High School Golf: The Preshot Routine -Part 1
Channel: Mental Toughness Trainer
Date: 2011-11-07

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High School golf: Preshot Routine http://www.mentaltoughnesstrainer.com/2011/11/how-to-develop-mental-toughness/

Mental Toughness Trainer teaches high school golfers how to tap into their consistency to bring your best practice and training performance over to competition.

Transcript: High School Golf:  The Preshot Routine -- Part 1

The main thing you need to do is from now on do everything purposeful out on the golf course.  Everything purposeful in your life?  That's  a lifetime practice, but it's really it's much easier to do things purposeful on the golf course. 
 
Think of being on the course playing in competition, under pressure especially, there's three compartments that you're going to play in. 
• Personal
• Analytical
• Intuitive

You guys ever heard of Ben Hogan?  Ben Hogan was known as like the most amazing golfer for his focus ability.  He could go 36 holes and not lose his focus.  He called it the "ice model." 

Now... here's the thing.  It's pretty darn hard to just have a total complete focus the whole round, but you don't need to. It's Ok to walk around the course yakking and joking and laughing and just messing with each other even in the midst of the highest competition.  

Getting in the analytical mode is nothing more than a pre-shot routine. I really encourage you to design for yourself a pre-shot routine that is purposeful.  

You're going to solve half these problems. Here's the elements of a pre-shot routine:
1. Trigger
2. Assess Conditions
3. Think Small Target
4. Visualize the Shot
5. Alignment
6. Swing

You can mix them up if that works for you. 

Trigger is where you switch from joking around to putting every ounce of focus and concentration energy in that three minutes you have to do your pre-shot routine and naturally swing.  Instead of trying to save it all and try to use it all throughout the whole round, now you're diluted. 

So you kind of conserve your focus.  We don't only have so much ability to focus.  I mean how many times have you been in a classroom like this and you got some teacher boring as sin and it's tough to focus. 

Trigger means you have something that officially gets you in your pre-shot routine.  Okay?  It can be as simple as... just touch your head.  It's the easiest thing in the world.  

Assess is when you are up there at your shot.  You're looking at your line in detail.  You're checking the grass if it's a little chipped, how it's going to come off.  And you're taking into account the winds and the weather and how wet it is with your feet right next to that.  On and on... you're assessing the conditions. 

You can do a lot of that before you ever do your trigger, while you're waiting for your turn.  You can check out the wind, estimate how the ball is going to kick off the landing area you chose, you can do all that before.  This is where you are going to look close. and really getting into it, especially in the tee box.

The next one is very, very important.  Pick small targets.  Very, very small targets.  Here's what most golfers do.  They get up there and they're looking down.  Yeah... I need to hit that fairway.  Okay?  No.  Pick a spot on the fairway.  Pick a tree leaf that is hanging over the fairway or 150 marker and 10 yards to the right -- or something like that.  Pick small targets.

The unconscious mind needs small targets.  This isn't just for golf.  This is for everything in life.  This means when you pick a goal, you want to be as specific as possible.  Let me give you an example of bad goal setting.  When I ask some of my clients when they come to see me, I say, "What do you want?  What are you here for?" 

They'll say, "I want good grades."  Well... what are good grades? A kid whose with a "C" average?  Are good grades a "B" average?  If you're a B+, that's good grades, I want a 4.0 -- right?  Everything is relative.  So instead of saying I want good grades, you got to say, "I want a 4.0 by the end of this semester."  Okay?  

This is the same thing in golf.  Get that spot.  You know?  If you're putting, there's my target line.  Roll the ball over that target line and trust.

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