Picture an archer competing in the Olympic Games. His first arrow of the competition and he says to himself, “Well there’s a board. I’ll just aim to get it somewhere in there.” You can imagine him probably not having a good performance that day.
Now picture another archer who walks up, first arrow and confirms to himself which part of the bull’s-eye his arrow will hit before he takes aim. This guy is so much more likely to put in a good performance!
OK, now transfer this logic to your golf game. On the tee on a 380 yard par 4. You could pull a driver straight away and aim for the fairway. Or you could decide that you want to play your second shot from 130 yards and that you would prefer to be on the left half of the fairway, 5 yards in from the rough for the best angle to the green.
The first guy’s target was the fairway – a target that is around 30 yards wide and 300+ yards long. His target was nearly 2 acres! That really doesn’t help your body send the ball to the target. The second guy was much more specific. He aimed for a pinpoint target 250 yards down the left side of the fairway. Chances are he was able to picture his shot a lot more vividly.
Picturing a shot in your head will help you create that shot!
Pick a SPECIFIC target for every single one of your shots.
Doing this will definitely help your game and make it more enjoyable. It won’t guarantee every shot you picture will come off just as you saw it, but it should help!
Enjoy!
Photo Credit: Photo by diskychick at Flickr Creative Commons.
Great insight. It is true- the more specific you make your goals, the more likely you are to reach them!
Very true Larry!
Its important to focus on our goals and plan accordingly to achieve it. Just as archers who shuts their mind to everything else except the target, we need to focus on our goals.