---

Thinking better will MAKE you play better.

Here’s where golf gets really mentally tough. For every shot you must, if you want half a chance at being successful, see it before you do it. And the sooner, the better. Even dreaming a whole round the night before helps. Sort of like making a home movie you can replay the next day.

Prepare your mental circuits you start before the round. When you leave home and travel to the course, command the fertile fields of your psyche cultivated and ready for today’s planting. Purge the weeds of self-doubt and mundane musings like your job, family, health and politics.

Start on the practice tee and putting green. Have purpose to your manner and control to each stroke. Imagine yourself in the game and don’t waste shots. Use only one ball on the putting green and make yourself concentrate.

Starting on the first hole, consider each shot. Think it through, imagine it throughout its flight and see it plop happily at your target. Hear the whoosh of your shaft and the impact on the clubface before they happen. Play it on the silver screen of your intellect.

Now the your brain is prepared to accept your instruction and send the appropriate signals to the complex machinery of your muscles, sinews and bones.

This is work! If you are able to think deeply on each shot for a whole round of golf you will be mentally trashed when it is over. After a while though, it becomes habit, as it must with all good professionals and those who aspire to greatness.

Dream it, Do it. That’s the path to Thoughtful Golf.