The game doesn’t start on the first tee. By the time you get to hit your first shot, you should already be in your best competitive mindset and ready to play. You don’t want to wait until you’re several holes into your round to find it. Sports psychologists call a mental warm up “Activation”, during which, triggers can be used to:
- Create a mental, emotional and physical state
- Get you feeling confident and believing in your abilities
- Control arousal level and tension
- Reduce worry and anxiety
- Be prepared for any challenges that might arise
Here are my suggestions for a mental game warm-up that can be done in less than 20 minutes.
Step 1. Breathe and Relax
It’s normal to feel nervous before a round, which is why it’s important to include exercises which prevent those nerves becoming anxiety and tension. Here’s another type of meditation that can take as little as 5 minutes and focuses on quieting the mind and relaxing the body before a round:
1. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Inhale deeply through your nose until your belly goes out, and exhale slowly through your mouth. On the exhale, feel your whole body relax
2. Return your breathing to normal
3. Do a body scan and notice any tension. If you notice any tension, breathe into that area, and soften it. Start with the top of your head and gradually move to your face, noticing any tension in your brow, cheeks, and jaw. Move slowly to your neck and shoulders, all the way down your arms, to the wrists and fingers. Bring awareness to the sensations in each individual part of your body. Explore it. Feel the chest and diaphragm moving with your breath. Move down each leg, thighs, calves, ankles, feet, and toes. Be aware of exactly how you feel and use your breathing to release any stress and tension. Feel your body getting more relaxed with each breath
4. Whenever you notice your attention wander from your body scan, bring it back to the breath and how your body feels
Step 2. Be Grateful
As we discussed in Module 4, gratitude is the opposite of fear. You can’t feel grateful and anxious at the same time. Let’s put golf in perspective. Whatever round you are about to play, you are still going to play the game golf. You’re not going to have major surgery, or anything worse than that.
Think of 3 things that you are grateful for about the upcoming round, that don’t have anything to do with your final score – this could be playing a good golf course, hitting some good shots, being outside in beautiful surroundings, being healthy enough to play, the people you are going to play with or the opportunity to learn more about your game. By choosing to be grateful, and staying mindful of these things throughout the round, you take some of the pressure away from having to play well to make it a success or enjoyable.
Step 3: Visualize
“Mental rehearsal is every bit as important as physical rehearsal.” – Phil Mickelson
As you will know from Module 4, mental rehearsal or visualization is about creating a feeling of confidence and certainty. It embeds the possibility or success in your subconscious rather than what could go wrong. Jack Nicklaus said that he attributes at least 50% of his success to having seen it in his mind before it actually happened. Muhammad Ali said he would mentally rehearse all his fights and saw himself being victorious before the actual fight.
When you mentally rehearse it, you’re priming your subconscious mind to believe that it has already happened and that there is nothing to fear. When you are there for real, you will have more confidence and you are more likely to live into the player you have visualized. Let’s make success more possible by visualizing it before your rounds using this process:
1. Start by visualizing success that you have already achieved. Think of your 3 best memories in golf. Experiment with the first-person and third-person perspective (seeing it if you are playing the shots vs. as if you are on TV). What did the course look like? What was the weather like? What were you wearing? Who was there? What shots did you play? What club did you use and how did the shot feel? How did it feel afterwards? Re-live those moments as vividly as possible.
2. Using the same process, visualize your success in the upcoming round. Go through your shot routine for tee shots, approaches, short game shots, long and short putts and visualize great swings and successful outcomes. E.g., see yourself on the first tee, being confident, calmly going through your pre shot routine and hitting a solid shot down the center of the fairway. Not only do you want to see yourself playing the shots but imagine the player that you want to be. You get to decide which version of you will show up. What will your attitude, demeanor, body language and self-talk be like? Visualize you being your “best performing self”.
3. Imagining yourself being successful on the course is not the same as expecting the round to be without any challenges. We can use mental rehearsal to prepare for adversity. Also known as “rational visualization”, you can put yourself in some of the challenging situations that could arise and visualize dealing with them in the best possible way. Whether it’s overcoming the feeling of nerves on the first tee, being out of position, a double bogey or a bad bounce or lie, it’s important that you plan your response. Tiger says that not only does he visualize himself hitting great shots, but he also assumes that he will miss-hit some and sees himself successfully dealing with the trouble they could leave him in (he doesn’t visualize mis-hitting shots). Mentally rehearse what you will do in those situations. 3. Read Your Player Pledge By this point, you should be very familiar with your Player Pledge (and you might be able to recite it), but I’d like for you to revisit it before you play. Establish what you stand for as a player and the values you will uphold.
Step 4: Activate Your Player Persona
Before your round it’s important that you “get into the role” of the player that you want to be and activate your Player Persona or “Alter Ego”. By this point, you should have a clear picture of the characteristics of your Player Persona. Activating it could be done with an action such as putting on your golf shoes or cap, playing a certain type of music, or watching videos of your model player. From that time on, being your Player Persona will be your primary focus. You can maintain it using key words such as “assertive, focused and present” or combine it with a model player such as “a Calm, Tough Brooks Koepka”.
Step 5: Play Music
Music is a great activator of mood. Create different playlists that can activate different mental and emotional states, depending on what you feel is needed. If you need to calm yourself down and lower nerves, you might listen to classical. If you want to raise intensity and get yourself pumped up, you might listen to rap. Jon Rahm says he listens to rap music, as the lyrics get him ready for the fight ahead. Find songs that have lyrics that align with your performance values and optimal performance state. Having music playing while you are doing your pre-round visualizations, can connect those experiences with that music, so it becomes a trigger of that same performance state when you listen to it again.
A pre round mental warm up is an integral part of performing well in your rounds. Like a daily morning routine to start any day off well, your pre round routine will help you establish your goals and intentions, get you focused on the things that are possible for the day and have you feeling like you are prepared for anything that comes your way.