Here is the thing about achieving perfect focus and mental game-play on the golf course. As you move into “the
Zone”, that space where your mental and emotional energy is on par for the stroke that you need to play, playing
that stroke can become entrenched in your memory, before the shot is played. This is not merely the result of
practicing the technical aspects of your stroke, but a result of having been trained to commit to your that perfectly -
played shot to your mental and emotional memory.
Mental and emotional memory allows for the mind to entrench a connection between the perfect stroke and the
accompanying state of mind. As you become skilled in achieving perfect mental focus, you can use the optimised
balance between your body and mind to more easily acquire a technically correct stroke, to generate the
consistency that you require to achieve proper ball-travel and ball-land.
I will explain in more detail during our first session.
What is involved in achieving the right mental focus?
What I focus on as a golf-psychologist:
In developing your range of 'In-The-Zone' states, I will enable you to do the following:
Mastery of these dimensions allows you to use your given temperament to create the right balance between
composure, concentration and being in-the-zone.
Do you need this mental golf coaching to enhance your
game and life?
Pro golfers and amateurs alike move through cycles of performances. Mental training and focus coaching is there
to enhance your ability to stay on top of your game for longer, to move out of the “rough” patches quicker, and to
create more consistency around your game play.
Competitiveness thrives on the golf course, whether on a professional level or amongst friends playing for side
bets. If you do business on the golf course, or if you would like to start doing so, it is important that your game
play reflects you as a sustained success. Even when you play alone, you measure ourself against your own
handicap and personal expectations. After the game, the better you have played, the better you feel, not only
about your golf, but about yourself.
Where do you start?
Actually, you have already started by reading through this page, and you might find that you already start
spontaneously changing the way you approach your next game or practice session on the driving range. When
you are ready for the next step, you book a session to come see me at our practice in Linden, Johannesburg.
During the initial session I will get a handle on you as a person and a golfer. Usually, your next session will be
conducted at one of the driving ranges in the Randburg area. There you will hit some balls, while I start my task of
talking you through to your understanding and application of the skills involved in moving yourself in and out of
mental balance, together transforming you into a focused, zoned in, precise and consistent golf player and
making a difference to the way you experience your world and the way you live your life.
Make the power of your mind count every time you play golf!
Zone”, that space where your mental and emotional energy is on par for the stroke that you need to play, playing
that stroke can become entrenched in your memory, before the shot is played. This is not merely the result of
practicing the technical aspects of your stroke, but a result of having been trained to commit to your that perfectly -
played shot to your mental and emotional memory.
Mental and emotional memory allows for the mind to entrench a connection between the perfect stroke and the
accompanying state of mind. As you become skilled in achieving perfect mental focus, you can use the optimised
balance between your body and mind to more easily acquire a technically correct stroke, to generate the
consistency that you require to achieve proper ball-travel and ball-land.
I will explain in more detail during our first session.
What is involved in achieving the right mental focus?
- The right mental focus needs to be part of your pre-game routine.
- Mental focus needs to be entrenched in your pre-shot routine.
- Mental balance forms the basis of your actual stroke.
- Mental focus-release is essential in your post-shot routine and between shots.
What I focus on as a golf-psychologist:
- Your composure
- Your temperament
- Your concentration
- Helping you to create different mental states of being 'in-the-zone'
In developing your range of 'In-The-Zone' states, I will enable you to do the following:
- Mentally create your physical balance
- Have awareness of heaviness and lightness in different parts of the body
- Ground yourself – to empty your mind before the stroke is played,
- Deal with anxiety and excitement
- Play the game one stroke at a time, mentally and emotionally
- Using your mind to envision, taking mental control of the course
- Find your focus switch, and using this as you move from stroke to stroke
Mastery of these dimensions allows you to use your given temperament to create the right balance between
composure, concentration and being in-the-zone.
Do you need this mental golf coaching to enhance your
game and life?
Pro golfers and amateurs alike move through cycles of performances. Mental training and focus coaching is there
to enhance your ability to stay on top of your game for longer, to move out of the “rough” patches quicker, and to
create more consistency around your game play.
Competitiveness thrives on the golf course, whether on a professional level or amongst friends playing for side
bets. If you do business on the golf course, or if you would like to start doing so, it is important that your game
play reflects you as a sustained success. Even when you play alone, you measure ourself against your own
handicap and personal expectations. After the game, the better you have played, the better you feel, not only
about your golf, but about yourself.
- Mental golf coaching will increase your ability to live this competitiveness on the golf course, as it will
generate greater consistency whether you are playing off an 18 handicap, or teeing off on the Sunshine Tour. - Mental golf coaching will generate a basis from which you can change your swing if you and your golf coach
decides that some technical changes would be beneficial to you. High handicappers will accelerate their
move toward single digits. Fact is, if you play the game of golf, mental coaching and focus training will make
a difference to your game! - What is more, a great deal of these principles comes into play in other spheres of life, calmness and balance
in the boardroom, working around tension in your love life, and enhancing your own view of yourself and
your identity in this world – to mention but a few. - Mental coaching, mental balance and focus are fundamental attributes on the golf course; games are won
and games are lost in the presence or absence of these!!
Where do you start?
Actually, you have already started by reading through this page, and you might find that you already start
spontaneously changing the way you approach your next game or practice session on the driving range. When
you are ready for the next step, you book a session to come see me at our practice in Linden, Johannesburg.
During the initial session I will get a handle on you as a person and a golfer. Usually, your next session will be
conducted at one of the driving ranges in the Randburg area. There you will hit some balls, while I start my task of
talking you through to your understanding and application of the skills involved in moving yourself in and out of
mental balance, together transforming you into a focused, zoned in, precise and consistent golf player and
making a difference to the way you experience your world and the way you live your life.
Make the power of your mind count every time you play golf!
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| EDRICH SMOOK, GOLF AND SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST HPCSA reg PS 0106526 |
Edrich Smook, Sport Psychologist and Mental Coach with a tremendous passion for the
opportunity to acquire the psychological and emotional skills required to enhance the
sustainability and consistency of performance. Many a great golf player, locally and
internationally, have said that playing consistently and maintaining perfect focus on the
game is the biggest challenge in the game of golf.
Edrich has specialised in the field and can teach you ways to develop and optimise those
skills.
The sessions with Edrich are fully claimable from medical aid, since improving your skills for
focus, psychological balance and a sustained performance on the golf course has a direct
effect on your psychological, emotional, physical and material health. The positive effect of
the new skills acquired during the sessions will be abundantly visible in all areas of your life,
in your relationships, your effectiveness and success in your career, your physical health, as
well as your level of vitality and energy.
Some thoughts on Golf Psychology..........................
Do you think as much about your strategy as you think about your stroke?
Do you think as much about your focus as you do about your strategy?
You should...
The technical nature of your game is practiced on the golf course, the driving range, the
chipping greens and putting greens where you spend your time analysing what you did
right, what you did wrong... over and over again. You change your swing, your movement,
you work on it, until it works... and then you try and make it permanent, entrench it.
Your strategic game is mostly constructed as the game moves forward, dependent on your
specific ly, your understanding of your own ability to play the hole optimally, and on the
environmental and other conditions on the day. Since you started playing golf you have
developed a method, a system, an approach to golf.
When it comes to focus, though - our mental game and mental habits on the course - people
tend not to spend as much time thinking on this. Sure, you tell yourself to focus before
strokes are made, but do you have a successful strategy for achieving perfect focus on the
golf course? Developing and executing a successful focusing strategy in golf requires more
than merely willing yourself to focus.
