Why You Need This:

In this golf mental game video, discover how to paint a mental picture of your improvement.

You’ll discover how to accelerate your learning by up to 50%.

Before you go out and pound thousands of balls at the range…

Watch this video for TSG Sports Psychology Instructor Dr. Thad Leffingwell’s great tips on how to visualize the perfect round and start playing better today!

What's Covered: How to accelerate your improvement.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Thad Leffingwell    

Video Duration: 4:21

Video Transcription:

Hi guys. I’m Doctor Thad Leffingwell, sports psychology instructor with Top Speed Golf. How many of you would like to accelerate your learning up to 50 percent? I’m here today with a tip on how to really accelerate your improvements.

My guess is, is that if you were following Top Speed Golf, you’re serious about improving your golf swing and your game.

One thing that drew me to Clay’s instruction and the Top Speed System, is that he always provides drills to help players feel the correct movements, and that he prescribes specific reps necessary to build the muscle memory to learn and repeat those movements in your golf swing.

Clay is absolutely correct that there is no replacement for physical reps for learning the correct mechanical moves and getting better over time.

But if all you do is the pounding buckets of balls, you aren’t doing all you could to accelerate and really lock in the swing you’re trying to create.

The impact of our visual system on performance is pretty powerful. Have you ever had the experience of playing better after watching a lot of golf on television? Or maybe you played better with a playing partner who has an excellent swing or great tempo.

These are examples of how our visual system translates directly into improved performance. In addition to physical reps alone, the next best thing you could do is visual feedback.

Use your phone to take videos of your swing to see if what you’re feeling matches what you are actually doing.

There are a number of great apps and phones out there that allow you to shoot super slow motion videos that really help. You can also use a mirror in your home to check positions and get some instant visual feedback.

Another strategy to accelerate your learning is visualization. You’re probably somewhat familiar with the use of visualization in golf, especially during play and during the pre-shot routine. We might address that in a future video.

But you might not have thought about how valuable intentional and systematic use of visualization can be fr accelerating learning of the golf swing.

Research over more than 30 years has shown two things. First, you simply can’t learn complex motor movements like a golf swing without physical practice. You’ve got to do the reps and lots of them.

But the second thing the research shows is the systematic use of visualization can enhance learning up to 50 percent.

Although you may not be lucky enough to get to the range every day, I recommend that you set aside a little time each day to visualize reps of the moves you are working on in your golf swing.

Now you might be thinking, but I think about golf all the time, and certainly lots of us daydream about golf and the beautiful repeating swing we’re working towards.

Unfortunately, the research doesn’t say that daydreaming helps a bit. It needs to be systematic, intentional, and repeated to be successful. When you do reps using visualization, try to imagine the sensations you’re trying to create.

If you have a hard time with this, it can help when you’re at the range to close your eyes during some of the reps, and really focus on the feelings, the sensations you feel, as you make the moves you’re practicing.

Visualization can be especially helpful when you’re trying to make changes to some tendencies that overlearned in your swing already. Meaning, you have muscle memory.

Those moves are kind of locked in to your current swing.

This overlearning can interfere with your physical reps, because your reflexive tendencies can make it hard to make the new moves correctly.

The good news is, there is no muscle memory is visualized reps that can interfere with the new moves you’re working on.

The research shows that visualization practice of motor movements can actually help to train some of those neural pathways that will control the actual movements.

By all means, the only way to ultimately make improvements is to practice, practice, practice. But you can accelerate your learning by finding ways to get lots of visual feedback and using systematic visualization practice.

Play well, and have fun.

If you like this video and want more mental game tips like this, please let us know.