Total Personal Commitment
Golfing success is about your personal commitment, not to the golf
ball, not to anyone else, but to yourself and to your goal.
Commitment is different from involvement. In golf, as in life,
total 100 percent commitment holds the key to success in any endeavor.
How do you commit yourself to golfing success?
- You evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, and purposefully address those issues.
- You commit yourself to a golf fitness and golf nutrition program.
- You commit yourself to preventing golf injuries through a regular exercise program.
- You commit yourself to mastering all golf basics.
- You regularly begin your pre-shot routine on the range, not on the golf course, until your golf swing becomes subconscious, thereby instrumental in enhancing your spontaneous internal motion functioning. Make your swing become second nature to you, such that you can focus on your target, not your swing.
Commitment requires a great deal of efforts and hard work. As one
of the golf basics, it provides you with an inner strength necessary for
success.
Simplicity Is Golfing Success
Golf inconsistency is a common hindrance to success.
Jack Nicklaus: “If there is one thing
I have learned during my years as a professional, it is that the only thing
constant about golf is its inconstancy.”
The good news is: Simplicity produces consistency, which holds the
key to long-term golfing success.
How do you keep your golf simple and consistent?
- You make your goals simple and realistic: e.g. Examine where you take the most strokes. Remember, the quality of your practice always shows up in the quality of your performance.
- You make simple practice plans and adhere to them: be consistent, and avoid switching from one to another.
- You focus on what your control, instead of what you cannot control. You can certainly control yourself, but you cannot control others or the environment. Worrying makes you lose your control of your golf basics.
- You make a simple golf swing without too much analysis. Jack Nicklaus is a great believer in simple and natural swing. Just swing freely and naturally. It is consciousness without being self-conscious.
- You make simple decisions on all your shots. After your initial analysis of the forthcoming shot, make a simple decision and stick to it. A clear decision produces order and clarity with all your golf shots.
The game of golf is complex, but you need not make it “more
complex” than necessary. Golfing success is deceptively simple and simply
amazing.
Golf is play to be enjoyed, not toil to be anxious about.
No Great Expectations
In golf, having no great expectations makes the game simple and
successful. Do not position yourself for failure by having great expectations.
Do not let your great expectations get in your way.
How do you have no expectations?
You learn not to become “score conscious.”
- You do not form any preconceived notion of how you are going to play in the game. Remember, one shot at a time. Only play the shot at hand.
- You do not expect your shot patterns to be exactly the same as the ones on the practice range. And do not expect to hit the ball perfectly every time. Always expect the unexpected. Golf inconsistency is only too common. Expect it.
- You focus your mind on the process, rather than theoutcome.
With no expectations from the game, you focus on your target in
the PRESENT moment, thereby freeing yourself from the bondage of your
accountability to any performance standard you may have preset for yourself.
Expect the best, but be prepared for the worst. Do your best, and
let God do the rest.
Expect your total commitment on any shot.
Positive expectations give you motivation and passion for golfing
success.
Playing with Confidence and Trust
In golf, as in life, everything you do is based on confidence and
trust. To succeed in golf, you must learn to trust your technique, judgment,
and decision. These are golf basics for golfing success.
In golfing success, there is no “gray” area in the arena of
confidence and trust. Either you have it, or you don’t; there is no “in
between.”
How do you play with confidence and trust?
- You swing to your target without undue concern of how to hit the ball exactly right. You don’t trust the ball’s intelligence to find the target; you trust your own spontaneous movements acquired through regular practice. A pianist at a recital does not worry about his or her fingering, so why should you worry about your golf swing? You swing should always be natural and spontaneous, just like you type on the keyboard without looking. If you have mastered the golf basics, you should be able to play with confidence and trust, just like a pro.
- You learn to trust your mind, your emotions, and yourgolfing instinct. No matter at what level you play golf, you must develop that trust, without which you will be immobilized and you will not harness and fully utilize the golf basics you have mastered.
- You are confident that you have decided on the right type of shot. Trust the inner voice that makes the decision. Sometimes it is better to be decisive on the wrong club than to be indecisive on the right one. (see Golf Accessories.)
Just let yourself swing freely, trusting that you have made the
right choice of clubs and shot.
Confidence and trust require time and discipline, but they are
indispensable assets in golfing success. They enable you to play without
“striving” to play better: you simply play according to your instinct and
talent, trusting that they will bring about a positive outcome for you.
Hanging in There
Frustration often undermines your golf performance.
Hang in there until you ultimately succeed. Always give yourself
your best efforts to golfing success.
How do you hang in there when things are going askew?
- You use your willpower to overcome all obstacles. Change your perspectives by changing your attitudes. Never sell yourself short. Show the world, or yourself, what you can do. Do not undermine your talent and sabotage your golfing success, irrespective of your level.
How do you hang in there when things are going askew?
- You use your willpower to overcome all obstacles. Change your perspectives by changing your attitudes. Never sell yourself short. Show the world, or yourself, what you can do. Do not undermine your talent and sabotage your golfing success, irrespective of your level.
- You reply on your innate human spirit to persevere and to challenge yourself in any circumstance. Give yourself a pep talk and reinforce it with purposeful behaviors. Remind yourself that you play the game to enjoy, and nothing else or no one else really matters. Remember the old adage: Keep a cool head while others around you are losing theirs.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
The
Complete TAO TE CHING in Plain English
Get this ancient wisdom to understand how to play your golf with no expectations, how to focus on the present moment, and how to be mindful of what you are doing right now.There are many translations and interpretations of Lao Tzu’s ancient classic “Tae o Te Ching.” Given that the Chinese language is often capable of multiple meanings, following the exact Chinese translation may make the flow of the language uneven and even difficult to understand.
This book contains not only the complete 81 chapters of Lao Tzu’s immortal classic
but also the author’s own interpretations of the essentials of TAO wisdom (which is the wisdom of Lao Tzu) for
easier intuition and assimilation.
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