[Stengapsept]

Notes/Quotes from each chapter of the book
The 15th Club
The Inner Secret to Great Golf by Dr. Bob Rotella

1. Plain and unvarnished: Be honest - is your present way of thinking consistent with the level of golf you'd like to play? Does it help you in the clutch, or does it handicap you? Does it enable you to find out how good you could be? And do you dare to change it?

2. The 15th club: Your mind is your own. You have it within yourself to develop the confidence you need to see what kind of golfer you can become. You have it within yourself to play your best golf in the clutch. You have it within yourself to develop real confidence.

3. This Game Will Beat You Up: If you're trying to improve, you're going to have to improve your thinking in tandem with your mechanics. Otherwise, the game will beat you up. You're going to have to make a commitment to mental discipline that you take as seriously as your commitment to a better swing.

4. How your subconscious sees you: Self-image lives in the subconscious. We're not generally aware of it. Nor do we generally understand how influential self-image is.

5. Real Realism: The first step in changing your golfing self-image is monitoring your thoughts about your golf game. Get a little notebook and carry it around. Every time you have a thought or a recollection about your golf game, write it down. Once a day, transfer the notes to a computer file. You'll begin to see what kind of self-image you create for yourself.

You may realize that for years you've been dwelling on mistakes. You've implanted thousands of negative thoughts in your subconscious self-image.

You can develop a confident subconscious self-image if you begin to monitor your thoughts and make a successful effort to feed your subconscious the kind of data that build confidence. You can accelerate the process if you can learn to attach strong emotions to positive, encouraging thoughts and memories and little or no emotion to the negative.

6. Remember to remember: Keep a journal to improve your self-image. In it, record every GOOD shot you hit every day.

7. Mental gymnastics: Confidence needs a regimen. Write affirmations. The more specific, the better. Make them positive and in the present tense. Examples in book:
• I don't feel as if I'll ever miss
• I have a feeling of being in complete control. It doesn't matter who is in the field, what others do, or what the course looks like.
• No one can beat me if I play the way I can play.
• Don't ever tell me I can't do something or that something is impossible. If you do, I'll know you don't believe in me the way I believe in myself.

8. The problem with perfection: Don't measure yourself against an impossible standard of perfection. No one's thoughts are purely positive. If you can push the ratio of positive thoughts to 90 or 95%, you're doing better than nearly all of your competition.

Work on your confidence and work on your game until you feel you can beat anyone you face.

If you walk onto the course loving your own ability and knowing that no one is perfect, you won't automatically always win, of course. But you're far more likely to walk off the course feeling, "I liked the way I played today. I enjoyed that."

9. What you see is what you get: Visualizing what you want to happen tells your subconscious that the shot you're about to hit is nothing you can't handle. To your subconscious, you've already proven you can do it. When you visualize, you need to be just as intently focused. Block out all distractions. Lying in bed at night is a good time to do this. Focus in detail on how and what you will visualize. Visualize the weather, the people, the round as you would like to play it. Repeat this process for every shot you're going to play, or until your fall asleep.

10. Perception: The first thing a player has to realize after a disaster is that it's up to him how he perceives what happened. He can choose to make something constructive happen or he can choose to turn it into a milestone, hang it around his neck, and let it weigh him down for the rest of his career. "I'm a choker, I'm not cut out for tournament golf, I don't have what it takes."

The player who reacts constructively will not try to evade his responsibility for the outcome. He will ask himself some tough questions:
• Did I have the right attitude before every shot?
• Was I focused on my target, on where I wanted the ball to go?
• Did I stick with my routine?
• Was I decisive?

11. Talking to yourself: Self-talk can be a great tool for improving confidence, but it can erode confidence just as easily. Self-criticism can create a losing syndrome. You want to be your own cheerleader.

• Pre-shot routine: Focus consistently and exclusively on what you want to do, rather than what you don't want. You don't tell yourself, "Don't hit it in the water." You tell yourself, "Aim at the tree."
• Monitor all your thoughts about the game. If you find yourself thinking "Don't three-putt" you have to stop yourself. Use the word "Stop" in your self-talk or imagine a stop sign. Instead say, "Roll it into the hole."
• You want to be focused on the target. Good golfers don't let their self-talk drift very far into technique and mechanics. They may have a single consistent swing thought, like "slow tempo."
• The time to evaluate and criticize your performance is not during a round.
• If you try harder during a round of golf, try to force yourself to hit good shots, you're likely to play worse instead of better.
• Your self-talk has to replace what athletes in other sports hear from coaches. It has to remind you quietly and coolly of where you want to hit the ball and to remind you that, yes, you can indeed hit it there.
• What you hear from others has an effect on your subconscious. It's your job to make sure you surround yourself with people who tell you the right things.

12. The cradle of your confidence: The short-game shots, the ones you hit with anything from an 8-iron to a putter, are the ones that most often determine how well you'll score. Golfers with good wedge games and good putting games tend to be confident golfers because they know that come what may, they can score.

Short irons/wedges: A lot of players are quick to believe that their putters are the problem when often the problem lies as frequently with the short irons and wedges as it does with the putter.

• If you are not knocking them inside ten feet from 100 yards out in the fairway or inside 3 feet from around the green, the problem isn't the putting, it's the wedge play.
• Of the four basic short-game shots, the pitch is by far the most important.
• If your pitching, bunker play and chipping are not what they ought to be, you need to improve them.

Putting: It will be most effective if your routine gives you a clear mind.

• Your routine must be decisive.
• Rely on your first read
• Focus only on the target - not the stroke or the mechanics or speed
• Look at the target...look at the ball...let it go.
• Always putt to make it
• Acceptance: Good players believe they're going to make every putt they attempt. But if they miss, they have the ability to accept the result and shrug it off.

13. Nip the yips: The source of the yips is the pressure, internal pressure that golfers place on themselves. Players who have the yips on 2 foot putts don't have them on 30 foot putts because they don't expect to make them. They don't fear the emotional consequences of a miss. This underscores the importance of learning to play golf all the time with the tachometer well below the red line.

• Work on self-image - make effort to remember chips, pitches and putts that go where you want them to go (practice and play).
• When you write in your golf journal, jot down the details.
• Stop telling people you have the yips. No good player I know of wants to be around someone who's always moaning about his game. What you need to start saying when you're asked about your game is, "Great." If someone asks how your putting and chipping are, you can say, "Getting better. I feel good about them."
• Clear your mind, consistently envision the ball going into the hole, look at the target, look at the ball, and let the stroke go.
• Your mind is your ally. See it as a source of strength. Be proud of it. A strong mind is what the heart of a champion is all about.

14. Confidence and Competence:
• Understand that you own your attitude
• Take pride in your confidence, just as you take pride in the strongest part of your game.
• Monitor your thoughts about golf and stop lying to yourself in the negative
• Stop seeking perfection
• Reinforce your memory of good shots either by keeping a journal or replaying them in your mind's eye
• Let go of the memory of your bad shots
• Visualize the things you want to happen
• Write affirmations that stress positive aspects about your attitude toward golf and belief in yourself
• Perceive your golf experiences honestly.
• Be a cheerleader for yourself
• Give the proper priority to your short game. It is essential to your confidence.