VEFF Golf magazine 2023

GOLF//Magazine VEFF MAGAZINE 2023

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FIVE MENTAL SETS OF TOOLS TO IMPROVE YOUR GOLF If I told you that you do not need to change your swing to improve your golf, would you believe me?

THE FASTEST WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR GOLF

SETTING GOALS

TRUST YOUR OWN ABILITIES

The VEFF magazine is produced by employees in DNV and sponsored by VEFF union, which is a union for DNV employees. © VEFF 12-2023 Editor: Hans-Jørgen Isene Photos: Hans-Jørgen Isene, Istock Design and print: Aksell

EDITORIAL

GOLF MAGAZINE

3 The fastest way to improv your

Welcome to this special addition of Golf Magazine. If you do not play golf, this article can still be useful and will give you some tools to handle frustration or just tackle complicated tasks in life.

Hans-Jørgen Isene is a good friend, and a reliable golfer with special interest in golf and good vines. In this special addition of the VEFF Magazine, he will share some thoughts and reflection on how to faster improve your golf game.

golf

5 Focus and rutines 10

Setting goals

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Controlling your emotions

21 Trust your own abilities 25 Final words

Golf is a sport that requires a combination of skill, technique, and mental focus. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced golfer, there are several strategies you can employ to rapidly improve your golf game.

Improving your golf game requires a holistic approach that encompasses practice, physical fitness, and mental preparation.

Remember, improvement takes time and dedication, so be patient and persistent in your pursuit of becoming a better golfer, Nina Ivarsen Chair VEFF.

Nina Ivarsen

, Chair VEFF

The fastest way to improve your golf TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE

If I told you that you do not need to change your swing to improve your golf, would you believe me?

The fact is that there is a much faster route to a lower score.

This includes changing your mindset. Practice has proven that an improved mindset has a bigger and more fundamental effect on your golf than any technical approach.

If that is a fact - why has your coach not told you this before?

The answers are many, but I guess this is not what they teach at the pga-training program. For a number of reasons, money being one.

I assume most golfers would agree to that a negative thought or line of thoughts, lead to one or more poor shots. Knowing this - it is surprising how few golfers uses their ability to change their mind to produce their best golf. More or less all professional golfers use their mental abilities to improve their game in one way or another.

This is often referred to as a winning mindset. This kind of mindset is possible to adapt also for the rest of us week-end golfers.

It is faster to adapt than most swing changes, and much more efficient.

Why things go wrong

Let’s start with a look at the 4 typical mental reasons of a poor score.

PRESSURE Pressure is a typical reason for failure, this is often about thoughts connected to the future. Thoughts about the end result, or a putt that would give you a birdie or winning the match. The athlete will have a feeling of loss of control. She or

he might be in control, but a sneaking feeling of less control will increase the pressure and lead to a poor shot.

I see this almost every time I watch golf on the TV. Among the top ten players after Saturday, at least one or two collapses on a Sunday. The reason is a feeling of loss of control and increased pressure.

Pressure leads to nerves, stress and at its worst to anxiety.

DISTRACTIONS The second typical reason for failure is distractions. This is when the golfer become aware of movements or sounds around him (her), and this occupies the athlete’s attention.

When you are distracted, it is almost impossible to produce a decent swing, thus a poor shot.

One of the paramount concepts of any athletic movement is focus.

Distraction moves the focus from the process to something irrelevant.

OVERTHINKING

We golfers have a tendency to overthink a lot. I mean - A lot!

Overthinking is like an internal war in your brain. It is your creative brain battling your rational brain. This is an unpro-

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ductive process due to the fact that it is your creative brain who produces your swing. As soon as you start to overthink i.e., about any technical moves your rational brain kicks in and sabotages the process.

It is also overthinking when you are standing over a put and can’t see the brake. All putts brake right? Wrong! If you can’t see the brake the put is probably straight.

There is no need to look for a

I will give you 5 sets of tools to improve your golf, every single one could potentially improve your score. I said it is the fastest route, but I never said it will be easy. So, start with baby steps.

Poor routines, or lack off routines, is one of several typical routes to overthinking.

There are 5 categories of mental tools. The beauty of it all is that you don’t need to know them all, and you defiantly should not use to many tools at the same time. Your life-long experiences have probably thought you that there is more than one way to solve a problem. The same goes for mental challenges.

You need to find the tools that suites you and learn to master them. One at a time.

IRONIC EFFECT

THE CATEGORIES

brake that’s not there.

It takes skill to understand how the brain works. It is quite ironic that a focus of NOT hitting the ball into the water is the safest route to a lost ball.

• Establish a focus

Countless times have I heard a golfer say, “I always end up in the ruff on this tee-shot”. Most likely due to a poor mindset over the ball. The thought “do not hit the ball in that ruff again” is a safe order of a ball going exactly in that direction.

• Control of emotions

The fact is several shots like this might build a habit of hitting the ball where you do not want it to end up. Several pro-lessons and countless hours on the range will not change the fact that this golfer will end up hitting wonderful shots to the same unwanted area time after time.

Until the day the golfer starts to think differently and use the tools, I will present to you now.

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The mental toolbox

• Setting goals • Manage self-talk, visualization and keywords • Trust in your own abilities

Focus and routines TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE

Focus is your ability to free yourself from thoughts regarding the past and the future and concentrate on here and now. The best way to get yourself in that state is to follow a routine.

Routines are a powerful tool. Research has proven that following regular habits supports cognitive function and may even free people up to be more creative. Regular work processes allow workers to spend less cognitive energy on recurring tasks, which supports focus and creativity for more complex tasks.

A good athlete follows his or her routines to the point, and this helps them to give the task at hand the very best focus.

Pre-shot routine

To build your best possible pre-shot

how these feels, during your pre-shot swing. Decide on where to focus to achieve this feeling. We will get back to this feelingthing.

Conviction After all the decisions are made and before stepping up to the ball - you have to ask yourself how these decisions feel.

Are you convinced in your head and in your gut, that these decisions are correct? If not, you have to start over again.

At this stage of the process, we are allowed to second guess.

Often this is a question of the degree of risk involved, like asking yourself if long is better than short. We need to be 100% sure and fully committed. You will often hear good caddies say something like “trust it” or “own it”. Now you know where they are in their pre-shot routine.

routine you have 3 building blocks.

Peace of mind

These blocks are intention, conviction, and peace of mind.

The last peace of the routine is to give yourself the right amount of pressure. You need to allow yourself to fail, but also to be prepared for the best possible outcome. And then you establish a laser focus.

Intention

The way to achieve this is called

Your intention contains all the decisions needed to get the ball to its new target. You need to factor in all the variables. slope, lie wind etc. You decide on the club, what kind of shot, how to produce this shot, where to aim, and a lot more. Ask yourself

metacognition, to think about how you think.

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In your intention phase you decide what to occupy your head with during the swing. You asked yourself how the perfect shot should feel. Tension has a real physical impact on your brain, one that can be seen on brain scans. This keeps you focused, and the chances of distraction are minimized.

This must not be confused with “swing thought”, which often is technical. You should choose something to think about that are connected to your senses. These are things as the sound of your club hitting the ball, the “woosh” of your swing, the feeling of the club in your hand or the feel of a relaxed nice turn of your body. A visualization of the ball flying towards your target. You can easily have the same focus for 18 holes or change them as you go.

You need to find what works best for you. Hence you should include this in your routine even on the driving range.

convinced Tiger teaches his son Charlie based on the same knowledge. But a post-shot routine is much more than this. A post-shot routine is a routine that paves the road for faster and better learning and understanding of the game of golf. Postshot routines also help you to stay focused and in the zone.

A positive reaction enhances the impact of a good shot. This means that a positive reaction triggers your nervous system in a way that allows you to learn something. It also keeps your emotions in check.

A neutral reaction to a shot does not affect your brain in the same way, it keeps you calm and you can easily let go of what just happened.

A negative reaction on the other hand, will have a huge

Your own design

influence on you. And not

When designing your pre-shot routine, you decide the amount of information and decisions you need to include. After this you repeat the routine rigorously before every shot. This includes how you walk stand and everything else, the more automatic this process is for you the more efficient it will be. And you have a strong mental tool to produce the best possible golf shots you are able to, every time.

in a good way. If you hit a

Putting routine

yourself and preparing for

The process is a little different on the greens. However the principles are the same. I do recommend the the routines have some similarities.

Post-shot routine - how we get better at golf.

Earl Wood the former military thought Tiger, the wolds best golfer, that he needed to have a postshot routine that allowed him maximum 10 phases down the fairway to forget a bad shot. I am

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bad shot and reacted strongly on it, you will most likely get out of balance and have problems with collecting the next shot.

Based on this, a good post-shot routine makes you react positive to all good shots and keep the other shots as clouds passing silently in the sky. You can’t do anything about the skies and bad shot are too late to fix. Give yourself a certain time to digest it and keep your focus. ��

“Simplified you can produce three types of shot. There are good shots, ok shots and bad shots. Thees three shots will have different impact on your next couple of shots, and potentially of the outcome of the round/tournament. Having a post-shot routine is about managing how and how much your last shot will influence your game.

The last element in the post-shot routine is often forgotten, but it is very important. A round of golf is a time-consuming activity. It is very difficult; I would say impossible to stay focused for the entire time and it is not necessary.

I recommend you end your post-shot routine with focusing on something relaxing that are not directly connected to golf.

Most golf courses are pretty, and there are few things more relaxing than focusing on nature, friendship and fun. Take a break and switch off until you need to be switched back on again.

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Mental scorecard Dr. Michael T. Lardon made this mental scorecard for his players. Here the athlete scores his focus one every shot. If your first hole is a par 4 and you make a bogey 5 and was focused and committed to 3 of those 5 shots your score on that hole i 3/5 = 60%. The best tour players are all in the 90s. A Club champion would typically be in the high 60s og low 70s. Try it out, it is a great system to train your focus.

Stick to your routines until they get habits, and do not deviate depending on the difficulty of your next shot. Deviations give you an opportunity to listen to unproductive chatter.

Reference: http://drlardon.com/performance-development/xx

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Setting

goals A goal is a strong mental tool, it gives you motivation, direction and says something about your ambitions. But setting goals is also about managing expectations, keeping your focus and keeping track of progress.

TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE Types of goals There are many types of goals. However, it often starts with a dream. We call this goal a dream goal.

Susan Pettersen at the age of six was standing on the driving range at Bogstad Golf Club dreaming of being the best female golfer in the world.

Later during her first years on school she wrote this down as a contract, and made this visible not only for her, but also her parents, teachers, and classmates.

A dream goal should be long term, and not necessarily to spe-

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cific. However, this is a perfect base to build on, setting your other more specific and shorter termed goals.

Research proves that people with ambitious goals are over achievers - so don’t be scared to be ambitious.

Result- performance- and process- goals Let’s say you are a coach for a junior soccer-team. You are about to play a match and before entering the field you ask the players of todays goal. I bet they all say, “to win the match”, probably with a lot of young eager enthusiasm. After the first half your team is down one goal, during the second half they

manage to score, and the match ends tied 1-1. In the wardrobe after the match the tension is gloomy, the goal was not met.

What a wasted opportunity! What if the goal were more process oriented, as finding each other, keep offensive or help the keeper and all other stuff i really don’t know a lot about.

The point is «winning the match» is a result-oriented goal. While the other goals are focused on performance and process.

If you want to beat 80 on your home course during the next tournament. That is a result-oriented goal. In addition, you should ask yourself what kind of performance this requires.

Well on a par 72 this is 8 bogies and no doubles. If we calculate on 2-puts and that you might miss the green from outside

the fairway this leads to aprox 50% FW and that you hit the green if on par 3s. These are all examples of performance goals.

Now you ask yourself how do I make this happen? Answers are often in line with «staying calm», «keeping my focus» ect.

These are process goals. Like the Mental score card is all about monitoring your process. A possible process goal would be to score xx% on the mental scorecard.

A good set of goals is a mix of result-, performance- and process-goals.

They should all be in line with meeting your dream-goal.

Reaching your dream should feel very motivating, and make you work hard to get there. Your sets of goals help you to focus on what’s important to reach your dream or dreams. ��

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Stats We record stats to make an important system. Using this system, we will achieve 4 important things.

Tracking progress Some of your goals should be measurable. But what is the reason for having a measurable goal if your do not track your progress. Tracking progress is also very motivating.

Analyze If you do not experience any progress, this is also important information.

Maybe you should alter your practice regime. Maybe you are practicing the wrong things.

Today it is a saying «to find the equity». This means to find the elements in your game that makes the biggest improvement. There is no sense in practicing increased length if it is the number of penalty shots that ruins your game, as an example.

Learn Having a system of stats gives you a better understanding of your game and makes you learn about your strengths and weaknesses.

Revise Finally, the system makes it possible for you to revise your goals. For instance, is it a good goal to have a minimum number of birdies, or is it better to record your scores above par? Knowing that there is a huge amount of luck in having birdies, and no stats on birdies really significantly differs the topp players, the answer is a given.

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What STATS? We need to track the states we need to find were we need to put in an effort, and to see if we practice the right things.

Classics

Tiger 5 stats

Some typical stats are number of putts, greens in regulation (GIR) and number of fairways hit (FW%). The problem with all these stats is that they really are not very util. One Stat really opens for several questions. If you find your have a low percentage of GIRs. You have to ask yourself about the reason. Is it the fact that your approach shots are imprecise, or is it based on that you are too short from tee or is it your tee-shot that do not end up in the fairway. Where is the equity?

Tiger Woods was not only a world class golfer, but he was also a very clever self coach an analytic of how to get the results he wanted. In the Decade system they operate with Tigers 5 favorite stats:

Shots gained The pros use something called shots gained. Thesis based on the amazing work of Mark Broady we can now tell what differs the players in every tournament. Based on his work we do now have a different vocabulary in golf stats. The players can now after a tournament be ranked on, their driving, approach, short game and putting. But it does not stop there. We now know the percentage of tour players who makes a put or an approach for par, from every given place on the course. To get a better understanding I highly recommend his book “Every shot counts”. Unfortunately for us weekend golfers this is a very cumbersome process of keeping track of these stats. If you care to record the length of your putts, there are calculators online that will give you your «shots gained putting» statistic after a round.

• 2 chips avoidance • bogies from 150 yards • Bogies on par 5s • Scores above bogies • 3 puts Many golfers think winning tournaments is about making birdies, Tiger on the other hand understands that it is about avoiding pour shots, short siding and accepting a bogie to avoid a double. Let me explain the meaning of these 5 stats before we convert them into something util for our own game.

2 chips; This is about destroying easy saves. When you find yourself in a position to chip onto the green. After analyzing the situation, the most important thing for Tiger was not to scramble and set up for a tapp-in. The most important thing was to chip onto the green AND stay on the green.

Bogies from 150 yards; Tigers stock 9-iron shot was 150 yards. He felt he should be able to hit any green from this distance.

Bogies on par 5s; most Tour Players are able to reach a par 5 in two shots or have a short approach. Thus, the lowest score should be a par.

Scores above bogies; A single handicapper should hardly have a score above bogies when it occurs it is this hole that destroys the players score.

For a higher handicapper we could look at this as scores that do not gain any point in a stabelford.

3-putts It makes a lot more sense to record the 3-puts that the total number of puts. Due to the factor of luck. Making a 2- putt however has to do with skills. Speed control is the most important skill in putting. Knowing that the majority of your putting practice should bee speed-drills. To measure your performance, you should track your number of 3-putts.

Tiger aimed for 6 or less per tournament on the Tiger 5 stats. The tour average today is 6,4. The winner typically has 1,5 off these mistakes pr round! �� 13

Managing expectations Setting goals is also about managing your expectations. This is typically of reaching your more short-term goals. What if things do not work according to plan?

It is quite disappointing to experience that one does not meet our own expectations; how do we handle that?

The solution is to work out a number of scenarios and figure out how to handle the possible obstacles. Doing that we have a much better foundation to reach our end goal, and also a better chance of staying focused.

Reaching goals as a skill

Reaching goals is something we can get good at; it is a true skill.

We get good at reaching goals by getting used to set goals.

Small reachable realistic goals. Set goals for the day and the week. Make it a habit to meet these goals. Do not limit yourself to the golf course. Suddenly you are a person that sets goals and always reach the goals you set up to meet.

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Controlling your

emotions TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE

I love watching golf on TV. Especially the interview of the golfers after the round or tournament. The golfer that succeeds always say the same kind of things.

It is related to the words, relaxed,

Before we go to the tools, I need to tell your that we all have an internal voice. Research has proven that this voice is important for what we learned in our childhood. When we are more mature the internal voice has several faces, and it can produce a remarkable number of words (thoughts) in a short time. We are talking about 4000 words a minute.

calm, focused and feel. All this is having to do with mental activities.

The fun part is that with today’s technology we are able to measure brain activity real-time, as a golfer stands over the ball and are processing the swing. The brain controls the sequence of muscles, the applied force and orientation of the shot. A golfer in the zone has a brain capacity of 80%, a golfer in a more normal state - who are playing to his capability has a brain capacity of 40%, while an unfocused golfer has a brain-capacity of 5%.

These numbers are scary. It tells us a couple of things.

First, we should alter our course management according to our mental state. If we only have about 5% of our capacity available, we should apply less risk in our game-plan.

Secondly, we should learn to improve our mental state, and control our emotions. We have already learned about the postshot routine. What we are dealing with here are cases when this is not sufficient.

I will give you 10 additional tools to manage your emotions for these incidents.

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The state of the nation speech normally contents of 6000 words and last for at least an hour. Our brain does the job in less than two minutes. It goes without saying that if these 6000 words are unproductive, we need to take control.

Use one of the tools described below correct and you will win your mind over every time - I promise!

1. Self talk Self-talk is very useful in these circumstances and will be covered in more detail in another chapter. Research has shown that you can calm down your mental activity by using positive self-talk. By saying «I am calm and collected», «you are calm and collected», «your name is calm and collected» are proven routes to a more productive athlete. You will experience less stress, less negative thoughts, and better decisions on the course by repeating this kind of sentences.

2. Zoom Out To take a bird’s perspective can also help. What we typically do after hitting a poor shot is that we are making it into a problem. Instead of asking «what happened there», it might be a better idea to look at the incident from a distance. This is not

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the end of the world, people you know will still treat you the same way. This is only a game.

treat the situation you just jumped

thoughts when this happens. Thoughts like «Oh, I am so nervous», «how will this play out? » etc. It is important to know that your body responds to stress to make you perform better! This is your body getting ready for action. Your inner engine is heating up and the turbo is charging. Remember this next time you feel nervous on the first tee or when you are standing over an important decision.

into?

5. Normalize

How would your favorite golfer

3. How would your advice a friend?

By turning the situation into a coaching moment. How would you as a caddie, or coach advice a friend or a fellow player in a situation like this. By asking this question you might turn around your initial line of thoughts to productive ideas, and you will start to feel better and more result oriented.

4. Get the right signals from your body Your body’s normal reaction to stress is many. What typically happens is sweaty hands, rumbling stomach, higher pulse, these kinds of things. Many of us starts to think negative

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When you are in a seemingly impossible position. Like a plugged ball at the lip of the bunker. Your initial thoughts are «I am so unlucky». But you are not the only golfer in the world who has been in this kind of situation. Others have been through exactly the same situations, and many worse. Tell yourself that if they can handle this, so can you.

6. Time travel Another tool to distance yourself from your inner conversation is to travel in time. Ask yourself a simple question, «what will I think about this in the future? » Even if you feel terrible here and now, chances are that the situation will be forgotten in the

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near future. Why should you spend so much energy if everything is forgotten tomorrow? Take your medicine with a drop, or play a recovery shot and fight your way back.

7. Write it down This is often referred to as scribbling. I know Jon Rahm used this method to digest his temperament after tournaments. And yes, he still has a lot of temperament, but he has been much better at managing it. Writing can be very therapeutic. By writing 15 to 20 minutes a day over time helps you to word your feelings and help you cope with the situation at hand and get it out of your system.

8. Good luck charm You do not need to be superstitious for this strategy to work.

Placebo is a medically proven effect, that can do miracles.

Believe me it is often used in the world of sports. You can carry an item in your bag or have it in your pocket. To touch this when your inner voice is behaving like a chimp, can do the trick.

I know some players have pictures on their phones they like to watch for similar effect. Anything that can distract you and lead your thought to a better place.

9. Mental detour A round of golf often lasts for 4 hours. You do not need to think about golf all that time. Actually, you should not think about golf for that long, because it is literally impossible.

Switching on and off is a valuable skill. It is also a good strategy to quiet a potential negative inner voice. Let’s say you just holed out after your second 3-put of the day, and the mic is about to get passed on to the chimp in your head.

A good way to switch of on the golf course is to look at the nature, the sky, or start a friendly talk about something away from the course. This will give you a well-deserved breather before you step on to the next tee and have to switch on again.

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10. Rituals To perform your rituals are very useful for your focus. Follow them religiously! Do them in the same order, use the same tempo and do the same things. I saw a divided screen of Tiger Woods doing his preshot rutine. Even that was 9 different tee shots they all looked exactly the same. Tiger does this to calm his inner voice and control his emotions.

Another athlete to watch is Rafael Nadal. He is very open about the fact that he is working hard to

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tennis player in a consecutive 209 weeks and the winner of 20 grand slams.

I hope one or more of these tools proves to be helpful to you.

If not, there are several other sources available for help. GYRA golf has an app that goes deep into tracking your mental state, and also has tools to teach you to alter your mind and be more calm on the course. I do not think it is for everybody, but if you struggle on the course this could be a solution for you.

Another tip is to read the book The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters.

battle his inner voice. Due to this

All we want is to play our best

he performs a number of rituals

golf, and hacking around using 5%

from entering the court until he

of our mental capacity seems

leaves. It works for him after hold-

wrong when we have potential of

ing the position as the world’s best

80% available around the corner.

Trust your own abilities TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE

People seems to have this conception that their confidence is based on their coexistence with other people and how they treat you.

Good news, you are perfectly capable of building or destroying your own abilities without any help from others.

Unfortunately, self-confidence is far easier to reduce than to increase. To build trust in your own capabilities is crucial for any athlete.

This chapter is about how to build, maintain and regain your capabilities to play your best golf.

Preparations A crucial part of your prep to play a round of golf, is to be mentally prepared. This means all the things you do before a round of golf should help your performance on the course.

On the warmup on the putting green, I recommend putting towards a peg or two pegs. This makes the hole appear bigger on the course, and you also avoid the possible experience of starting to miss the hole during your prep.

During your chipping preparations, give yourself some easy chips, remember this is warm-up not practice. On the driving range, include your routines. All these exercises help to put

you in the right mental state. Before entering the first tee, remind yourself of your goal, and also remind yourself of some of your best memories on this golf course.

Focus Focus on your targets and your process goals. As long as you keep your focus, there are no room for doubts. It is simple math. Your brain can only process one thought at a time. As long as you keep thinking positive, there are no room for negative thoughts.

Use your body languish to help you stay focus and believe in yourself.

There is much truth in the saying «fake it until you make it».

Practice Practice is a great way to build confidence and trust in your own capabilities as a golfer. It might look like a waste of time making a number of putts from the same spot over and over again. However, this proves that you are able to start the ball on the line. And when you are in a pressure situation and have a 3-footer to conclude the match - you know that there are no way you will miss this putt, due to your accumulated knowledge from practice.

You will enhance the benefits from practice if you keep a practice diary. Not only to keep track of your progress, but when your write down your progress it reminds your muscle memory what you are capable off.

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Challenges Golfcourses are made to give us challenges. It is the way you choose to meet this challenges that makes the foundation for the score of your round. Ask yourself how much risk you should take at the given situation and take the amount of risk into account when you evaluate the shot in your post-shot routine.

Smart play is to choose a shot you can produce 90% of the times. If you chose to go for a 10% shot, expect that this shot is more likely to fail rather than to succeed.

Expectations Having the wrong expectations could potentially ruin your focus and confidence. Analyzing any players shot patterns proves that this a pattern of a shotgun, and not a rifle. Meaning that a percentage of your shot will be equally distributed long, short, left and right of your target. This tells us that we never should push for birdies but focus on avoiding the high scores of bogies and worse.

Birdies happen - if you let them and play smart.

The same thing goes for expectations on making putts. Do not beat yourself up for leaving a long putt short. Putts also has a distribution in length. If you never have any putts stopping

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“Use your body languish to help you stay focus and believe in yourself.

There is much truth in the saying «fake it until you make it».

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short of the hole, chances are that you will have several long (read too long) returns on the putts passing the hole.

Mental preparation Jack Nicolaus visualized every shot before executing. This was one of the foundations in his golf career, the ability to picture a perfect shot form almost any situation. Visualization makes you mentally prepared.

Self talk Yes, all the tools are related, and it is not possible to talk about confidence without mentioning self talk. To use self talk to tell your self that «you got this», «you are able to », «I know I have it in me to win this» etc is very efficient in building, maintaining and regaining your trust in your own abilities.

I final word on trust Positive attitude A positive attitude is absolutely crucial for your self-confidence. Especially in the incidents where things do not go according to plan. If you manage to keep your emotions under control and stay focused and positive towards your next challenge, chances are on your side regarding pulling off your next shot. Golf is about patience and discipline. Stick to your process, smile and let success happen.

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Trust is self-fulfilling, but not a constant feeling. We have all felt that trust in our abilities comes and goes. Next time you are on the course you have a toolbox. Remember a toolbox not a checklist! Choose ONE tool you think might help you to regain your trust.

In the meantime, know that practice, preparations and focus help your build confidence. Managing expectations, visualization and the ability to keep calm helps you to maintain your confidence. While positive attitude, good routines and constructive self-talk will help you regain your trust in yourself.

You can do it!

Final words TEXT: HANS-JØRGEN ISENE

Well, I cannot write about this without mentioning the obvious question, and some possible answers and relatively easy hacks.

The question I have in mind, is «why are our mind all of a sudden so fragile? ». We need to ask ourselves why we are in the state we are, and if there are things, we can do about it way ahead of entering the golf course.

Golf is like a micro cosmos, the

On top of this we now have the opportunity to monitor how all of our activities affect us by using the Woop-band, a smartwatch or an Oura-ring.

In this chapter I will look briefly into these 4 areas.

Science on these 4 topics has boosted the last couple of years, and I think most people will live quite differently from what we do today in the near future based on these rather new discoveries.

things that bother us at the course are often related to things that

HRV

occurs off the course.

Medical science is taking giant steps the last couple of years, thanks to new technology. We are today able to monitor real time changes in our body, based on what we eat, how much we sleep and how we restitute. One of these parameters is our HRV status. HRV is the Heart rate variability. Heart rate is the number of heart beats pr minute. The variability describes the fluctuation of time between adjacent heartbeats. Your HRV reflects how adaptable your body can be. People with high HRV are usually less stressed and happier. There are several solutions on the market that makes it possible for us to do this monitoring ourselves.

We all know, to a certain extent, that we need to sleep. But do you really know how important sleep is to your overall performance. Haaland, probably the world’s best soccer-player, says it is the most important part of his entire regime!

We also should know that we need to do some physical exercises. But did you know that physical exercise is directly connected to your mental state?

Another area is what we eat and drink, this also interacts strongly on our state of mind. When we eat is also becoming more in focus by top athletes.

Last but not least, we know we need to rest, but do we know how to aktive rest?

Did you know that you could change your heart rate for the

Sleep Sleep plays a major factor of our wellbeing and our physical and mental state. The book «Why we Sleep» by Mattew Walker is a real eye-opener. Sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restock our immune system, fine tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. There are direct links to many of today’s most common illnesses and lack of sleeping. About 1 in 3 adults worldwide have insomnia symptoms, and 10% of adults meet the criteria of insomnia disorder.

entire day by breathing correct for 20 minutes?

«The hack». No matter your age, you need approximately 8 hours of sleep every day. If you manage to get to bed and wake up at more or less the same time every day you are on the right track. In addition, you might consider restrain from eat-

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ing the last hours before going to bed and restrict use of caffeine and alcohol.

Exercise Research shows that people who exercise regularly have better mental health and emotional wellbeing, and lower rates of mental illness. Thus, exercise is often recommended as a cure to different mental issues. Exercise boosts your mood, concentration and alertness.

You might point out that you play golf, and do not need any other exercise. The recommendation is to have at least 60 minutes of activity pr day. However, it is also recommended to have a mix between high intensity activity in addition to lower intensity activity like golf.

Food This is a vast topic, and I am definitely not an expert. However, I have been experimenting on myself for the last year and have done well in balancing my HRV and well-being by focusing more on what and when I eat.

We eat and drink to: • provide essential energy and nutrients • keeping our immune system strong • reduce the risk of developing serious heart conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some cancers or osteoporosis

According to research from New England Journal of medicine on intermittent fasting (IF). IF improves metabolism and lowers blood sugar, lessens inflammation, which benefits a wide range of health issues. IF has positive effects on arthritic pain, asthma, and it even clear our toxins and damaged cells, which lowers risk of cancer and enhances our brain function.

Active rest In an ever more hectic and stressful world we need to include some elements in our everyday that makes us relax. As we probably cannot avoid stress, we have to learn how to manage it. To do this we have numerous techniques such as meditation, mindfulness and different breathing exercises to mention a few. They all have one main purpose - to let us wind down and focus on only one element. By utilizing one of these techniques, you instantly reduce your heart rate and balances balance you HR.

Including one of these techniques in your daily routine is highly recommended. It is not time-consuming, and you can do them on your work desk, in your bed or while sitting on the bus. A total of 10 to 15 minutes a day is sufficient to experience great improvements in your HRV. The tools are ready at hand on your phone by apps or even at Spotify.

The end Her you are 5 sets of tools plus a little extra to improve your golf score. As you probably already noticed these tools are universal. The tools might help you in your everyday life too.

• improving concentration • reducing stress and helping maintain mental health and wellbeing

However, the western pattern diet is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of prepackaged foods, refined grains, red meat, processed meat, high- sugar drinks, candy and sweets, fried foods, industrially produced animal products, butter and other high fat dairy products etc.

This is not ideal. This diet does not contribute to any of the above. This diet is low on nutrients and high on carbs and unhealthy fat.

I recommend revising your own diet. I also want you to look into the number of hours you let your body process your intake of food. It is recommended that you eat within a window of maximum 9 hours. I use a 6-to-7-hour window and it works miracles for me.

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I look forward to the day I hear somebody away from the course say something in the line of: «that person is so calm and collected, I bet he/she is a golfer».

Play well!

Hjisene@gmail.com golfersmindset.no

“Did you know that you could change your heart rate for the entire day by breathing correct for 20 minutes?

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© Edith Berthelsen Vistung

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