The power of mental imagery can be transferred into your golf game when applied properly. Let's briefly clarify the critical difference between visualization and mental imagery.

Visualization is seeing with your mind's eye "while you are playing". Mental imagery is "feeling" with your mind's eye before you play.

Ok, this is obviously generalized for the purposes of this article yet the key distinction is revealed. To benefit from mental imagery in your golf game you'll learn how to engage your emotional body while directing specific visual images in your mind. Yet you will do this before you play. Visualization, on the other hand, will be employed during each and every shot you play on the course.

The outcome of using mental imagery is to get your conscious and unconscious minds in harmony. To do what I call a "prehearsal" of coming events.You step deeply into your mental images of playing excellent golf and fill yourself with what this feels like. Acting as if you are already actually doing what you are imagining. This is the heart of true peak performance training mental training.

By repeating this guided mental imagery process your entire being becomes engrossed in the experience. Your mind accepts these "prehearsals" as actual events.

You see, the unconscious mind does not make a distinction between a real or an intensley imagined state. Read that again if this concept is new to you. Now that you're read it again I'll repeat it! The unconscious mind does not make a distinction between a real and an intensley imagined event!

This is verfiable with current neuroscience research. I cover this subject in greater length in my book. Yet you can use this powerful knowledge today. Begin thinking with feeling. Use your emotional body to sesne what your pictures should feel like. Then step deeply into these mental images and play golf in your mind! It may seem simple but by using this technique alone I dropped my handicap from the 20's into the low single digits. Without golf lessons.

Begin by lying or sitting still and recalling a time whwn you played very well. Now step into this memory and really dig deeply into every nuance of this stae you were in. It will be the doorway to future peak performance states. Once you have a good feel for this memory imagine yourself in the future. Stnding over as shot that was previously challenging to you. Then make the swing. And continue your imaginary round of golf.

This single technique can literally transform your game, if you are one of the few who choose to harness the incredible power of their mind.

Use your mind properly and your game will improve. In fact, it is inevitable.

Mental Game Technologies offers the most advanced mental game strategies in golf . Visit their website. It is filled with mental game resources you can use in your game right away.

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It's difficult to recall a round where there wasn't at least something to get distracted by. Well, that is if we let it. What kinds of distractions get you a bit rattled? Are there certain scenarios that seem to take your focus off your shot more than others?

It's useful to make a note of these. This way you can apply some techniques I'll show you and remove the negative impact these "distractions" have on your game. The inner game must be developed to as high a degree as possible.

I want to offer a different perspective. This might fly in the face of conventional wisdom yet it has proven to be an effective shift in mindset. *Just like hockey, where the referees are a part of the game (like it or not), distractions are a fundamental part of the game of golf.*

Distractions disappear first with a change of mindset

Now this might sound strange I realize, but this "reframe" is essential. Once you get it your overall perception of what influence these distractions will have will change forever. So first begin to look at them as a part of the game.

By seeing them as simple elements inside the game, not as something that is destroying your concentration or ruining your good rounds, a mental toughness will develop in you. I will show you how things that previously distracted you can actually trigger increased focus in your shot or putt.

You see, by placing too much emphasis on removing distractions and "getting everyone quiet", or making sure things are just perfect before you make your swing, you are inadvertantly increasing the negative influnece these inevitable distractions will have on your performance.

Now let's be clear. There will always be something we can focus on and blame for our poor shot or bad round. It's the easy out. Do you recall the heat Colin Montgomery took years ago in New York when fans wouldn't quiet down for him and he refused to hit until things were quiet?

I don't support or encourage needless crowd noise or heckling, yet the increased attention he brought to himself caused more distraction than what was already present. It ended up becoming a multi-year issue for him.

How can you manage distractions?

I want you to look at the 3 ares of distractions.

•  What you see - This can be the shadow cast by a partner. Someone standing behind you in your peripheral vision (I'll admit this is one of the most challenging to overcome for me). Players moving across your view when standing over your putt. The list is endless of course.

•  What you hear - Poeple talking. (Have you noticed that sometimes whispers seem louder than someone talking at normal volume!) A horn going off in your backswing. Someone coughing just as you take the club away. I'll let you add to this list...

•  What you feel - This is more about your physiology. A little itch above your left eye you feel like scratching right when you are making your putt. Your blood sugar level.Your mood. Your sense of tiredness. Fatigue. Your attention drifting to how fast your heart is racing.

I've merely expressed a few in each area. You are undoubtedly aware of these and countless others. Which area tends to have the most inlfuence on you? There are mental game strategies you can use to reduce the influence of distractions in golf. It begins with building a solid mental game plan.

For many people it doesn't even have to involve competiton at all. Just stepping to the first tee can cause a serious case of nerves. Maybe it's when you must make a put to tie a hole or to win on the 18th green. If you're standing on the 17th hole in a match and you're 1 down then you have to deliver. Period. If you can't channel your nerves you had better hope that swing you've been grooving for the past 6 months holds up now!

Regardless of skill level and/or on course scenario there will be times when you'll require some way to calm your nerves so they don't adversely affect your stroke/swing.

Have you made any conscious attempts to reduce your experience of nerves in your game? What did you try? What have been your results? Did they work and if so was it immediate? Or did you, like most every golfer alive, simply fill your head full of self talk saying things like, "ok, calm down. Just breathe...there's nothing to be nervous about...hey, maybe he'll miss his putt....yeah...miss-miss-miss!..."

Does this sound familiar?! Have you noticed that this doesn't really do all that much to reduce your nervousness? Unless of course your playing partner does miss the putt!

Seriously though, you must have a means of noticing the onset of nerves and a method for not only calming them but using them to your advantage. How does that sound?

While I can't go into detail on how to transform nerves into actually playing your best golf under pressure I will provide a few excellent methods you can use right away. They will improve your performance.

Breath is a very powerful state enhancer. What I mean is that your breathing provides deep physiological links to your internal states. So when you're nervous the last thing you want to do is take short, shallow breaths. Quick breaths actually instruct the brain to respond in a "fight or flight" manner. The brain is hardwired to respond to fast breathing by being on the lookout for an emergency. Not the most effective place from which to make a smooth putting stroke on that 10 footer for par now is it?!

Tip #1

While waiting for your turn to hit stand aside and follow this breathing pattern:

Inhale - 4 counts

Hold - 5 counts

Exhale - 6 counts

Long, deep, slow breaths. This process interupts the breath influenced aspect of your state and directly instructs the brain to become still. Another adverse affect of nerves is a noticeable loss of feel in your hands. Sometimes you may even wonder if you're even holding the club!

Tip #2

Simply hold a golf ball in your hands. Now squeeze it gently and hold for a few seconds. Then release. Then squeeze once again but this time do so very firmly and hold for a couple seconds then release. Roll the ball around in your hand and make a note of how the dimples feel.

Repeat this sequence 2 or 3 times and you will immediately increase the feel in your hands. Nervousness and shallow breathing directs extra blood to the brain, diverting it from your extremities. By doing applying this simple technique blood will flow back into your hands and improve your feel.

These 2 exercises work quickly. Self talk alone can't compete with the psycho-physiological intensity of nervousness. Try them and let me know how well they worked?!

What if there was a way to transform nervousness into a calm, inner confidence? To actually have the onset of nerves "trigger" an inner calm. How powerful would that be in improving your performance? I will show you how to achieve this.

Wade Pearse is a Peak Performance Coach who spent 7 years applying the most advanced mental game strategies in golf with his clients and in his own game with phenomenal results.Visit his website. It is filled with mental game resources you can use in your game right away. He has a mental game ezine and a daily blog you can subscribe to.

Keeping you on target! Visit the website now => golf mental game coach

We all have what I call an inner game thermostat. It governs your inner game temperature, so to speak. Your comfort zone is like a climate controlled room. If it gets too cool then it's time to heat up. If it gets too hot the air conditioner turns on to cool things down.

So your inner thermostat does exactly what it is preprogrammed to do - bring your game back to *normal*! How? By producing what appears to be the "wrong swing at the wrong time". Yet in reality it is actually the "right swing at the right time!" Your inner game thermostat calmly runs beneath your conscious awareness. Perfectly controlling your game.

Have you ever had the feeling that you have no idea where the ball is going?! This can happen when we reach either side of our comfort zone.

The same goes for when you are approaching your personal low score. Yet there's something funny about the settings on the low side of our comfort zones... The thermostat seems to kick in with even more authority!

(Have you ever noticed that even though your scores might be climbing and you dislike it it feels easier and somehow more acceptable than going really low? I'm not saying you don't want to go low. I'm saying that you are *familiar* with shooting higher scores because you've done this more often than shoot really low scores.)

As you get nearer to breaking your personal best it kicks on and returns your game to "normal". How? You card a couple bogies in a row and guess what? You magically shoot within the range of scoring your unconscious has hardwired for you! Your comfort zone is maintained*...

Comfort zones are a long and slow death to any hopes you have of reaching your potential. I don't care what kind of goal setting plan, or mental game worksheet you follow. Your internal setting for what you "believe" about your game is what calls the shots. Pun fully intended. :-)

There are specific strategies for creating new settings on your inner game thermostat. Nothing complicated yet they are extremely powerful and effective. But hey, only you know how much you want to break out of your comfort zone.

...it's kind of like the proverbial frog in a pot of water. Set the frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil and the frog stays there because it is comfortable along the way...

Reach the next level in your game and make the changes you want now. After all, the water is slowly coming to a boil...

Myths -

1) If you have a perfect golf swing you'll have a perfect game.

2) You can buy a better game

3) Technology has lowered golfers scores

Most every golfer subscribes to these beliefs in one way or another. The entire golf instruction, training aid, and golf club making market bear this out. Golf magazines, tv shows, and article after article offer tips, fixes, cures and virtually every imaginable training aid conceivable to craft the perfect swing. All with the pretense of helping you play better golf.

Well has it worked? Let's take a look...

In 1978 75% of all golfers never broke 90 - so barely 25% ever shot in the 80's.

In 2004, a full 26 years later, after the advent of 460CC drivers with 45" multi-kick point shafts, cavity back irons, balls that prevent hooks and slices, and world class instruction from the smartest minds in the buz, that number has been increased by a wopping 3%!

Now a full 28% of all golfers has broken 90! But hey, let's cut the industry some slack, there's only been 90+ billion spent on golf equipment over that time! That doesn't include lessons or training aids! All that technology and collective wisdom and this is how far we've come...impressive, huh.

Seriously, any other business that produced numbers like these for their customers would be out of business! But the golfing public has an insatiable appetite that an ever growing horde of manufacturers and marketers are more than willing to feed.

Ok, do you want to pay me now or later for the moral booster? What? This doesn't get you pumped about your prospects of dropping your handicap by 10 strokes by buying the next training aid?

You mean to tell me you're not going to do that $2,500 re-shafting, ball changing, loft angle adjusting, launch angle increasing, club-fitting session you had booked for next Saturday? Hmmm, was it something I said?

As golfers we are bombarded with instruction tips, training options, and product offerings that'll have your head spinning faster than Paris Hilton after swizzeling a half dozen Crantini's.

So where's the moral of this myth busting story? Do we all just give up trying to improve? Absolutely not. We all need to fulfill that important human craving of getting better at what we love. Yet where we place our attention to achieve this goal is what has to change. Our core beliefs about what causes improvement should be based on reality not myths. They should empower us, not encourage wishful thinking and needlessly empty our wallets.

"So if it isn't gear that makes us better maybe it's lessons," did I hear you say? Certainly lessons are an asset and obviously accelerate your skill development yet they're not absolutely essential. Ask Lee Trevino, Jim Furyk, Chris Dimarco and countless others who are self taught. And I think we can all agree that there isn't much "pretty" about any of their swings.

Do you think any of them were intent on crafting the perfect swing? Yet if we look at things from a different perspective maybe they do have perfect swings. Why? Because they work! Golf ain't a beauty contest.

In the final analysis there is only one area that promotes the quickest and most lasting change in any golfers game. And what's interesting about it is this is the only area that doesn't cost a penny to use yet almost no-one uses it!

That area is the often quoted 6 inches between your ears! Your mind. The mental game. Using your mind in a strategic, methodical and focused way is the surest method of lowering your scores. Period.

If you want to run out and spend $500 on a new driver and another $1000 or more on irons to make you play better, feel free. You might be that one in a million that changes the statistics. I realize we'll all buy nice gear once in a while but we can't buy it with a belief that this will seriously lower our scores.

Needless to say, my articles won't be sponsored by Taylor Made or Nike any time soon! I don't help sell much golf equipment! No, my approach to lowering your handicap, improving your swing, and increasing your satisfaction leans towards inner change before outer gains.

True improvement only arrives when we first assess where we are in relation to our goal. Then we must take an inventory of all the things that have actually produced measurable results. Which means no denial! We can't hope to move our game to the next level by hanging on to a lie, now can we? If you do then that's what I call a real "hanging lie". Ok, that was a cheap pun but it was there for the taking...

Each and every one of us has the innate ability to tap our own potential and transform any part of our lives, including golf. We just require the right road map and a good compass to keep us on target.

It's time to wake up and smell the napalm or the myths that cloud our brains will keep us believing we can buy a better game.