Golf Psychology Newsletter - EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Welcome again to Train Your Golf Brain newsletter.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak with a number of PGA Teaching Pros who have attended Trained Brain seminars.  It is really encouraging to see so many top coaches looking at the game with an holistic approach to golf involving technique, mind and body.

To focus purely on technique is hopefully a thing of the past as we seek to utilise technical knowledge of the golf swing with an understanding of how human beings actually function and how the brain can be trained to perform a set of skills.

I ve just finished reading an outstanding book that is a MUST read - ‘BLINK’ by Malcom Gladwell ‘the power of thinking without thinking’ Absolutely superb and applicable to many areas of your golf game.

For some QUALITY information about training your body, take a look at what I consider to be an absolute leader in its field, Alan Pearson with his SAQ training  www.saqinternational.com

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

One of the big buzz phrases around the business world at the moment is ‘Emotional Intelligence’.  Your emotional IQ or your ability to keep your emotions on an even keel in the pressure situation of closing a sales deal or a crucial decision in the boardroom.

The fascinating ‘Apprentice’ series with Sir Alan Sugar has consistently revealed the weakness on an emotional level of certain candidates when under pressure.

The ability to think clearly is vital in the world of work but by the same measure out on the golf course as we all know only to well, high emotion equals HIGH SCORE!

We are not only dealing here with high negative emotion after a bad shot but also the upside can be dangerous, too.  How many golfers begin to think that they are superman after a couple of pars on the trot??  Then make an absolutely silly decision by going for a shot that is just way out of their capability range.

The absolute ideal is to enter the ‘Neutral Zone’ whereby your down is never too down and your upside is still rational, even though you truly enjoy and emotionalise the good shots that you have hit.

Here are five key techniques to raise your emotional IQ :

• Mentally draw a line 10 yards in front of the ball and as you pass this line, the previous shot is OVER, FINISHED, DONE.
• Make a commitment to enjoy the time in between shots. It is within the rules to laugh on the course!
• Always breathe OUT fully after you have hit a shot. Clear the air and clear your mind. 
• Take charge of your body language. Keep your eyes above the level of the flag!!
• Ask yourself before you play ‘What am I committed to today?’ and then honour that commitment.

More on emotional intelligence in the ‘Train your Golf Brain’ cd series at www.golf-brain.com

RESEARCH

Some imagination!  How memory fails us.

Playing on the imagination, scientists have discovered that it is pretty easy to make people remember things that NEVER happened.

The parts of the brain that form, store and then retrieve memories must all work together to accurately recall events, so scientists have long been sceptical of what people remember.

A new study by Kenneth Paller of Northwestern University in the USA was designed to ‘bring people into the laboratory and set up a circumstance in which they would remember something that didn’t happen’.  Researchers monitored the subjects brains with FMRI imaging to track false memories. They showed participants pictures and then asked them to imagine other images.  Later, investigators asked whether certain objects were seen or imagined.  Often IMAGINED images were recalled as REAL.

‘We think that parts of the brain used to actually perceive an object and the parts used in imagination actually OVERLAP’ Paller said.  ‘Thus, a vividly imagined event can leave a memory trace in the brain that is very similar to that of an actually experienced event .

KEY LEARNING

Memory is an ACTIVE process and can be SHAPED. 

More tools and techniques for assisting memory are available in the Golf Brain series at www.golf-brain.com.

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