upon your golfing faults, flinging yourself from bed to practice your swing in the living room. Returning to bed, you find that sleep finally comes with the sweet assurance that at long last you have found the "secret."
This feeling immediately deserts you when your handicap increases six strokes.
There is no more persistent breed than the amateur golfer.
Determined to find the answer, you will read and reread Tommy Armour, Ernest Jones, Jack Burke, and Ben Hogan. There will be times when, with hope high, you climb slowly down the handicap ladder. It will be dashed when, just as things seem to be going well, you falter again.
Physically, you feel capable of accomplishing the movements so graphically described by the experts. Mentally, you are confused by your failure. The most humbling experience you will ever have is to go to a women's professional tournament and see wisps of girls half your size hit the ball twice as far.
At this point, you return to your teaching pro.
"You review his instruction, and graciously offer him all the "tips" you have picked up during your research. You hit a bucketful of balls, and, like the fellow whose pain mysteriously disappears as he enters the doctor's office, the slices and scuffs vanish.
"There is nothing basically wrong with your swing," he says, "Your only trouble is that you try too hard. "You know what you're supposed to do, but you can't do it in competition because you're trying to 'murder' every shot."
His explanation leaves you completely baffled. How can you possibly keep from trying hard to do something you desperately wish to accomplish? Didn't Tommy Armour advise you in his book to hold the club in the left hand and whack hell out of the ball with the right?
You put your questions to the pro, and he tries to explain what he said in a different way. 'You'll have to force yourself to swing easy while you're playing."
This instruction, difficult as it is to follow —"to try hard," "not to try too hard," and "swing easy"— manages to compound bad shots without distance. Your handicap again goes up.
"It has to be mental," you tell yourself. Now, you return to your golf books to find out what they have to say concerning the mental side of the game.
This creates real confusion. On the physical side of golf, except for minor divergents as to grip and stance, the pros appear in agreement. On the mental side of the game, there seems to be no less than a dozen different, and often diametrically opposed, views.
Some professionals insist the player must "concentrate on the stroke to the exclusion of everything else." Others claim the swing should be made "with a blank mind." There is talk of "being intent upon the target" while at the same time the player is supposed to be "completely relaxed in body and mind." There are discussions of tensions, frustrations, golf gremlins, voices within, and mental pictures.
What appears to be near "mystic" is the claim of some professionals that they can hook or slice by merely thinking "hook" or "slice." One famous English pro says he thinks he can "will the ball in the hole."
Each theory is stated positively. "You are admonished to follow directions explicitly. But nowhere can you find an explanation of just how to accomplish these near miraculous feats.
"You try your best to keep a mental picture of the ball in flight and at the same time remember to hold the left arm firm, the right elbow down, and the head steady. You admit complete defeat after trying to do this while "keeping the mind blank."
Unbelievable as it may seem to you, each of these instructions is completely valid.
In fact, every one of them is a must for good golf.
A good golfer must have a mental picture of both the golf swing and the flight of the ball. He must be intent upon making a shot while relaxed. He must remember the basic movements of the swing while the mind is blank. Furthermore, he can do all these things simultaneously through the use of self-hypnosis.
The obscurity of the instruction is in accepting the role played by the conscious and subconscious minds. Until you learn about hypnosis, you will probably classify the mind as singular. When you acquire an understanding of the functions of the conscious and subconscious minds, most of your golfing troubles are over.
"Much of anyone's game is played (or should be played) in the short six-inch course between the ears," said Louise Suggs, winner of both the American and British Open Crowns.
Even after you have been over a course many times, it
Willie Ogg, instructor at the Professional Golfers Association school in Dunedin, Florida, lecturing on "Tensions and the Psychological Freeze," put it this way:
"One touch of jitters makes all golfers kin. "The ideal is reached when one has only to think of mechanical control for the mechanical action. This is a matter of inducing self-hypnosis or complete concentration."
"However, there is that little matter of knowing how to
"The subconscious mind is probably the most import-ant factor in being a good golfer. It keeps distraction on the course from ruining a good ground," said Wiffy Cox. "This is the essence of self-hypnosis. Hypnosis distracts the conscious mind and allows the subconscious to function. Through self-hypnosis comes the "subconscious feel." It is attained in the practice area as a measure for every shot. When you have this subconscious feel, then your swing becomes automatic. While playing in Seattle, Washington, one year, I met Woodrow Auge, a businessman.
Auge is in his 40's, husky, powerfully built, and keeps himself in top physical condition. We met as he was playing his first game "since fooling around a bit with it in high school."
It wasn't unexpected that he scored 126 on a par 72 course. He was a doomed man. The golf bug had bitten him, because he said, '"You know, I think I'll take up golf. I've been spending my summers playing soft ball with one of our store teams, but it's a kid's game and getting too tough. I like the sociability of golf."
Auge returned to the course the following week. By dint of overpowering the ball, he cut his score by four strokes.
"I'm buying a set of clubs," he told me. "How about going to the driving range some evening and giving me a few pointers? It's been so long since I played, I've forgotten everything I knew, except how to keep score. And at the rate I'm going, I'll need an adding machine for that."
I asked Auge if he would mind being a guinea pig for an experiment. A number of other players I knew were using self-hypnosis, but they were experienced in the mechanical movements of the game. He would be the first who might be classified as a beginner to put the theory to a test.
"I have nothing to lose," Auge said gamely. "I'll string along with whatever you say if you think I can get to play well enough to make the game interesting."
In exactly three months, Woodrow Auge broke 80! Much of the credit for his remarkable feat must be given to his splendid physical condition and a real determination to master the game. He played often, and spent evenings at the driving range. However, I think it may stand as a near record for a person to start almost from
scratch and drop 48 strokes to score a 78 in three months.Auge credits the instruction he received on self-hypnosis, which explained the mental side of golf to him, for his rapid improvement.
"I don't care whether it is in business or golf," he said, "a fellow isn't going anywhere until he knows what he is doing. Once I got it through my head about controlling the golf swing with the subconscious mind, the rest came easy."
If Auge, an amateur just like you, can lower his score 48 points by using self-hypnosis, why can't you ?Chapter 3
YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS AND ITS APPLICATION FOR BETTER GOLF
Hypnosis can be explained best by what it can do and how it is accomplished, rather than by what it is. The phenomenon of hypnosis is recognized by both the American and British Medical Associations. That, in itself, should constitute documentation for even the most skeptical.
The cause of hypnotic phenomenon is still controversial, but a majority of authorities concur in the theory that hypnotism is a state of heightened suggestibility which enables an individual to make appropriate responses. It is accomplished by distracting the conscious mind from a multitude of thoughts and concentrating it upon a single object or thought, so direct contact may be made with the subconscious mind.
What hypnotism can do is well authenticated. Clinical reports fill volumes in medical libraries. Physicians haveused it for painless childbirth, surgery and alleviation of pain without chemical analgesia. Psychiatrists have found it a useful tool to uncover repressed or guarded secrets of the mind. They also employ it with great success in psychotherapy for the mentally ill.
Hypnosis is not only for the sick and emotionally disturbed. As stated by Dr. Frank S. Caprio, an eminent Washington psychiatrist, "It may be used by the normal person to relieve tensions, inspire confidence and add zest to living."
The word "hypnosis" derives from the Greek word "hypnos," meaning sleep. It was coined by an English physician, Dr. James Braid, in the 18th century. Later, Dr. Braid recognized his error and stated that while hypnosis resembled sleep, it is not normal sleep, and, in fact, quite the opposite in many ways. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to change the name to "monoideism," to signify it was due to being engrossed with a single idea.
Today, authorities agree hypnosis is akin to concentration which excludes all but the desired stimuli, but it cannot be completely explained by this theory. It has been proved that Dr. Braid was correct in assuming there was no relationship to sleep other than a superficial resemblance. The electroencephalograph (a machine for measur