Picture your mind as an iceberg, and the tip of that iceberg is visible. This is our conscious, or awareness. Just under the water line is our preconscious or dream state. The cosmic vastness of the iceberg or mind is mysterious from our observation. This is our unconscious. Our unconscious contains our instincts, our passions and our fears.
I have touched upon the two things we all have going on within our lives. Our needs or desires are run by the "me" state, as I like to refer to it -- the great trouble maker, me. There are things in our life that we fear losing -- in golf it could be a number of things from a bad score to a bad shot in front of any onlookers and what they will think of us.
There are things in golf that we are equally interested in obtaining: good scores, good shots and recognition. This place in our unconscious is also where long-forgotten memories of personality-forming experiences are held. Often, parts of an iceberg break off and float to the surface. Likewise, bits of our unconscious could break off, and float to the surface of our conscious awareness. This is often the case of what occurs during a round of golf, more specifically it happens during the swing for some of us. Often it is referred to as second-guessing yourself. That really doesn't explain the experience very clearly.
To shed more light on this variety of experience, perhaps you could pick a particular shot that you're uncomfortable with. Somewhere over the past summer you may have developed a shank, let's say. You may have been standing over a pitch with no real difficulty involved. Yet, the ball scurried at a right angle into a bunker, which was not even close to in your way. Your heart felt like it stopped beating for a moment and then you regained consciousness.
As you approached the next shot, and any shot of similar fashion, there lived a neurosis within your conscious mind toward this shot. A chunk of your unconscious iceberg was broken off. Perhaps from a recent past experience, perhaps from an early life experience -- nevertheless there was a daunting feeling hanging around for a chance to take something of value from you, be it your score, your reputation as a player, it's stealing your joy.
What can you do about it?
Implosion therapy. This is a type of behavior therapy where someone with a phobia is directly exposed to a feared stimulus, in this case a shank until his or her associated anxiety state disappears. Highly dangerous if done by amateurs. Just kidding.
What this means is if you picture the absolute worst possible outcome from your next pitch shot before you hit it, and I mean the worse case scenario, you will start to deal with your anxiety toward what is to a great degree out of your control anyway. You can't control what is about to happen, you just have to let it. By dealing with the shot with a visual of the worst you will start to let go. There is a process here of course, if you don't try to fight it, it will have no power over you. You may start to see things differently.
To see the golf swing in a new light go to 7mythsofgolf.com for the swing of the future.
Bill Bondaruk is a PGA Class A member. After traveling the mini tours, Bondaruk taught for a few world-renowned golf schools, including John Jacobs, Jim McLean and Scott Sackett's Resort Golf. He was Director of Instruction at Arizona National and swing instructor for the University of Arizona men's and women's golf teams. He has worked with a list of tour professionals as well as collegiate stars.
