Your 15th Club: The Inner Secret to Great Golf
We all know the legal number of golf clubs you can carry in your bag per round is 14 clubs, but did you know that we all have 15th club we carry all the time? That’s the premise for this great book by renowned golf psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella of “Your 15th Club: The Inner Secret To Great Golf” (Free Press;Pub. Date” May 13, 2008;208 pages;$24.00), gives golfers the insight they need to improve their game by honing the mental attitude and confidence that will allow them to perform consistently at their peak-before they ever step up to the tee. All great golfer’s of our time, Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington, and Trevor Immelman all utilize the 15th club consistently and that’s what makes them stand apart from the rest of the field.
“Your 15th Club”, is the follow up to Dr. Bob Rotella’s previous best seller, “Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect“, which talked about how to play under pressure and the mental aspect of the golf game. “Your 15th Club” is not a rehash or iteration of “Golf is Not a Game of Perfect”, rather it stresses the importance of developing confidence to perform in all types of situations, and once you get there, you have to continue to work on your mental game. If you don’t continue to work on your mental game, you run the risk of slipping back into your old ways of lacking self confidence and breaking under pressure. Two time (2007,2008) British Open Champion Padraig Harrington, didn’t achieve this type of success, until he started utilizing his 15th club and continue to develop it, even after winning his first British Open in 2007.
In the book “Your 15th Club”, Dr. Rotella layouts a game plan that any level of golfer can follow and implement to become the very best golfer possibly, by developing confidence in their game. It’s not about perfecting your swing or using the latest titanium golf club, it’s about developing and building our mental game through positive thinking. By providing tips and techniques such as how to learn from a better golfer, how to overcome fear in pressure situations, and how to keep your head no matter what, “Your 15th Club” exposes the real truth about the mental side in golf under pressure. In the book you get to read some great anecdotes from Dr. Rotella’s longtime client Padraig Harrington, on how his 15th Club helped him progress the ranks of the European Tour, and ultimately win the 2007 British Open.
What are some the tools and techniques you can use to develop your 15th club?
It all starts with your own self-image and how we see ourselves as a golfer. In chapter 4 How Your Subconscious Sees You, Dr. Rotella talks about how the subconscious mind rules our golf game and we are unaware of how it influences our self-image. The first step, is to stop remembering or dwelling on all that went wrong in your golf game, but focus on what went right. Having positive thoughts in your head is key to developing a positive self-image. Your probably thinking, that being positive all the time, is not being realistic at all, because your not being honest with yourself. In actuality, your hurting your own self-image by constantly bringing up the negative images of your game and ingraining that negative self-confidence in your subconscious. You instill in your subconscious the idea of something bad is going to happen, which is the basis for the phenomenon known as self-fulfilling prophecy. How many times have you stepped up to the tee and thought to yourself, please don’t top this shot with my driver? I know I have quite a few times. And the results were almost always a topped tee shot.
Keep a journal of all the great things that happened when your playing golf, and review these items daily. By keeping a journal of positive events on the golf course your helping build that positive self-image and ingraining it into your subconscious, by reliving those positive moments. What do you do when your not playing golf? To continue to build your confident self-image, you need to feed your subconscious positive affirmations. A positive affirmation is a simple, positive thought about your golf game. The more specific your affirmation is, the more helpful it will be. For example, writing “I’m a good golfer”, is probably not the best affirmation. A good positive affirmation is written in the present tense, “I always hit my irons pure from the fairway and tee.”
What You See Is What You Get
The art of visualization is another key to developing your 15th club. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between what is real and what hasn’t happened, but it can be influenced by this positive imagery. Great golfers all visualize their shot before they even attempt it, they know exactly what they want the ball to do, where to go, and land. It’s positive visualization that helps subconscious develop a positive self-image about ones own abilities as a golfer. If you visualize correctly what you want to happen, tells your subconscious mind that the shot your about to hit is nothing you can’t handle. To you subconscious, you’ve already accomplished this. This is something I’m continuously working on getting better, visualizing my shots during my pre-shot routine and before I play.
If you follow Dr. Rotella’s year-long plan which includes some of the mental routines described above, you can begin the journey to becoming a positive and confident golfer. I know that reading this book gave me a better understanding about my own self-image as a golfer, and it allowed me to gain a whole new perspective on developing my 15th club. You may not go on to win the British Open or the Masters, but you will improve your ability to take your game to the next level.
“Your 15th Club: The Inner Secret To Great Golf” By Dr. Bob Rotella With Bob Cullen $24.00
