Improving Your Golf Game with Hypnosis

Since ancient times, elite athletes have known and worked with the power of visualization to increase their skills. Even today, time and again, athletes in training are taught to "visualize the perfect shot" or the perfect landing or what-have-you. Hypnosis, however, has a great deal more to offer to your game than "just" visualization.

Hypnosis goes deeper. It can allow you to implant, deep in your subconscious, the idea that you deserve to win, that you are capable of winning, and that you are capable of improving your game.

The use of hypnosis in the improvement of golf has even been scientifically studied.

A study called "The Effects of Hypnosis on Flow States and Golf-Putting Performance"( Pates J.; Oliver R.; Maynard I. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Volume 13, Number 4, 1 December 2001 , pp. 341-354(14)) showed that all participants increased both their mean golf putting performance and their mean flow scores from baseline to intervention. There were no overlapping data points between the baseline and intervention for either performance or flow state. Additionally, each participant indicated that they had felt the intervention was useful in keeping them relaxed, confident, and focused. Three of the golfers also reported experiencing reduced concerns about performing and more control over their putting stroke.

According to the Centre for Sports Hypnosis, based in the United Kingdom, hypnosis is particularly effective at "solving" or assisting an athlete with:

• Competition nerves
• Mental blocks
• Overcoming slumps in performance
• Building confidence
• Improving focus & concentration
• Returning from injury

Hypnosis can help your "mind"s eye" process your golf game far more quickly than your conscious mind can.

Tiger Woods, who is one of the best-known golfers in the world, reportedly has been working with hypnosis for more than a decade. Much of the credit for this inner peace and calm goes to the fact that he practices hypnosis at least once a week.

Jay Brunza is the clinical psychologist who has been working with Tiger Woods for a long time; it is he who introduced Woods to the tools of hypnotherapy, the ways to conquer one"s mind, and the methods for self-hypnosis. Jay Brunza taught Woods how to get himself into "the zone" at will. The zone which we are talking about here is a state of complete calm and focus, when a player can bring on his peak performance at will. Hypnosis can help you get into the "zone" and into your own peak performance at will, also.

Working on your game through hypnosis also allows you to perfect your form, to see yourself getting the "hole in one," and to use your body and mind to the utmost of your ability.

 Dr. Brunza hypnotizes Tiger to block out all distractions and focus completely on the golf course. Tiger says hypnosis is "inherent in what I do now."

Woods added this perspective in the August 2001 issue of Golf Magazine saying, "I always have an inner peace on the golf course. I"ve learned to trust the subconscious, and my instincts have never lied to me."

Tiger says "I don't hit every green, I don't make every putt... but I expect to."

If it works for Tiger Woods, there is every reason to expect that it will work for you as well.