Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game by Dr. Gio Valiante (English) Hardcove

Description: Fearless Golf by Dr. Gio Valiante The author, a pioneering sports psychologist, has developed a groundbreaking program for conquering performance anxiety. He explains how fear plays havoc with physical motion and presents specific ways to perform even under the most extreme pressure. FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A detailed plan for conquering the FEAR that sabotages swings and ruins psyches, from the pioneering psychologist whose techniques have benefited Davis Love III, Justin Leonard, and numerous other world-class golfers.As Jack Nicklaus once observed, fear is the golfers greatest enemy, inspiring Tiger Woods to "refuse" to give in to this debilitating emotion. It can turn professionals into jelly and dominate the games of most amateurs. It alters swing paths, causes "tap-in" putts to go awry, and transforms a golfer from a brilliant shot-maker on the practice range into an incompetent hack on the course.Most golfers understand this, but do not have the tools to overcome it. Thats where Dr. Gio Valiante comes in. A pioneering sports psychologist, Valiante has studied the sources of an athletes fear, investigated the physiological and neurological impact of fear on performance, and, most important of all, developed a groundbreaking program for conquering it. With Valiantes help and by applying Fearless Golf, Justin Leonard went from three consecutive missed cuts to three consecutive top tens, and Chad Campbell recently moved from 98th in the world to 7th. Davis Love III went from zero wins in 2002 to four wins in 2003, and Chris DiMarco made the 2004 Ryder Cup Team.Emphasizing the need to replace a fixation-on-results with a commitment to mastery of ones body and ones mind, Valiantes approach will not only help golfers reach their true potential, it will make playing every round fun again. Through concrete confidence and mastery drills, he presents specific ways readers can break free of fears grasp and perform at their best—even under the most extreme pressure. With detailed quotes and anecdotes given exclusively to Dr. Valiante from the best players in the game—including Jack Nicklaus, Ernie Els, and other tour professionals, Fearless Golf is the ultimate guide to the mental game, the hottest topic in golf today. Author Biography Dr. Gio Valiante has worked as a mental game consultant to the PGA Tours hottest players, including Chad Campbell, Heath Slocum, Justin Leonard, Davis Love III, David Duval, Matt Kuchar, and Chris DiMarco. He is the mental game consultant to Golf Digest, The Golf Channel, and the University of Florida.Mike Stachura has been an editor at Golf Digest since 1992. He has written numerous instruction stories and served as Travel Editor and most recently Equipment Editor. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Kathy, daughter, Annie Kate, and son, Jack. Review I have had the privilege of getting to know Gio as a friend and a teacher on the PGA Tour. He is the next superstar in sports psychology!"—Davis Love III, eighteen-time PGA Tour Champion"After six months of playing below my expectations, I began working with Dr. Valiante. He recognized my problems immediately due to his vast research on the PGA Tour with players such as Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. In my first two events under Gios guidance, I was a new player! I was playing with confidence and purpose! The results speak for themselves. If you are trying to become a better golfer, I highly recommend that you take this book to heart."—Justin Leonard, eight-time PGA Tour winner, 1997 British Open Champion"What makes Gio great is his immense knowledge, but what sets him apart from others is the amount of passion he has for the great game of golf."—"Young Gun" Charles Howell III, PGA Tour winner "This splendid book is an invaluable and illuminating guide for golfers at whatever level they play."—Albert Bandura, David Star Jordan Professor of Psychology, Stanford University"Dr. Valiantes insights about golf are right on track! He has found a way to embed my personal experience as a PGA Tour golfer with what all golfers go through, and to rediscover the timeless universals in golf, namely that great golf is a process of continual learning, and the importance of pursing that learning in a manner that is FEARLESS!"—David Toms, ten-time PGA Tour winner, 2001 PGA Champion Review Quote I have had the privilege of getting to know Gio as a friend and a teacher on the PGA Tour. He is the next superstar in sports psychology!" -Davis Love III, eighteen-time PGA Tour Champion "After six months of playing below my expectations, I began working with Dr. Valiante. He recognized my problems immediately due to his vast research on the PGA Tour with players such as Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. In my first two events under Gios guidance, I was a new player! I was playing with confidence and purpose! The results speak for themselves. If you are trying to become a better golfer, I highly recommend that you take this book to heart." -Justin Leonard, eight-time PGA Tour winner, 1997 British Open Champion "What makes Gio great is his immense knowledge, but what sets him apart from others is the amount of passion he has for the great game of golf." -"Young Gun" Charles Howell III, PGA Tour winner "This splendid book is an invaluable and illuminating guide for golfers at whatever level they play." -Albert Bandura, David Star Jordan Professor of Psychology, Stanford University "Dr. Valiantes insights about golf are right on track! He has found a way to embed my personal experience as a PGA Tour golfer with what all golfers go through, and to rediscover the timeless universals in golf, namely that great golf is a process of continual learning, and the importance of pursing that learning in a manner that is FEARLESS!" -David Toms, ten-time PGA Tour winner, 2001 PGA Champion Excerpt from Book CHAPTER 1 Fear Is the Enemy Jack Nicklaus once wrote that "fear of any kind is the number one enemy of all golfers, regardless of ball-striking and shot-making capabilities. [Fear] happened to me before my early success enabled me to control my fear." Nicklaus knew fear can take hold of even the most skilled golfers, leaving them not only unable to function to the best of their physical abilities but also dumbstruck by the basic mental mechanics of the game. Nicklaus knew the power of fear from personal experience. It was the 1960 U.S. Open that taught the young Nicklaus the power of fear and the power of focus. He finished second in the U.S. Open that year, a championship many observers believed he might have won. Even Nicklaus admitted he had a chance, until fear got in the way. Leading the tournament by a shot late in the final round, Nicklaus found himself distracted by the moment. On the sixteenth hole, he struck a short birdie putt too boldly after thinking how hard it would be for others to catch him with a two-shot lead. But it got worse for the young champion. Staring at a short par putt with his fellow competitor Ben Hogan standing by, Nicklaus noticed a poorly repaired pitch mark in the line of his putt. He wasnt sure he could repair it under the rules, though he in fact could. In his book My Most Memorable Shots in the Majors , Nicklaus wrote: Excited, anxious and under as much pressure as Ive ever known, I cant focus my mind clearly on whether the rules allow me to repair the ball mark. Also, Im too shy or embarrassed to admit this in front of Hogan or to hold up play by asking an official. So I go ahead and stroke the putt. The mark deflects the ball just enough to spin it out. I bogey, then three-putt the next green. Of course, Arnold Palmer won that championship by two shots over Nicklaus, whose fear of the moment shut down his ability to think clearly and act decisively. Fear is a powerful force. It can be destructive, but it can also teach us. As Nicklaus later remarked, "There are three lessons here, which have stuck with me ever since. First: Repair ball marks as youd like the others to repair them for you. Second: Know the rules. Third: If in doubt, ask." Now, not many of us have the "early success" of a Jack Nicklaus to help us do battle with the demon of fear on the golf course. But it should be at least slightly comforting that even the most accomplished major champion in the history of the game had at times his own struggles with fear. That is a sure illustration of just how destructive and pervasive fear can be. In the context of golf, fear is a misplaced and wasted mind activity, but as worthless as it may be, left unchecked it will be crippling to your chances at success. Fear is a termite or a bark beetle or an ascaris worm. It lives inside the host, devouring it from the inside by living on what the host provides. Gruesome, insidious, perhaps, but its a very effective means of shutting down a system and making it incapable of functioning. Thats what happens to the golfer affected by fear. His whole process for shot-making can be turned on its head. Try this thought experiment: Picture yourself standing on the tee box of a demanding golf hole. Let it be a hole you know well with a water hazard to carry and another down the right side of the fairway. In your mind, picture yourself addressing the ball and looking down the fairway. Visualize the sights, smells, and feel of the moment. Go through your whole preshot routine and setup. Then, just as you are at address and about to hit the ball, ask yourself the following question: "What if I slice?" What happened? How did you feel the moment after asking yourself that question? Chances are, if you were deeply immersed in this little experiment, and if you are like most golfers, you felt a bolt of anxiety or fear shoot down your spine and maybe even into your stomach and hands. Chances are that you pictured the ball sailing off-line, and your mind filled with dreadful thoughts. In an instant, by asking yourself the simple question, "What if I slice?" you triggered your own anxiety and created your own fear. Excellence in golf requires that you make fearless swings at precise targets. Saying "What if I slice?" does not increase the likely success rate. By asking a bad question, you succumb to fear and put yourself at a disadvantage even before youve taken the club back. As Ive interviewed more and more golfers over the years, Ive found that golfers go through a round of golf deep in a conversation with themselves. Sometimes this ongoing dialogue is about swing mechanics (we all remember watching the greats like Nick Faldo or Tiger Woods walking down the fairway making a practice swing trying to isolate a particular move in the downswing). Sometimes the internal conversation is about the golf course and its relative fairness. Sometimes the chatter is about the outcome of the next shot or the way the previous hole finished. The common thread that holds all these topics together is that golfers continually ask questions like these and that these bad questions can be a very destructive influence on the way you score. The fear-filled golfer asks the wrong questions. They are the wrong questions because they elicit a negative emotional reaction. They stall the process of moving toward success, and at their most detrimental actually move the golfer away from success. Heres a quick lesson in who or what youre playing against: It was the most perfect spring day in a part of the world known for perfect spring days. It was Sunday at the 2002 Heritage of Golf Classic at Harbour Town Golf Links on the beautiful island of Hilton Head, South Carolina. The temperature was a comfortable eighty degrees, there was a soft breeze coming off Calibogue Sound, the fragrant cherry blossoms were in bloom, and golf fans came out by the thousands in their customary southern attire to watch and cheer for the best golfers in the world. But the poetry and pageantry of the day were lost on the golfers themselves, particularly those in contention to win. For those golfers in the final groups, there was the prospect of a penalizing golf course to deal with. The same Calibogue breezes that were a blessing to the admiring spectators could gust at any moment and send a golf ball flying into the surrounding rough, bunkers, or salt marshes overgrown with sea oats. Standing between each man and victory was a supremely talented group of competitors, each of whom sought his own glory. On this gentle spring day, there were victories to be had, careers to be made, and for those who had left a bit of their soul at Augusta the week before, ghosts to be quieted. The leaderboard consisted of golfs premier players, including Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III, Billy Andrade, and Heath Slocum. Young Justin Leonard led by three. On the practice range minutes before they were to tee off, Davis Love was committed to catching Justin Leonard: "Im going to make a run at you!" he joked to his friend Justin. Having never played before a crowd that large, tour rookie Heath Slocums mind was distracted by the large galleries, and the prospect of playing with the worlds number two-ranked player, Phil Mickelson. Justin Leonard accepted the challenge of protecting the three-shot lead hed built with the help of a blinding 64 on the second day of the tournament. On the practice range minutes before he teed off, I put this question to Heath: "If the field is thinking about Justin, and Justin is thinking about his lead, and you are thinking about Phil, who do you suppose is thinking about the golf course?" Heath, whose success on tour was due as much to his quick mind as to his innate talent, immediately understood the point I was trying to make: You cannot play your best golf if your mind is preoccupied with thinking about other golfers. To play your best golf, your mind has to be focused exclusively on hitting shots at precise targets. So, on that glorious day in the spring of 2002, while a handful of golfers on the PGA Tour battled each other, Heath Slocum battled the golf course. And although his run at victory fell a stroke short, of all those in contention on Sunday, he shot the lowest final round score. A rather unexpected but interesting pattern that emerged from my studies of golfers over the years had to do with the questions of mastery versus ego that golfers asked themselves; different questions that began a mental cycle leading either to fear or fearlessness. Understanding the import of this requires a short lesson on the workings of the mind, beginning with a thought experiment. For this experiment, take a moment and ask yourself four questions. Repeat these questions word for word to yourself and, after each one, pause a moment before moving on to the next: 1.What is the color of my car? 2.What animal produces milk? 3.Who is the best golfer in the world? 4.What are the colors of the American flag? After reading each question, you no doubt pictured your car, you saw a cow, you pictured Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, and you saw an image of an American flag. In other words, asking yourself questions immediately and powerfully triggered images in your mind. Though simple, this exercise illustrates three foundational mechanisms of human thinking. First, the mind automatically responds to the questions we ask ourselves. Second, the questions we ask ourselves determine where we focus our attention in the sense that, while you were asking those four questions, you were not thinking about politics, the Easter Bunny, or whether your garbage will be picked up on time. And third, the answers to the quest Details ISBN0385511922 Short Title FEARLESS GOLF Pages 288 Language English ISBN-10 0385511922 ISBN-13 9780385511926 Media Book Format Hardcover Year 2005 Subtitle Conquering the Mental Game DOI 10.1604/9780385511926 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2005-05-03 NZ Release Date 2005-05-03 US Release Date 2005-05-03 UK Release Date 2005-05-03 Author Dr. Gio Valiante Publisher Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Publication Date 2005-05-03 Imprint Bantam Doubleday Dell DEWEY 796.352019 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137930265;

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