Hypnotherapy for golfers basically means using your mind to play a better round of golf.
Especially when something goes wrong with your golf game. It's to help you look for the answers not from your body, but when perhaps it was your mind that got in the way.
For example, when you try and iron out a swing problem not a mind problem. All you do is frustrate yourself because the answer doesn’t appear.
Improve your game with hypnotherapy for golfers
If you take a look around your golf game these are some of the areas that hypnotherapy helps your mindset.
The putting and chipping yips. When you can’t think clearly, your hands become shaky and your swing is all over the place. You find it hard to play a shot that you might have played hundreds of times before.
The pressure of being watched. You’re teeing off in full view of the club house, all eyes are on you to sink a putt, or suddenly you’re asked to play through and there are strangers watching.
Practice hardwires your faults. You can't transfer your skills from the driving range to the golf course. You can see a gradual decline in your game performance and can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Life is getting in the way. There’s upheaval at home, in relationship, or work is stressful.
Your course becomes a curse. You know your course like the back of your hand, but, somehow, everything has a negative meaning. You get tired halfway round. There’s a memory of a bad hole and you’re anxious all the way waiting to playing it. The banter has become too much: it’s getting to you. You’re getting nervy at the end of your round if you are scoring well.
Hypnosis versus hypnotherapy. What’s the difference?
Hypnosis is simply a deep state of relaxation. It’s a way to access the subconscious mind, where there’s ingrained thought patterns. Meanwhile hypnotherapy is leveraging this powerful tool to help golfers rewire your thinking and improve your state of mind to bring your best game of golf to the fore. This is the ‘therapy’ bit, changing something for the better.
Hypnotherapy for golfers and visualisation
When you’re relaxed it’s easier to bring a scene to life. You can smell being there, you can hear it and feel it.
In relation to golf it might be you can smell the freshly cut grass on the fairway, you can hear birdsong and you can feel the sun and a breeze on your face.
This visualisation (sometimes called guided imagery) let’s golfers imagine being in a scene and being successful. Your mind isn’t in your way. You’ve dialled down the stress and anxiety and can focus on playing the shot.
It’s this visualisation that actually stimulates the same brain regions as you do when you physically perform that same action.
This is hypnotherapy for golfers in a nutshell.
Change your mindset for a better golf game.
They say you can build an 18-hole course of all short par 3s on as little as 30 acres. But it’s has been said by many professional golfers, that the most important distance in golf is the six inches between your ears. And that’s what we can work on.
Written by James Thomas, Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist
I work with sports people to help them reach a higher level. Most recently, racing drivers trying to break into Formula One, ultra-runners aiming to improve their times on the Ultra Tour de mont Blanc, equestrian riders looking to get a greater bond with their horse, and athletes looking to come back after injury.
I call my business The Gentle Mind because I believe we are a better version of ourselves when we’re calmer. We can ‘see’ success, not feel held back by our thoughts and achieve more. I’m based in Leeds, York, Lincoln and Louth.
Feel free to call me on 07787563099 or email me at jamesthomas@thegentlemind.co.uk
The shot at the top of this blog comes from a compilation of pros having a bad day - happens to us all.
