In the previous article I discussed the correct mental approach to give us the best chance of playing to our potential. We need knowledge, a positive mental attitude, strong mental direction, and keen awareness. If I were to give each of these a value in terms of their importance, I would say that knowledge is 10%, with the other areas equal in value at 30%. Unfortunately, when things go wrong, most golfers think they need more knowledge, or different knowledge. They look for the wrong thing in the wrong area. The golf instruction industry is built around providing that knowledge, and so the circle continues. Rather than looking for more knowledge, most golfers would be better learning how to apply what they already know in a better way. As I said before, the main issue is not knowing what to do, it's knowing how to do it and then doing it.
Building a solid pre shot routine, providing strong and consistent mental direction and full awareness, is the best way I know to apply these fundamentals. The pre shot routine has a number of purposes. The importance of each of these will vary from golfer to golfer. For me, one of the main functions of the pre shot routine is to reduce the fear I feel sometimes on the course, especially in tournaments. As I discussed in a previous article, the fear we feel in golf is mainly the fear of the unknown. We just don't know what is going to happen next, and that makes us nervous. If we have a good,solid pre shot routine, we know as much as we possibly can do about what is about to happen, and we control it, right up to the moment we start the swing. At this point we have to let go, but this is easier if we know what is happening right up to that moment.
It has taken me most of my golfing life to realise how important this is. I came to the game late, not as a biddable child, but as a rather bolshy teenager. As with most teenagers, the best way to stop me doing something, was to tell me I had to do it. So when I was told I had to have a pre shot routine, I didn't see the point. I could play some nice golf doing it pretty much the way I wanted to on the day. So unfortunately I never built a solid mental routine into my game in the same way that say, a young Tiger Woods (at the insistence of his father) might have done. This fact has been a major factor in me not having reached my playing goals up to this point. Even when I came to write this article, I looked on my PC for notes I had written on the subject, and found I had five different pre shot routines, all different from the one I was using up until very recently.
The key to making this routine (or any other routine) work, is to do it with full awareness. You need to know you are doing it while you are doing it. The moment it becomes a series of subconscious, ritual actions it will lose a great deal of its effectiveness. When you first start to do this, you will find it takes massively more mental energy to perform than you would have previously used to hit golf balls. As someone once said, "thinking is the hardest work of all, which is probably why so few people do it." If you can hit 10 balls in a row using the full routine, you will probably need a break. As soon as you feel your awareness start to wander onto something other than what you are doing, take a couple of minutes to let your mind relax. Then come back to it, making a determined effort to focus your awareness on the job in hand. The main reason that many golfers hit
The Routine
* Stand behind the ball so your master eye, the ball and the target are all in a straight line.
* Look at your hands and grip the club correctly. Taking your grip with full awareness, ie visually rather than just by feel sets the tone for what is to follow.
* With the club gripped correctly, walk in until you are level with the ball.
* DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE TARGET while walking to the ball.
* When you are level with the ball, turn to face it, but KEEP LOOKING AT THE TARGET.
* Set the club to the ball, keeping your eye on the target till the last possible moment.
* Align the shaft and the clubface to the target.
* When you are happy with the alignment of the clubface and the shaft, take your stance and posture. If your grip is good, your shoulders will be aligned correctly. The hips and feet just drop into place. (The secret to this technique is to keep your eyes on the target for as long as possible. If you let your eyes wander to the ball as you walk forward, it's easy to lose your line.)
* Focus back on the target and have a waggle, try to keep moving. The worst thing you can do at this point is get stuck over the ball.
* At this point there are a couple of different directions you can go. Some people just like to 'find' the target with their mind's eye as they look back to the ball, and then hit the ball to the target. That's fine and if you can operate on that level that's probably the ideal. Other people, myself included, prefer to keep providing the muscles with a clear direction throughout the swing with a swing thought. I just find it easier to keep my awareness focused if I have a very clear idea of what I am trying to do.
* The final thought and most important thought. "Swing the whole club to the target with your core muscles."
Then do it.
Woburn Golfer Wins Volvo Champions Amateur Pro Team Competition. 
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