Many of you are familiar with launch monitors such as Trackman and GC Quad, and how valuable they have become in coaching as a result of eliminating the guesswork about what is actually happening at impact. These launch monitors don’t give an opinion of what is happening as your ball and club collide; they give you facts.
You know for certain what you need to work on to improve your impact conditions. Clearly the information which produces a golf shot is supplied by your club to the ball at the only critical time in golf, impact. Yet what is it that supplies the information to our muscles to make the swing which creates these impact conditions? It is nothing other than the lump of grey matter between our ears – our brain. The brain is the driving force that creates every golf shot or putt you have ever hit.
What would it be like if we could get the same kind of information about how our brain is actually working when we try to hole a putt or hit a particular shot?
Well, it would seem the technology is now available.
I have worked closely over the past year or so with a neuro scientist called Dr Izzy Justice and he has pioneered the use of what he calls the ‘Brain Trackman’, a device measuring brain activity which then gives you actual real time information on what is happening in your brain when you play golf.
He has conducted over 10,000 brain scans over the past few years and the results of these scans are dramatic in helping us understand just what kind of state of mind is helpful in holing putts, and perhaps more importantly, what kind of state of mind creates the conditions which increase the likelihood of missing.
The results of his research are very clear that when we play closer to our potential, our brain activity is much quieter. Our brain wave frequency in effect slows down to a level allowing the communication between brain and body to function at an optimum level. When our brain is ‘busy’ with the intensity and frequency of our thoughts, we literally clog up the pathways from brain to body and dramatically reduce the likelihood of success.
A great way to think about this for your own game is to begin to be aware of your ‘brain temperature’. How busy is your brain when you are attempting to hole a putt? We have a simple system to help you with this – RED, YELLOW and GREEN.
When you are in RED your brain activity is super busy and the chances of holing a putt become more remote. When you are in YELLOW there is a level of activity that is still high but your chances of success increase slightly. The holy grail is GREEN when your brain temperature has cooled to a level where your brain activity has quietened down and the commands from brain to body are seamless and efficient.
Just simply by being aware of your brain temperature in a subjective way can begin to help you move in a better direction. We have just released what we believe to be a revolutionary video program called ‘Neuro Putting’ where we detail numerous ways to get yourself into green on a more regular basis. But as a starting point, the next time you putt, I want you to employ one of the most powerful strategies to quieten the brain which is what we call ‘holding the target’.
When you go to putt make sure you are very clear of what your actual target is, be that a spot on the green, the entry point into the cup or the break point, and once you have the target, make sure you ‘hold the target’ in your mind as you putt as opposed to being distracted by lots of technical thoughts on ‘how’ to putt. Holding the target is simply the ability to hold in your mind an image of where you want the ball to go, just as you could hold an image of your car now if you closed your eyes and thought of the car you own. It is the simplest and most efficient way to begin to cool your brain and start the journey towards transforming your putting.
To get a copy of the new ‘Neuro Putting’ program with Dr Izzy Justice and Karl Morris, go to https://themindfactor.net/shop-new/
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