Strengthen Your Mind on the Practice Green.
Put four balls around the hole, one foot away, and putt them all out. Put the balls around the hole again, but two feet away, and putt them all out. Do the same from three feet, then four feet. The catch? If you miss a putt you have to start over.
This isn't a drill to teach you how to sink short putts. It's a drill to teach you how to deal with pressure.
Odds are you'll make the one-footers and the two-footers. It isn't too hard to make the three-footers, either. But when you get to the four-footers, the screws tighten. Miss one, and you start over. All the good work you've done is for naught. And if that's how you think about it, you'll miss, guaranteed.
You could step on the green for the first time, drop a ball four feet from the hole, take a quick look, and knock it in. Easy as pie. When that same putt is the fifteenth in a streak, and there's a price to be paid if the streak gets broken, you'll think it's a different putt. It's not. You must learn to regard every putt with equal importance.
There's more pressure on some shots than others, but it's pressure you create for yourself. You feel it, and the pros feel it when they're in contention on Sunday afternoon. After all this good work you've done, you don't want to blow it. You do that, you save your good work, by developing a strong mind.
A strong mind doesn't mean the absence of pressure, it means the mastery of pressure. It means you've found ways to put yourself under pressure and you've practiced succeeding under pressure. You've learned that when pressure comes, you have the strength to not let it deflect you.
Everyone wants to have a strong mind, but you don't get one for the asking. On-the-spot mental gimmicks that sports psychologists try to sell you are no substitute for mental strength. Unless you have a foundation of mental strength, none of the gimmicks will do the job. If you have a strong mind, you don't need them.
The best way to develop a strong mind is to practice with a strong mind. It's hard to do. It demands more of you than correcting a technical flaw does. But if you accept the challenge, your game will improve beyond what you thought was possible.
Bob Jones is dedicated to showing recreational golfers the little things, that anyone can install in their swing and game, that make a big difference in how they play. See more at www.bettergolfbook.com