Psychology

Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game

The best players know that golf is a game of confidence, and most important, concentration–the ability to focus and block out distraction. The goal of achieving clear thought is also at the heart of Buddhist teachings. In his highly original and groundbreaking book, noted PGA coach and Buddhist instructor, Dr. Joseph Parent, draws on this natural connection and teaches golfers how to clear their minds, achieve ultimate focus, and play in the moment for each shot.

Zen Golf presents a simple system for building “mental game mastery.” Dr Parent’s unique PAR Approach (focusing on Preparation, Action, and Response to Results) guides golfers with specific techniques for each aspect of their games. In chapters such as “How to Get From the Practice Tee to the First Tee”, “You Produce What You Fear”, and “How to Enjoy a Bad Round of Golf”, the author shares a personal teaching regimen that has helped improve the games of professionals and amateurs alike. By combining classic insights and stories from Zen tradition, Zen Golf helps eliminate the mental distractions that routinely cause poor shots and loss of concentration, allowing golfers to feel in “the zone” that professionals have learned to master.

Clear, concise, and enlightening, Zen Golf shows golfers how to prepare for, execute, and equally important, respond the results of any golf shot. A different approach to golf instruction, this book shapes ancient philosophies into new teachings.

Your 15th Club: The Inner Secret to Great Golf

All golfers have fourteen clubs in their bag, but the real winners have a little something extra -- that mental attitude that puts their game above the others. Dr. Bob Rotella, author of the bestselling book Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, brings together his skills and years of experience as a golf psychologist to give readers the insight they need to improve their game -- before they ever step up to the tee.

The 15th Club is the tool that golf stars like Tiger Woods use to block out negative thoughts, doubt, and fear. It is what allows champions to perform at their peak both in practice and during the game. Golfers who lack it find the game elusive and frustrating. Confident golfers play the game as they have always sensed they could play it. Now, one of the most renowned golf writers offers up the foolproof methods that will allow golfers at any skill level to give their game that extra boost.

Dr. Rotella provides tips and techniques for how to learn from better golfers, overcome fear in pressure situations, and keep a clear mind, no matter what. He tells golfers that inner arrogance is not a negative trait, but instead is something that can improve performance on and off the course. In order to perform at peak levels and achieve your goals, you must believe that you can win. Positive thinking is an incredibly powerful tool, and it can change the way a player approaches the game. Knowing how to focus on the challenge at hand and understanding your own talent are crucial parts of becoming a confident golfer.

Dr. Rotella provides a detailed plan that anyone can use to build the self-image of a winner.He offers a one-year schedule in diary and calendar form that will incorporate the daily mental routines that he assigns to players on the PGA Tour. This is how the pros learn to ignore negative influences, focus on productive advice, and take pride in their abilities.

Your 15th Club will tell golfers of all abilities how to develop the confidence they need to maximize their physical gifts and defeat the Tigers of their world, whether that world is the PGA Tour or the third flight of the club championship.

Golf is Not a Game of Perfect

One of golf guru Jim Flick's mantras is that golf is 90 percent mental, and the other 10 percent is mental, too. Dr. Bob Rotella, a noted sports psychologist and performance consultant, roots around the golfer's mind to expose--and analyze--the doubts, the fears, and the frustrations that haunt anyone who's ever picked up a club and swung it. Through anecdote and aphorism he suggests how these mental and emotional hazards can be played through, and, regardless of skill level, how teeing off with a more positive and confident outlook will translate into better performance.

Dr. Bob Rotella is one of the hottest performance consultants in America today. Among his many professional clients are Nick Price (last year's Player of the Year), Tom Kite, Davis Love III, Pat Bradley, Brad Faxon, John Daly, and many others. Rotella, or "Doc," as most players refer to him, goes beyond just the usual mental aspects of the game and the reliance on specific techniques. What Rotella does here in this extraordinary book, and with his clients, is to create an attitude and a mindset about all aspects of a golfer's game, from mental preparation to competition. The most wonderful aspect of it all is that it is done in a conversational fashion, in a dynamic blend of anecdote and lesson. And, as some of the world's greatest golfers will attest, the results are spectacular. Golfers will improve their golf game and have more fun playing. Some of Rotella's maxims include:

* On the first tee, a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot.

* Golfers must learn to love 'the challenge when they hit a ball into the rough, trees, or sand. The alternatives -- anger, fear, whining, and cheating -- do no good.

* Confidence is crucial to good golf. Confidence is simply the aggregate of the thoughts you have about yourself.

* It is more important to be decisive than to be correct when preparing to play any golf shot or putt.

Filled with delightful and insightful stories about golf and the golfers Rotella works with, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect will improve the game of even the most casual weekend player.

Golf's Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia

In life you never really know when you might meet someone who will change your life. And more importantly you never know when your influence might change another. This book is about influence. It is about a man who lived in a simple place but had extraordinary insight. He also had something else on his side. He had time; time to invest himself in the life of another who was lost on his journey. This story is based on the thousands of athletes I have counseled and the great mentors and teachers from whom I have learned. I have brought my twenty plus years of peak performance coaching together and compressed them into a story of two fictitious characters; a rancher with a passion for teaching truth and a young golf professional at the end of his rope. They represent each of us in the various stages of growth. For in life we must be willing to coach and be coached, either one alone will leave us empty.

Every Shot Must Have a Purpose: How GOLF54 Can Make You a Better Player

It’s not about changing your swing—it’s about changing your mind: Two legendary coaches give golfers a powerful new approach to the game... and to life.

As coaches to some of golfÂ’s top players, Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott have designed and refined a revolutionary way of teaching the game, with phenomenal results. They donÂ’t believe in prescribing the same stance, grip, and swing to everyone, followed by hours of purposeless drilling. They donÂ’t even believe in beginning with physical technique. Their success has proven to them that a great game begins with a great vision.

Unlike any other golf book, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose offers cutting-edge techniques for integrating the physical, technical, mental, emotional, and social parts of a playerÂ’s game. The bookÂ’s revolutionary pre-shot routine will improve your focus, leading to a golf swing that is not only successful but can be repeated under extreme pressure. Emphasizing the individual golfer rather than a rigid set of mechanics, their VISION54 method takes the frustration out of the game. Why 54? Because they believe itÂ’s possible to shoot a 54 (making a birdie on every hole of a par-72 course) if you have the right mind-set and well-honed intuitive power.

An engaging read for the beginner or the seasoned golfer, Every Shot Must Have a Purpose is inspiration for life, not just the links.

“I have been impressed by Pia ever since I saw her in action in the late 1980’s, first as a player and then as my coach. Pia is open-minded and intelligent and possesses the desire to constantly help others develop... I have been inspired to follow her beliefs and life philosophy.”
—Annika Sorenstam, LPGA

Golf in the Kingdom (An Esalen Book)

Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy's divine meditation on the royal and ancient game defied categorization when it was first published in 1972, and it still does. Instantly hailed as a classic, Golf in the Kingdom is an altogether unique confluence of fiction, philosophy, myth, mysticism, enchantment, and golf instruction. The central character is a wily Scotsman named Shivas Irons, a golf professional by vocation and a shaman by design, whom Murphy, as participant in his own novel, meets in 1956 on the links of Burningbush, in Fife. The story of their round of golf together culminates in a wild night of whiskey and wisdom where, as Shivas demonstrates how the swing reflects the soul, their golf quite literally takes on a metaphysical glow. The events alter not only Murphy's game, but they also radically alter his mind and inner vision; it's truly unforgettable. For a golfer, Murphy's masterpiece is as essential as a set of clubs.

The perennially bestselling golf title, Golf in the Kingdom, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as the "masterpiece on the mysticism of golf," is a wonderfully told romp through the Scottish links, the most beautiful and challenging golf courses in the world where, truly, anything is possible. This audio discusses the essential deep truths about the game of golf and also expands on some new and extremely unique approaches to golf instruction.


John Hannah, an accomplished stage actor, has appeared on television and in the films Madagascar Skin, The Final Cut and Four Weddings and a Funeral.  He has performed the audio production of Michael Murphy's The Kingdom of Shivas Irons, also available from BDD Audio.

The Golfer's Mind: Play to Play Great

For the last decade, golfers of all abilities have been drawn to the writings and teachings of Bob "Doc" Rotella. His books Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, Golf Is a Game of Confidence, The Golf of Your Dreams, and Putting Out of Your Mind have all become classics for golfers everywhere. Weekend golfers and pros like Brad Faxon, Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, Tom Kite, and Davis Love III all read and listen to the man they call Doc because his teachings are simple and direct -- and in the end, what Doc says makes them play better golf.

The Golfer's Mind was actually first suggested by Davis Love, Jr. -- Davis Love III's dad -- who encouraged Doc to write an instruction book on golf's mental challenges, organized by topic. Love thought that golfers could keep the book with them, or at least nearby, at all times. When they needed a refresher on a certain issue, they could consult the book, read for a few minutes, and take away solid guidance regarding their difficulties. Doc heard what Love said, and twenty years later, The Golfer's Mind is that book. From his Ten Commandments (Commandment I. Play to play great. Don't play not to play poorly) to just about any topic a golfer might imagine, this is the ideal way for players to get all of Rotella's teachings. Doc covers topics including:

• Butterflies
• Practicing to Play Great
• The Rhythm of the Game
• Routine
• Setbacks
• How Winning Happens

In the perfect format for the busy golfer, The Golfer's Mind is the concise and convenient quick-reference tool to appeal to Rotella's millions of followers and is sure to become a golf classic.

The Dr. Bob Rotella CD Collection

Dr. Bob Rotella, whose clients include Nick Price, Davis Love III, Tom Kite and Pat Bradley, is firmly established as the premier performance enhancement specialist in the golf world. In Golf Is a Game of Confidence, "Doc" Rotella focuses on the most important skill a golfer can have: the ability to think confidently.

In Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect, Rotella goes beyond the usual mental aspects of the game and creates a mindset about all aspects of a golfer's game, from mental preparation to competition. With a dynamic blend of anecdote and lesson, Rotella helps golfers improve their game and have more fun playing.

In Putting Out of Your Mind, Rotella offers entertaining putting. He reveals the unique mental approach that great putting requires and helps golfers of all levels master this essential skill.

The Golf of Your Dreams offers a programmatic guide for the golfer who is determined to get better but hasn't figured out how to go about it. It is an approach that Dr. Rotella and his clients have tested for over twenty years, one that has been proven to work consistently with all levels of golfers.

Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible

A renowned golf teacher gives golfers a new perspective on the game by combining a host of practical and proven exercises with a whole new way of thinking.

The Inner Game of Golf

Long before Dr. Bob Rotella made tweaking a golfer's head as important as tweaking his swing, Tim Gallwey, who knew virtually nothing about the mechanics of the game when he penned the first edition of this visionary work, understood that even the best technique collapses when the mind cracks under the game's pressure. Gallwey's ultimate insight into the game was that a golfer's mind is a golfer's worst enemy; too much thinking only gets in the way.

The new edition of this groundbreaking instructional continues to preach such "Inner Game" fundamentals as trust, concentration, visualization, feel, and relaxation, and is full of what Gallwey calls "awareness exercises." Much of what he has to say seems obvious in a world in which most good athletes have some kind of psychological guru always at the ready to help improve performance, but Gallwey, with his bagful of anecdotes and encouragement, was one of the first to explore this uncharted territory, and still remains one of the most readable. --Jeff Silverman

W. Timothy Gallwey's bestselling Inner Game books--with over one million copies sold--have revolutionized the way we think about sports. And now, after twenty years of applying his Inner Game methods to the royal and ancient sport of golf, Gallwey brings us this completely revised edition of his classic The Inner Game of Golf, nearly half of which is new material, published here for the first time.
        Even the masters of the game, from the venerable Jack Nicklaus to the wunderkind Tiger Woods, must battle their mental demons to excel in the crucible of competition. How do they maintain concentration under pressure? How do they avoid the mental and physical tensions that can sabotage any shot, from the simplest putt to a demanding drive? And how do they contend with the nagging inner voice that says, "You haven't been playing your best today. How will you keep from messing up on this shot?"
         Here, Gallwey provides specific ways for you to improve the concentration and confidence that keep your insecurities from hijacking your best instincts, your score, and your enjoyment of the game. In addition to the specifics of Inner chipping, Inner swinging, and Inner putting, Gallwey explains why the art of "relaxed concentration" is the fundamental skill for improving every aspect of your game.
         It may seem like common sense nowadays to say that mental approaches are as crucial as physical skills in a good game of golf. But Gallwey was among the first to say it, and he is a pioneer of the modern sports psychology movement. In The Inner Game of Golf, now comprehensively updated, you will find the kind of perceptive and articulate instruction that not only will improve your swing, but, perhaps even more important, will reacquaint you with the pure pleasure of the game.