Improving my golf for 2013

Year end is just around the corner. A good time to asses my 2012 golf, and a good time to make some adjustments for 2013.

There is an objective fact that I´m very proud of. At the age of 62, I happen to be playing the best golf of my life.

My average handicap index for this year is below one, something I never achieved before. And I can assure you that it´s for real, as I submit 100 % of my scores.

I owe this to my Mental Method.

I started using it some five years ago, and in 2012 I feel I was able to reach a pretty high level of effectiveness in the use of the techniques and behaviors that allow me to be better synchronized in body and mind for great shot making.

Chilean National Seniors Champ 2012

During the year, I was able to win a number of important tournaments, and when I didn´t win I was almost always in contention.

I won the Chilean National Seniors Championship against a pretty strong field, and three other Open Tournaments (one of them competing against the over 40 crowd and the other two in the Senior category).

In Lima, Peru, in this years´ South American Seniors Championship, I was third in the overall individuals, and won my age bracket (60 to 64 years of age). And I was able to contribute to Chile´s team win, our third in a row.

I also won a couple of other team tournaments during the year.

But, even so, and considering that 2012 has been an excellent golfing year for me, I know that there is a Mental aspect of my game that needs improvement for next year.

In two or three tournaments I had trouble closing out rounds that started incredibly well, and I "folded" a couple of times when in the lead and with just a few holes to go. Now, I compete a lot, and in golf this will tend to happen, and it´s normal, but I feel it happened to me just a little too often.

It happened to me in a recent Senior´s tournament that I was leading comfortably in par, with eight holes to go, until I "lost it", with a run of over par holes, to end up third. And it happened a couple of times in the Southamerican Team qualifying events and it meant some "unnecessary personal suffering" in order to make the Team.

But, fortunately there are effective psychological techniques that allow for the "re programing" of the mind in order to overcome weaknesses like the one I have described.

And, it so happens that in my role as a Mental Golf Coach, I teach my clients techniques to precisely avoid the pitfalls of dwelling on the past, or catastrophizing over the future, when few holes remain in a pressure packed round of golf.

Many of these techniques require work outside of the golf course.

It´s what I call Mental Gym. Golf will hit us hard, and many times will hit us "when we are down". And just as we need to go to the gym to avoid our body getting flabby and out of shape, it is also key that we permanently exercise the Mind, to keep it strong and confident.

What we are trying to accomplish with this is to always be able to think positively, and with confidence and optimism on the golf course.

In assessing my year 2012, I realized that I had not done enough work in the key area of  "staying in the present" in those key final moments in the round, when I´m in the lead and the rubber hits the road.

The good news is that a Mental Gym program is much simpler to do than a physical fitness program required for an effective work out.

Mental exercises require less time, but it´s essential that they are done properly and in a very disciplined manner for them to be effective.

I have been doing Mental Gym exercises for some four years, now, and they have been extremely positive for me in many, many aspects.

But I realized that I had never focused them with enough decision on "staying in the present" in the key pressure moments of a round of golf.

I have recently modified my mental exercises in order to prioritize this key aspect of my Mental game.

It´s going to be very interesting to see the results of this new approach in the 2013 tournaments.