The Artistic Approach To Lower Scores

Stephen D.  Simmons

Editor and Publisher - StrategicGolfer Instruction Series

Think back to some of your best rounds or greatest shots.  Everything around you at the time seemed to be moving in slow motion; with vivid colors, sounds, and smells.  It was like you were part of a painting that was happening without effort and you were the center of attraction.  Your canvas was the course.  Your brush was creativity and sense of inner calm.

There were many things you noticed; birds chirping, the wind, the warmth of the sun.  Many things…other than swing mechanics.

Great players express their paintings with a lot of detail.  Poor players struggling with their performance do not see details or they see a lot of details, all of which are about the wrong things.  A beginning or poor player will tend to see a lot of detail about process and mechanics….head still, arm straight, low and slow.  Good golfers tend to see a lot of detail about the intended outcome.  Good golfers see the process of playing golf as part of a bigger picture with successful outcomes being paramount.  Amazingly they paint  smaller paintings that become part of the whole; several shots that become a great round of 65.

Learn how to play golf with good mental pictures.  Your pictures can be created from the creativity of your brain in the form of visualization.  See the result before you make the golf swing.

I recall Jack Nicklaus talking about playing golf is going to the movies.  He saw very vivid and detailed pictures about hitting good shots before he would swing the club.  His greatness came from his ability to do this repeatedly, time after time.  He would see the flight of the ball and its roll.

Raymond Floyd talked about seeing the ball in the air with the proper trajectory, hitting the green, bouncing twice, and then spinning back into the hole.

Intention is a very powerful expression of the mind.  When you intend to do something you set the stage for success.  You give the brain all of the signals needed to chart a great course of action.

I believe that Tiger Woods is the epitamy of the power of intention when it counts the most.  His last two putts at Bay Hill on the 18th green to win his last two starts there are the story of legend.

After his last Bay Hill victory this year he described what his mind and his pictures were like as he pondered the putt.  Among other things he spoke about a temperature change, more dew on the blades of grass in the late afternoon,  the impact those things would have on the grain, and how that would influence the break and speed of his left to right downhill breaking putt. 

 Are you getting the picture…."a master at work".

It’s as if he is willing the ball into the hole.  Non of us would presume that his mind can control the ball after it leaves the putter blade, however, his power of intention is strong enough to control all of the variables before the stroke is made and that intention manifests itself as success, time after time.

You can intend to make good putts or you can intend to make your putts.  We would encourage you to work on the latter.