A short introduction to Focus golf
What type of golfer are you
The idea behind the Golfer’s Mental Scorecard is that our behavior on the course – as well as in any other place – and thereby the decisions we make, the goals we set for ourselves and the way we strive to achieve them – is all part of our personality.
A careful person will seldom set up a goal that he or she is not reasonably sure of he or she has the technique to accomplish the task. This type of golfer I call the Baser golfer or the grey golfer.
The opposite applies to the person, who is less meticulous and more willing to take risk to achieve results. This type of person I call the Result golfer or the red golfer.
A third type is the Integrator golfer or the blue golfer, who’s decisions and game is very dependent on the atmosphere in the group as well as the expectations this individual thinks others have to his or her game.
The forth type is the creative and experimenting golfer who cannot help but always try to swing or hit the ball in a different way than usual. This type of golfer I call the Developer golfer or the green golfer.
Whether you are one or another type of golfer does not mean you are a good or bad golfer. All it says is something about how you play golf and what type of choices you make. The grey golfers typically place great emphasis on the technical part of golf and seldom choose solutions that they are not pretty confident they are able to carry out. If the game is going well, then there are no problems. But if the game is not going so well, then there may be a tendency to become even more perfectionistic.
The red golfers set high goals and are more than willing to take chances. If the game is going well, then there are no problems. But if the game is not going so well, they will have a tendency to take even more chances and if that does not help, then they may react quite temperamental.
The blue golfers are the more social type and their results are often dependent on the social relations that are established between them and their fellow players. When the game is going well there are lots of small talk and storytelling, and when the game is not going so well there might even be more talk and more explanations for why.
Phil Mickelson is a good representative for the green golfers. If he get into trouble, he will find creative ways to get out. Like Ballesteros did in his heydays. Green golfers love to play, try new equipment and new ways of hitting the ball. Fixed plans and daily routines is not the green golfer’s favorite.
In general, no personality type are born to become a better golfer than other types. Though my statistics shows that there are more grey golfers with single or plus handicaps, than among the other type of golfers. What makes the biggest difference is the golfer’s ability to play steady and up to their best of their capacity – that is to go for solutions that are optimal in the situation instead of just performing the usual “personality-based” solution.
In the 2004 Masters tournament, Mickelson clearly demonstrated his ability to choose other solutions than the ones we usually expect from him. In the interview after his victory, he said that he several times in all four rounds decided to go for the more security-oriented solutions instead of the more creative and risky solutions that he usually did.
We can not change our personality, but we can learn to change our behavior. Therefore, if you are a typical Red Golfer – and want to avoid disasters – you need to learn to make other choices than your usual choices. Look at it as if you were a pilot. If a certain alarm goes off, the pilot has a trained emergency procedure that he automatically starts. Compare the situation to a Red Golfer. If a Red Golfer strikes his ball into the woods, the first thing he does is look for the direct line to the flag, not the safest way back to fairway. To select the latter solution requires mental and practical training. Imagine if the pilot let his personality and temperament rule his reactions!
The purpose of The Golfers’ Mental Scorecard is to train such emergency procedures. In advance, you must train your capacity of seeing and completing solutions you normally would not spot when things are going well. Harrington’s and Mickelson’s results show that the key to better scores and a more stable game lies in the ability to make alternative decisions.
Conclusion
The purpose of mental training is getting you to change your behavior in certain situations, nothing else. There’s nothing mystical about it: there are no hidden secrets in mental training.
In short, you could say that the purpose of mental training is to improve your ability to make conscious choices. Go to: garudahr.com/cd/finn to get free access to the books on Focused Golf and the mental part of the game.
