Imagine finding a magic lamp that would contain three golf wishes.  These wishes could only be used for your emotional control.  You could say anything from “I wish I could just stay positive for an entire 9 holes” or “I wish that when I start playing really well, that I wouldn’t get nervous and screw up”. 

Whatever you wished you would have to write down on a piece of paper.  Then your wish would be granted in the form of a “replacement thought”.  If you decided to employ the new thought, it would be guaranteed to work.  If this were reality, how would you use your three wishes?

Let’s say you are a person who likes to be “hands on” and can get streaky when you are playing well.  When things are going well, you don’t think too much you just see the target and feel the swing. 

However, when things are going poorly, you get really down on yourself.  It’s hard for you to even give your best because you don’t believe it will change anyway.  This would be where you could employ one of your three wishes. 

“Instead of getting down on myself when I am not hitting the shots I want, I will remind myself of 3 good shots I hit during the round, out loud”. 

As you would speak of your past success your visualization would become positively active.   And in that process would have disarmed a score destroying situation.

Most the time we don’t prepare for what is likely to come in a round of golf.  If we know we won’t hit every shot perfect then how will we handle our bad shots?  A player who has an escape plan for when trouble shows up, is much more likely to elude it. 

To really have the best preparation to handle your pitfalls you first need to know yourself.  You must really examine the common themes you see in your game when things go awry.  Often times your friends can see tendencies a lot clearer than you do, and would be a great source of feedback. 

But if you don’t feel comfortable with that, you could take a golf profile test that will tell you your strengths and weaknesses along with solutions. 

You could find a 15 question test at: www.mentalgolfworkshop.com/app/default.aspx?reseller=starbucks.

Think about what your wishes would be on the golf course, and make a list of replacement thoughts that would act like a medicine for your bad thoughts.  Then you may just find a much happier and healthier game.