“A consistent pre-shot routine will make you more consistent.”
Only if it is mentally consistent and mentally effective!!!!
What is your pre-shot routine supposed to be accomplishing? What is the purpose of your routine?
Answer: To help you make an effective and correct swing at the ball or stroke at the putt.
Every teaching professional coaches you to develop a consistent pre-shot routine. It is a foundation principle in golf.
Your routine is judged by your teaching pro or coach by how similar it is to the last routine and your tempo. They cannot know whether you are mentally consistent. After you do the routine for awhile it becomes easy and you just do it.
This is like driving a car. When you are first learning to drive, you are paying close attention to everything about driving the car. Watch your mirrors. Keep it between the lines. Easy on the gas and the brakes. You are mentally engaged in driving, and you are not too smooth.
Now when you drive, what are you doing mentally? Are you getting down the road OK? Most of the time, yes. But when it comes time to squeeze into that parking space, or when you are driving others around, sometimes it is not so easy.
Your tension has gone up and mentally you are trying to control everything perfectly. You just became left brained and less athletic. Mentally you are interrupting those practiced patterns of signals from your brain to your body that usually make driving smooth and easy to control the car.
Outwardly you may look the same but internally things are not so quiet or easy.
You learn your routines and at first they help. You practice them and they become comfortable. You take them on the course and they help you play. When the round or shot are more important, like in competition, you pay lots of attention to doing your routines just so. But often in competition or more important situations the shots don’t come off like normal. They don’t feel normal to you.
This is confusing and mysterious. When you think about the shot and analyze what you just did, you diagnose the swing. You consider your routine. Yes, the routine seemed OK. Maybe you failed to achieve your swing keys?
So you do the next routine and the next shot. Maybe the shot is better, maybe not. Sometimes one bad shot leads to another, leads to a bad hole or holes in a row.
What is wrong? Are you doing a good routine and getting a poor shot? Logic says that if you do a consistent routine and accomplish your swing keys that you should hit good shots and putts. Obviously your logic is wrong or the promises are wrong.
For most players, logic and their thinking does not consider their mental game or state during the routine and shot. They do not think about their level of arousal. They do not judge their level of commitment to the shot. They do not review how well they visualized the shot or felt the shot before they played it. They don’t think about whether they swung freely or too controlled.
In our 30 years of Tour experience, 98% or more of the time, it is an issue or failing with your mental game that produced the poor shot, swing or stroke. This is not your fault unless you have had our coaching and know what a good mental routine really is. Most players do not, so they are inconsistent and cannot figure out why. Not your fault if you don’t know what a good mental routine is and how it should feel.
They cannot read your mind!
Your teaching pro or coach cannot see what is going on mentally. They have no idea what you are thinking while you are playing your shots. So they must guess based on experience, how well they know you, your body language and their intuition about what is going on. Then they make suggestions. Sometimes lots of suggestions until something seems to click. They are guessing without any objective way to know if what they are suggesting is right for you.
You don’t know if what they are suggesting is right for you either. It may seem to help. When you go out there again, it may work, it may not. Most of the time it works for a bit, but then you miss a shot.
Over the past 14 years, we have done the research and developed the Mind Meter Pro to help you figure this out.
The new Mind Meter Pro is your objective guide to determine if what you are doing is right for you mentally.
There is no fooling it. If your mental is right the numbers will show it. If your mental is wrong or not as good as you can do the numbers will show it. No more guessing!
The Mind Meter Pro records your numbers for your whole routine and over the ball on video so you can watch yourself and the numbers immediately after the shot.
The Mind Meter Pro will help you develop your optimum mental pre-shot routine. No more guessing.
Now you will know when your mental pre-shot routine is right. You will know what it feels like to have optimum arousal for your golf shots and putts. You will know that you are focussed on the shot and the putt, that your visuals are good. You will know the difference between swinging fully committed and more controlled.
You will learn quickly when your thoughts go in the wrong direction. You will be able to identify when your left brain is trying to take over. You will be able to change back to right brain thinking and athletic swinging because you know what they are now.
This is the fantastic advantage that the Mind Meter Pro can give you.
For too long we have talked about how Golf is 90% mental. For too long you have been given mental instruction without any way to judge whether it is the right advice for you. If you play better, it must have worked. If you play worse it must not be right for you. Then you try something different.
Stop the guessing!!!
Now you can know whether it is the right coaching for you. Now you can know if you are doing the right things mentally during the shot. Now you can have immediate feedback that you are doing it right.
This is a new day for golf. Truly Effective teaching and learning begin now! We can prove it to you with the Mind Meter Pro!
Here is a short video example of a good routine with the Mind Meter numbers confirming it. Starts high but watch!
He has 185 yards left for his second shot on par 5. Hits it pin high!!
