I want to talk to you about your golf game so that maybe you can relax and actually have fun doing something you say you love to do. If you choose you can actually apply what I say to the rest of your life as well.

Golf is a perfect metaphor for life. The only frustration with golf is that you don’t have anyone else to blame for your performance. Oh, sometimes there are circumstances like the weather but bottom line, you are the only one who swings your club.

So what is this superstition thing? A superstition is a belief, that influences your actions, that we think is true. The ones we have been hearing our whole life don’t really influence our actions much. I want to give you a few that are very powerful, since they haven’t been revealed to you, you don’t know they are just superstitions.

When you walk to the first tee you always bring something with you. That something is what we laughingly call thinking. Mostly we have thoughts which effect the way we think and the actions we take. Enough of this, let’s look at some superstitions.

These are very simple words in the English language. The first word is the superstition “is”. How you think on the golf course has you limited in what you can do. Anything you think is a particular way takes away your access to anything else. Here are some examples:

-This is a hard shot
-This is an easy shot
-This is a birdie putt
-This is an easy hole
-This is a hard hole

There is no “is” anything. It is a limitation from the past. Create what you do next, appropriate to the circumstances, i.e., hit one shot at a time, REALLY.

A second superstition is the word should. Should is an opinion after the fact. How many times have you “should” yourself to death on the golf course? If you did what you are thinking you should or shouldn’t have done, how do you know how it would have turned out? You don’t. You are demeaning yourself. It is merely an opinion given with no responsibility to provide the outcome. It is already over.

The third superstition is because. If you could figure out the why of anything would it change what happened? You hit a shot and it turned out however it did. If I mentally broke my swing down into all its’ parts and therefore figured out the one thing I did wrong would it change the result? No, the ball is still exactly where it landed. You say, but I can learn from my because. You could and I doubt it. I see the same kind of shots produced over and over from the same kind of thinking. Besides the practice tee is where you figure things out. Not on the course.

So what do I do with these superstitions? First, notice them in your thinking. You can’t get rid of them. You don’t, however, have to honor them. Create your next shot. Trust how you feel. Use your pre-shot routine (you do have one?). Keep yourself present for the 90 seconds it takes to execute the shot. Choose it, hit it and go get it. The Scots, who invented the game say this is all there is to it. Oh, I forgot, hit it again.

Golf is a very creative game. Your experience gets you on the course. Your willingness to create precisely the next shot is what dictates your experience of playing. You know, fun and loving the game. There is much more I can tell you but you will have to wait for the book. It will be available soon