Step 4: The Athletic Phase
The Athletic Phase is the time from when you start your walk into the ball to when you start your back swing. During this time, it’s imperative that you stay committed to your intention and be “athletic”, rather than being in your head, or thinking. Like with every part of the performance process, this is something that you need to have a plan for and practice.
The Athletic Mind
Too many players have good technical skills, but they can’t perform well because they get in their own way in the critical moments. If you’re over the ball and telling yourself what you don’t want to do or giving yourself a lesson, your athletic movement will be restricted.
Consider other sports such as soccer, basketball, and tennis, where during most of the game, the ball is moving. In these games, there’s little time to think about what you are going to do, you just react to what is happening. Your movement is subconscious, i.e., done without thinking. This improves execution by allowing the movement to be more fluid, not restricted by thinking about doing it correctly or doubts about the outcome. During athletic movement, the thinking mind is quiet – you’re simply trusting your instincts and what your senses are telling you.
Unlike other sports, in golf the ball is stationary before you start your swing, which gives you plenty of time to think. But to be more successful at it, you will need to learn how to turn off thinking (during this phase the shot routine) and focus on something that is going to connect the movement centers in your brain with your intention for the shot. By doing this, you’ll have your “Athletic Mind” fully engaged and increase your chances of success. In this section we’re going to look at some effective ways that you can do it.
The Flow State
The studies that have been done on the minds of the top athletes during performance, show that certain changes occur in the brain. During the “Flow” state, where the athlete is just doing and not thinking, brain wave frequencies change from high frequency “beta” waves to lower frequency “alpha” waves. When these brain waves are being transmitted, the player is present, alert and aware and their movement is athletic and uninhibited. The optimal state for performing any task is where there is zero interference from the thinking or analytical brain, instead there is only doing or being – your mind is empty and you’re in the NOW.
Someone who has spent years studying the anatomy of Flow States is Steven Kotler of Flow Research Collective. In his many books on the subject, Kotler highlights the research which shows that the top athletes have trained their brains to make the stages of brain function during a performance (problem solving, pre-action, action, and post-action evaluation) happen very quickly and require less brain power, or less “thinking”.
If this process is broken down and practiced, it can happen at greater speeds during performance. This is something I work on with students during “Performance Practice” where they are put under pressure to test their ability to execute the process. Kotler talks about how the pioneer of “Flow State” research (and the person to coin the term “Flow”), Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced “Me-High Chick-Sent-Me-High”), shows that when people are in flow, there is less use of the thinking part of the brain called the Pre-Frontal Cortex. They are not inhibited by the desire to control the action and the outcome. They see what they need to do using only their implicit system (or subconscious mind).
In martial arts, they call this state “Mushin” or “emptiness of mind” where the fighter stops thinking and is completely in the present with heightened sensory awareness. This reduces the fear caused from over thinking and gives them more time to anticipate their opponent’s moves.
In the same way, batters in baseball who describe being in Flow say that they see a pitch (which often comes at 90mph) happening in slow motion, giving them plenty of time to hit it.
Unfortunately, we can’t choose to get into Flow, but there are certain triggers that make it more likely to occur.
Discovering your Flow triggers and practicing focusing your attention on these things during your pre-shot routine, will increase the number of times you experience it and massively improve your performance.
The skill of being more present and being able to choose what you pay attention to is a skill and something we will talk more about later. Here are some suggestions for what to focus on in this phase of the Pre Shot Routine. Experiment with them and find out which Flow triggers work best for you.
Breathe!
A deep breath before you start your walk into the ball is a good way to pause, center yourself in the present moment and get oxygen into your body.
Your Walk into the Ball
“If you look as if you are in control, you probably are”. – Dr. Dave Alred
Few players think about the importance of their walk into the ball. Your body language and cadence of your walk will be a factor in how you feel when you’re over the ball. Watch any Tour player and you’ll see that they look as if they are in control as they walk into the ball.
Good posture, body language and facial expressions are proven to trigger “feel-good” chemicals. How do you want to feel as you walk into the ball? Confident? Excited? Powerful? Create that feeling with your body language and facial expressions. If you want to feel happy, try smiling as you walk in. You can make your walk to the ball even more intentional by approaching the ball from the same angle and taking the same number of steps into your set-up position.
Make it quick and reactive
Once you get over the ball, it’s time to be “athletic”, not static.
Studies done on the relationship between process and performance show that the consistency of the pre shot routine and time spent over the ball are major factors in the player’s performance.
One such study, done by Dr. Mark Bridges at the University of Birmingham in England, concluded that:
- Spending less time over the ball could earn a European Tour player an additional $200k per season.
- Less time spent over the ball when putting, can lead to a 90% increase in a player having a positive Strokes Gained putting number, at the end of the round.
- Consistency of time spent over the ball increases the chance that a player will make the cut by 50%.
I’ve got a link to the study in the resources section of this module. To test and improve the consistency of your Pre Shot Routine, try timing it with a stop watch during practice.
Target Retention and Visualization
One of the things that makes golf harder than other target sports is the fact that you are not looking at the target when you swing the club. When you throw a basketball, for example, you can see the target at the same time as you throw the ball. Your focus is on your target, not on your body, which makes it a lot easier. In golf, you’re looking at the ball, not the target when you’re playing your shot. For this reason, visualization and target retention helps because it imprints that image of where the target is and how the ball will get there in your mind. It’s as close to facing the target while you’re swinging as possible. Target focus keeps you athletic and reactive, instead of your mind wandering to less productive things while you’re over the ball. Tiger Woods says that he can still see the image of the shot and the target in his mind while he’s looking down at the ball.
When I evaluate a student’s mental game during a playing lesson, I’m keen to find out for how long they can hold onto the image of the shot and/or target. With that image (or specific parts of it) being a key driver of the swing, it can really help them hit better shots. I ask them at what point do they lose the image of the shot and target. Is it over the ball, during the swing or after the shot? Was the visual image of the shot the same while over the ball as the one they saw in the rehearsal phase?
If you are a coach, you can challenge your student’s ability to stay focused on the target by trying to distract them from it. Tiger Woods’ father Earl Woods used to do this by dropping his bag and doing other things to distract Tiger when he was about to start his swing. You can do the same, and even mention an area that the player would want to avoid – a distraction that some players struggle with during the athletic phase. This is good practice for strengthening a player’s focus.
