The secret: visualization.
Your practice sessions will be more effective with visualization. This means you can reduce their duration and cost in baskets of balls. In my experience, 4 visualization sessions combined with 1 practice session is better than 5 practice sessions. That’s more than enough money and time to treat yourself to more rounds of golf or more golf lessons!
It is scientifically proven that it greatly improves athletes’ performance. And you can do visualization anywhere and anytime, or almost, but certainly not while driving a car, because you need to have your eyes closed.
The recipe is strong: get comfortable in a sitting or lying position and close your eyes. Imagine yourself swinging as you would on a real golf course or driving range. You can also do this while standing.
The more you visualize, the more information your brain retains that allows you to be trained without playing golf!
Visualization on a golf course as on a driving range
You can incorporate visualization right before your pre-shot routine to increase your chances of success (see Golf Fundamentals).
You can also increase the effectiveness of visualization by doing it right after a swing. There are two extreme situations in this case. Either you hit your swing perfectly, or you missed it more or less:
- For a successful swing, it’s a matter of memorizing more deeply what you did well so that you can repeat it more easily the next time, reinforcing the right automatisms.
- For a more or less failed swing, it’s about visualizing the perfect swing that should have happened so you can correct your mistakes right away and avoid the vicious cycle of bad habits (see the article Habits in golf).
Last recommendation
If you are not satisfied with a golf shot, do this: Execute a few very slow swings without a ball right away to reprogram your brain. This way, you’ll tell your brain what swing you want it to make next time.
