Mentally strong at the Chilean Amateur !!!!!!

What am I, a 61 year old senior golfer, doing competing in the Chilean Amateur Match Play Championship against the kids ?????

The answer is simple. My Mental Method has kept me competitive, and I love to test myself in match play at the highest level.

The tournament format consisted of an 18 hole qualifying round, where 69 of the top Chilean amateurs participated, and the best 32 made it into the match play rounds.

Last year I had qualified in 25´th place, to win my first match against a scratch player, and then got beaten, in a great second round match, by Juan Cerda, the current junior 2011 Orange Bowl Champion, on the 21´st hole.

This year I did a better job and qualified in a tie for 15´th, with a solid 75 (+3), by planning superbly, and employing several of my on course mental techniques that allowed me to be very well synchronized, in body and mind, for superb shot making, almost the whole round.

My first round match started badly as I made a key mistake, by arriving later than I should have, and practicing too quickly. By tee off time, I had lost my rhythm, and was tense and swinging too fast. A key, but common,  mistake from the Mental Golf point of view.


Hole 3 of Club de Golf Los Leones in Santiago

I proceeded to lose my first three holes to Juan Leon B., a scratch player from the home Los Leones course, where the championship was being held, in Santiago.

But, fortunately I refocused by using a couple of breathing exercises, and started hitting great shots in the "Present Moment" and parred in, from hole seven onwards, and was able to win the match on the 17´th hole.

My second match was against Matías López, also a scratch golfer and from my home club, The Prince of Wales Country Club (home of the Nationwide Tour´s Chile Classic), and a longtime rival. Matías is on a roll, and we had both won medal play National Championship´s earlier on in the month. Matías had won the over 40´s and I had won the Senior Division (over 55´s).

I lost on the final hole (1 down), but was very pleased by the way I played, overall.

This time I practiced well, with a lot of time, and played the first nine superbly. Very relaxed and "in the zone", I was two up after seven, by planning my shots very well, and holing several key medium length and short putts. My Mental Method worked so well that I felt no pressure.

But Matías played excellent golf on the second nine (he shot par). And the difference came down to two or three of my putts that missed by millimeters.

Matías beat me on the 18´th this time


In golf sometimes we are going to lose, however well we play. It´s the nature of the game. The important lesson in Mental Golf is that in defeat we remember and enjoy our good shots, and forget our bad ones quickly.

If we make a point of "storing" only the positive shots in our powerful unconscious mind, we are setting the correct foundation for positive memories for our future rounds. On the contrary, if we dwell on our losses, and on the bad shots that caused them, we are increasing the chances of repeating poor play.

Bad shots, poor rounds and losses must be forgotten at the speed of light. Good shots, good rounds and wins must be remembered and celebrated with everything we have.

Our powerful unconscious mind works like an old fashioned tape recorder. It stays with the most recent "recordings" that are stored on top of older ones that get erased.

It is essential that we make sure that our "unconscious recorder" is always adequately fed only with positives for smart Mental Golf.