Focus, Breath, and Swing: Removing Stress and Anxiety from Your Golf Game

This blog initially appeared on Matthew Mann's website here.

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Anxiety can be an all-consuming event. Imagine yourself on the first tee, mentally going through your routine, checking your stance, gripping the club for the first drive that day, going through all your mental checkpoints and suddenly you begin to feel anxious and nervous. You visualize your first drive carrying the ball into the woods, or just entirely out-of-bounds.

Before you know it, you are concentrating on your anxiety and stress and no longer focus on your approach to the ball or any of your other pre-swing routine steps. What you are feeling is normal. Baseball players, football players, basketball players and all sports enthusiasts experience stress and anxiety.

Suggestions to help you move past this emotional feeling:

• You can take the Buddhist approach by using meditation, calming views of clouds passing by, relaxed breathing for a calming effect.
• Begin preparing for this bout of anxiety before you even get to the golf course. Practice focus and concentration.
• Practice calming breathing techniques. Slowly inhaling and slowly exhaling.
• Grip your club and squeeze and release several times to release the tension in your hands and arms.
• Relax, shake all the stress from your shoulders and continue breathing.
• Feel confident, relaxed, in control and take that swing. Follow-through just as you mentally practiced, relaxed, in control and confident.

Other techniques to consider:

• Be prepared for your day of golf.
• Check your golf bag to ensure you have tees; your clubs are clean, you have bottled water or whatever you drink to refresh yourself on the course.
• Ensure you are organized before stepping on the course.
• Don't add additional stress related problems to your possible anxiety attack.
• Be yourself and relax
• Visualize success before you step up to tee off
• Take control and suppress your emotions. Everyone knows golf has its good and bad days. Concentrate on the good and suppress the bad.
• Trust yourself and your ability to perform, relax into your environment.
• Turn on your autopilot, you are in control, and you feel the stress and anxiety leave.
• Continue with your positive thoughts and follow-through.

You have control, just breathe slowly and take charge as you probably play better than you think and with practice, you will improve and feel better about the results.

3 Small Tidbids About Golfing

This blog initially appeared on Matthew Mann's website here.

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Offseason Golf Tips

As winter approaches, the cold weather numbers your days on the golf course. This period can be tough for any golfer. The time off causes a loss of feel, strength, flexibility, and timing. However, there are ways to keep your skills fresh while you’re off. Try this:

• Performing line drills with or without a golf ball can be useful.
• All you need is a line on a carpet that is perpendicular to your target line.
• You can also use a wedge and ping-pong balls to work on your short game.
• Hitting the ball at various times will help you learn how to use the club to hit different shots.

Warming Up For A Golf Session

Just like with any form of physical activity, warming up for golf is crucial to staying safe and avoiding injuries. Golf stretching exercises will help increase your range of motion and your power. You want to avoid static stretching for your warm up. These kinds of stretching exercises can negatively affect your performance. Instead, focus on more dynamic, working stretches that will warm your muscles and prepare you for the game. Arm swings, trunk rotations, and side bends with a club are great examples. You should be sure to include a stretching session after your game as well. Include some static stretches here will be useful to improve flexibility.

Skills All Great Golfers Have

It is a fact that most professional golfers are not the greatest athletes in the world. However, they all possess particular attributes that make them successful. Two specific traits cited to turn a golfer from good to great. Those qualities are attitude and skill. These are skills that boost anyone in any profession but, in golf, they can add a substantial boost to one’s game. An excellent golfer maintains a calm, cool, and collected demeanor. Keeping a positive spirit even during a challenging game is a good sign. Skills that one should look for in a great golfer are tempo and distance control. Players who have a good tempo tend to maintain a smooth and fluid swing. It is also essential to know how far to each of your clubs. Great golfers recognize the various dynamics of their swings and have mastered the differences between them.