PGA Pro Charlie King gives us some great insight into how to practice better feel for long putts. Putting is all about visualization and feel. If you are not developing these skills when you are working on your putting, you are not practicing in the most effective way. These drills will help you enhance your touch and feel for long putts and you will definitely score better as a result.

In addition to learning how to synchronize your body and mind with the right practice techniques, shot selection in the “scoring zone” is very important for lower scores. You have to learn how to play the right shot at the right time. This is what differentiates the top players. And it’s all part of the mental game. European Tour Coach, Denis Pugh, talks us through some very effective shot choices to improve your confidence around the green.

We all want to get better at golf and I’m sure many of you have “lowering my handicap” as a New Year’s Resolution. The key is learning how to play the mental game and a better approach to game improvement. Here are a few tips to make your practice time more effective and your scores better.

1. Try to make a positive pre-shot routine a habit before EVERY shot: Focus on your target, the shape of shot you want to hit, the feeling of that shot and being correctly aligned and you will execute better. If you can concentrate on this routine, it will also help to distract you from any negative mental interferences.

2. Stay in the present: We have no control over the past, like the 3 putt on the previous green or the tee shot hit out of bounds. What we do have control over is our attitude and our approach for EVERY shot we are about to hit. If we are thinking about the past or future it dilutes your positive intention for the shot at hand. This is KEY to becoming the best we can be.

3. Practice with visualization and feel on the driving range: when you are on the driving range, don’t waste time hitting balls relentlessly at the same target and working on complex technical drills. Try to use as much visualization, creativity and experimentation as you can. This is much more effective use of your valuable practice time.

4. Never work on technique on the golf course: if you start to lose confidence during your round, eliminate the tendency to work on a technical solution, which is what most golfers do. This only acts to further distance yourself from what is going to get you hitting the ball better: visualization and feel.

5. Make putting more about visualization and feel: putting is an almost pure mental game. How we practice and approach each putt has a huge impact on our results. Work on a better green reading approach, seeing and feeling the line and being correctly aligned to the apex of the putt. See the putt, feel it and hit the ball out the center of the putter. It’s that simple.

6. Enjoy the game however you play: golf is a game that you play in your valuable free time and unless we play on the Tour, our scores have no real consequence on our lives. In other words, we should be able to enjoy it whatever we score. Try to find something deeper that can be taken from the game. Think of the relationships you can develop with your playing partners or how you can develop mental strength from coming back from a few bad holes. Not putting so much weight on the outcome of shots will help you become a more relaxed golfer and your scores will improve as a result.

The Golf State of Mind Audio CD was created to show golfers how to cultivate the correct attitude for better golf and offers valuable practice techniques to optimize your performance and take you closer to your potential EVERY time you practice and play.

Even though I am a firm believer that learning the mental game and practicing in the right way is the key to reaching the golf of your potential, you will not be able to achieve this if you don’t have strong fundamentals. Without a good grip, alignment, posture, ball position and balance, you will find it hard to improve.

Learning the fundamentals of golf is the first step of becoming a better player. Even the very best golfers in the world continually work on this. Once you know these are right, the game is about visualization and feel. The Golf State of Mind CD is a great way to learn this.

Here is a video of Jack Nicklaus explaining the fundamentals of golf.

Alignment is one of the fundamentals of good golf and is an integral part of the mental game. There is simply no excuse for not getting it right. If you are not aligned correctly to your target, it does not matter how good your swing is. If your body is aimed too far right of the target that your eyes see, the upper body swings across the lower body resulting a pull or slice (for a right-hander). The opposite occurs if you are aimed too far to the left of your target.

This tip from Hank Haney gives you a drill to work on while you practice to get you into the habit of being aligned correctly before EVERY shot. This is a key part of any pre-shot routine. To learn more about how a pre-shot routine can take your game to the next level, please visit www.golfstateofmind.com

Hank Haney tells us how simply teeing off from the right spot on the tee can make the game a lot easier and save valuable strokes…

Shot selection and course strategy can be considered part of the mental game. It’s not about technique, it’s about mentally selecting the right shots that will, over the course of 18 holes, give you the best opportunity for a low score. Most amateurs that I play with would benefit hugely from from recognizing the percentage shot, especially around the green. They waste shots by not choosing the right club which means they have a smaller margin for error, leading to a larger number of miss hit shots and more strokes.

*

For example, imagine you are 5 yds from the green with the pin about 20 yds away. You are in the fairway with a good lie. What shot would you play? Most amateurs would reach for the sand/pitching wedge or even the 60 degree lob wedge. Those clubs require too much precision to be executed well every time (unless you are Phil Mickleson). You have to be so very clean with the strike and then it is still hard to judge the amount of spin and release on the ball. In addition you can get bad bounces from holes on the green when the ball is coming down from such a height. Try reducing the number of possible variables in the shot by taking a straighter faced club like an 8-iron. The pros or more experienced players will typically try and get the ball rolling as quickly as possible for shots when they have plenty of green to work with. The more like a putt it can be, the lower the number of shots you will take on average.

Imagine you were to play 10 shots from this position with an 7/8-iron and 10 with a sand wedge, which club would give you the lowest score? Try it!

You’ve probably heard golfers say “a bad putt is always better than a bad chip.” This emphasizes the principle because it’s the percentage shot. Next time you watch the PGA Tour and they have plenty of green to work with, notice how quickly they get the ball rolling.

Try this. It would be great to hear your feedback.

*Alcaidesa Links Golf Resort on the Costa del Sol

As most of us know, putting can be considered an almost pure mental game. It’s all about feeling confident in your ability. If you can learn to believe that you can make any putt within 20ft, the game becomes a lot easier.

But even the tour pros feel confident some days and not so confident on others. It is for this reason that they continually work on a good mental strategy to optimize the probability of holing putts and making a good score.

We’ve all experienced the hole looking bigger on some rounds and smaller on others, which we know is simply our own perception and directly related to our confidence. When we feel confident, the hole looks bigger. I’ve previously discussed the importance on a solid routine to help you feel more comfortable over the ball, but here is a tip for training your mind to make the hole look bigger and give you extra confidence to hole more putts. It works like this – if we make the hole smaller when we practice, we will learn to focus harder and the hole will seem bigger on the course.

Start by putting a tee on one side of the hole about half an inch from the lip of the hole and about half an inch in from the edge as you look down the line of the putt. If it is a slight right to left putt, put the tee in the on the left side of the hole (and vice versa). Hit 5 putts from 6-10ft, dying the ball into the side of the hole. Now put another tee in the ground about half an inch from the other tee, toward the center of the hole. Now hit another 5 putts. Now place another tee, this time in the center of the hole, so now there is only one half of the hole to roll the ball into. Roll another 5 putts. Repeat this exercise with left to right putts (and vice versa). Then remove the tees all together and see how much bigger the hole feels.

Because you are rolling the ball into a hole of decreasing size, this makes your focus on the putt (and where the ball will enter the hole) so much more acute. So when you have all 4 1/4 inches of the hole to look at, it will seem a “hole” lot bigger. You will feel that putting is easier and you will hole more putts! Try this while you are on the practice green before your next round.

Would be great to hear your feedback on this drill.

Most of us are obsessed with swinging the club in the “correct” way. We get caught up in swing mechanics instead of increasing our awareness and feel for different shots. In my opinion, once the fundamentals of the swing are correct, there is no right or wrong way to swing the golf club. The most important factors of a good golf game are visualization and feel, which we can learn with some simple awareness exercises.

This drill will help you have some fun in your practice but will train your body and mind to know exactly where the club-face is, increasing your ability to hit the shots you are visualizing.

Try hitting shots you would not hit on the golf course. Open your stance and close the club-face and experience what that feels like. Open your stance open the club-face. Try hitting a complete variety of shot shapes with a different stance and club-face angle. Try to visualize it and then feel the shot with the club-face. Although it is unlikely you will hit these shots on the golf course, this is not the point. You are learning new sensations and your awareness of what you can do with the club increases.

Try as much experimentation as you can when you practice. It makes it more fun and increases your subconscious trust in your body to execute the shots you visualize. Through practice with this technique you will start to move away from the complex technical game, and conscious control of your body, and more towards a simple visualization and feel based game and better golf.

Jack Nicklaus said that once he knew his fundamentals were correct, all he worked on was feel.

Six-time major winner and former World No.1, Sir Nick Faldo gives us some valuable insight into the mental game of a champion.