In his book he defines pressure and explains why mental rehearsals are the best way to conquer pressure in highly competitive situations.
But first let´s see how Bassham defines pressure.
Pressure can be divided in two parts: ANXIETY and AROUSAL.
Anxiety is fear, and, fear, Bassham says, can be controlled. Fear in itself is not necessarily bad. In golf, it allows us to plan our shots conservatively. One way of controlling excessive anxiety or fear, is simple experience. Once we have been in a similar pressure situation several times, the negative characteristics of fear are reduced.
The second part of pressure is arousal. Arousal is our level of excitement. The lowest level of arousal is deep relaxation. There is a point between arousal (excitement) and relaxation where our mental performance is maximized.
Mentally rehearsing a performance is key to achieving the appropriate balance between excitement and relaxation. Rehearsing your desired performance moments before we begin a golf game will help center our concentration and move us toward our optimum mental level.
Rehearsing that we are playing great golf will tend to relax us when we are facing a pressure competitive situation and help us get to this optimum mental level.
When anxiety and fear are bound to hit in a pressure packed competitive situation, rehearsal can also help by giving us mental experience, leading us to the optimal level when the time comes for real performance.
Larry Bassham tells us that he competed in the Olympic Games twice physically, but thousands of times mentally. When his day came to compete he was appropriately relaxed and won a gold and a silver medal.
In my opinion, the concept of rehearsal, as defined by Lanny Bassham, can also be used very effectively in golf.
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