Take, for example, Tom Lehman. A five-time PGA Tour champion, the 1996 British Open winner, and the 2006 Ryder Cup captain, Tom had stopped making big putts. Eventually, he started getting advice from fans by mail. He enjoyed reading the letters he got from fans and viewed the letters as sympathetic. After a while, he disposed of them. For some reason though, he kept one man’s letter for three years.

The letter was from a fan some might be consider a most unlikely source. The fan had been following Tom for some time and was trying to support Tom during a difficult time in his career. An amateur player of some note, the fan had been considered an excellent putter. At one point, he had qualified for the North Dakota State Amateur championship. Along the way, the fan had gained a reputation as someone who never choked on a key putt.

Book of Revelation

In addition to the letter, the fan sent a book he had written, published, and sells on his Website. The book’s topic was what the fan called hidden handicaps—those things we unknowingly do and think that handicap our performance, like thinking negative thoughts and dwelling on past failures.

The book was based on the fan’s life experiences as a quadriplegic—the unfortunate result of a car wreck at age 41. The fan had had a tough life since his accident. But despite his injuries, he no longer felt sorry for himself.

One day Lehman met the man.  Lehman was in the area anyway and he figured he would stop by and thank the man for the book. Lehman figured that if the man was so tough that he no longer felt sorry for himself, he might have something to offer Tom.

Tom came away from the meeting with a simple insight. The brain can’t process two thoughts at once. Tom had had all these thoughts running around in his head about break, speed, and stroke that it confused him But after talking with the fan, Lehman reduced to one thought and one thought only—roll the ball in the center of the cup. That one simple idea transformed the way Tom approached putting and ahs been benefiting him every day since.

When it comes to golf, we all have hidden handicaps. Tom was thinking about break, speed, and stroke when putting. The combination handicapped his putting in key situations. But Tom could also have been thinking of all the times he had missed big putts in big tournaments, like the Masters or the U.S. Open. Or, the 19 times he finished second on tour. By focusing on one simple thought, he eliminated these handicaps.

Focus on One Simple Thought The fan’s advice applied to putting. But it could easily have applied to driving or his pitching and chipping. Instead of focusing on the mechanics of your swing when you hit a drive, about where your hands should be, and what your tempo should be, think about keeping your take away low and slow.

Instead of thinking about the swing’s mechanics, like what part of the ball to hit, how to swing down on the ball, and how to create a divot after the ball, think just about hitting an on-course target. Instead of worrying about how high to hit a pitch shot and about making first ball contact all at the same time, focusing on one thing: hitting the landing spot you’ve pricked out on the green. Keeping one thought firmly in minds banishes any negativity that might interfere with your shot or putt.

Players of Tom’s notoriety frequently get advice from fans.  In Tom’s case, the fan’s golf tip worked. If he had dismissed it because of its source, he would never have learned what he considers a valuable golf lesson. Golf is difficult. There’s no two ways about it. But by remembering that the mind can only process one thought at a time, you can eliminate our hidden handicaps and put yourself in the right frame of mind.

Tom came away from the meeting with a simple insight. The brain can’t process two thoughts at once. Tom had had all these thoughts running around in his head about break, speed, and stroke that it confused him But after talking with the fan, Lehman reduced to one thought and one thought only—roll the ball in the center of the cup. That one simple idea transformed the way Tom approached putting and ahs been benefiting him every day since.

When it comes to golf, we all have hidden handicaps. Tom was thinking about break, speed, and stroke when putting. The combination handicapped his putting in key situations. But Tom could also have been thinking of all the times he had missed big putts in big tournaments, like the Masters or the U.S. Open. Or, the 19 times he finished second on tour. By focusing on one simple thought, he eliminated these handicaps.

The biggest knock against plumb-bobbing is that it tells you how a putt breaks but not how much. But a computer model developed by Fredrick Haney, Ph.D., a few years ago, is changing the way golfers think about plumb-bobbing. Haney’s model suggests that there’s more to it than meets the eye and that with a little effort you can use it to help determine how much a putt breaks. Improve your putting and you’ll slice strokes off your golf handicap quickly.

The Art of Plumb-bobbing

Before we get into Haney’s findings, lets take a look at plumb-bobbing and how to do it correctly. Here are six tips on plumb-bobbing:

1. Stand behind the ball 2. Extend one arm 3. Hold the grip lightly 4. Align your dominant eye 5. Flex your knees 6. Align the shaft’s longest point

Stand behind the ball so the hole, ball, and your dominant eye are aligned. Keep your eyes parallel to whatever slope exists on the portion of the green you’re standing on. Flex your knees slightly. Let your body tilt with the green’s slope. Holding the top of the grip lightly between your thumb and forefinger, extend your arm slightly.  Let the putter hang freely in your grip.

Next, using your dominant eye, line up the putter so that the shaft’s lowest point covers the ball. Without moving your head, look up at the hole. If it appears to the right of the shaft, the hole slopes left. If it appears on the left, the hole slopes right. If it’s in line with the putter, the hole is flat.  That’s all there is to it.  You could learn all you need to know about plumb-bobbing in the first 5 minutes of a golf lesson.

Determining

Plumb-Bobbing Distance

If you plumb-bob correctly, you’ll notice that the putter makes a point either left or right of the hole on the putting surface. The distance from that spot to the center of the hole, Haney explains, is the plumb-bob distance (PBD), a measure of slope and distance at the ball. On a level putt with no right or left break, the PBD is zero. But for all other putts, plumb-bobbing produces a discrete value. That value is an indicator of how much the ball will react around the hole.

Using PBD, Haney developed a computer model on plumb-bobbing. It takes into account varying speeds of greens, the distance of a putt, and the amount of slope (both sideways and up or down). It also takes into account the effect of friction on a putt. When you first stroke a ball, it first slides and then rolls. Both are considered in the computer model. The force of friction causes the ball to slow down. Haney’s goal was to figure out if you could use plumb-bobbin to determine the true amount of the break.

Computer Model Guidelines

After examining lots of examples and producing numerous charts, Haney concludes that for typical green speeds (9 on the Stimpmeter) and level putts (no uphill or downhill slope), the amount of break varies from slightly more that the PDB for gentle slopes to about 1-1/2 times the PBD for steeper slopes.

The above guidelines assume you’re following the Dave Pelz suggestion for leaving your missed putts 17 inches past the cup. If you like to die your putts into the hole, then you need to allow for about 2 to 4 times the PBD for steeper slopes.

For similar conditions, moderate uphill putts break as little as half the PBD. Down hill putts can break anywhere from eight to 10 times the PBD. Obviously, downhill putts break much more than uphill putts. Green speed has much the same effect as uphill and downhill putts. The break is greater for faster greens than for slower ones.

Putting is about feel and information processing. The better feel you have and the more accurate your information processing, the more your chance of being the kind of putter that sports a low golf handicap and that I talk about in my golf tips. Keep in mind, however, that there’s no magic formula for determining the break on a putt. But by experimenting and using PBD as an additional bit of information, you can improve your green-reading skills.

That doesn’t make me an idiot, idiot.
Thanks to the last 3 people who submitted an answer. All very helpful.

The Golf Channel
The Golf Channel is the brainchild of Joseph Gibbs and Arnold Palmer, who co-founded it in 1991. It offers a unique blend of golf information, news, features, and instruction.

The Golf Channel offers TV specials, documentaries, celebrity interviews, movies, video tours, lifestyle segments, and original programming, including Golf Central, a nightly golf news show and What’s in My Bag. They also have a series focusing on golf equipment, accessories, and manufacturers.

It also offers live tour coverage. Its first live televised tournament was the Dubai Dessert Classic in 1991. Back then, it offered limited tournament coverage. Today, it features extensive coverage of the Nationwide, European, Canadian, and Champions tours, as well as the PGA Tour, LPGA tour, PGA of America, and USGA.

In addition, the Golf Channel offers golf instruction and golf tips designed to lower golf handicaps. Academy Live is a weekly call-in show that gives viewers an opportunity to improve their game by consulting with top teaching pros. Playing Lessons from the Pros provides golf lessons and golf tips from professional players on their off-day practice rounds. Golf Channel Academy offers golf instruction designed to help improve every aspect of your game.

The Golf Channel Web Site
More interactive than the cable channel, the TGC Web site offers its own share of golf instruction including In Their Bag, which looks at what clubs the winner of the latest tour event carried during the win. One such look included a review of what Phil Mickelson carried when he won the Master’s a couple of weeks ago.

The Web site also provides online instruction in the form of articles written by teaching pros throughout the country. The articles cover a wide variety of topics, from the set-up and sand game to the mental game and the basics of golf fitness. They even cover swing theory.

But the Web Site’s most unique feature is Game Tracker Pro. An innovative online instruction tool, it provides in-depth game analysis and pinpoints major playing problems. In addition, it provides a USGA Handicap Index based on your state golf association’s regulations, a calendar, and an e-mail center, called My Inbox, where you can send and receive e-mails.

The analysis tool is user-friendly. It’s based on details you provide each time you play a round of golf. First, you select the course you played at. If the site’s databank has information on the course, a score card with all pertinent information, like the course’s rating, slope, and type of tee, appears on screen. If the course is not in the databank, you can provide the information yourself.

Next you input the round’s key details, such as the score on a hole, number of fairways hit, and distance of your drives, onto the scorecard. There’s room for information on the total number of putts you made, any penalty strokes you received and the number of up and downs you completed.

After the information is saved, Game Tracker Pro analyzes your rounds to see where your problems lie, providing you with a sense of which instructional articles you should read and what you need to work on to improve.

Game Tracker Pro basic is free of charge. You just sign up to take advantage of its features. The site also offers a chance to become a premium member for about $30 annually. The benefits of a premium membership include all the tools of TGC Basic, plus access to other instructional content, such as the site’s Video Vault, which contains more than 2500 golf videos.

Conclusion
Improving your game just got a little easier thanks to the Golf Channel’s help. Offering features like Game Tracker Pro, a practical tool to help pinpoint and correct weaknesses, the cable channel and Web site provide enough top notch golf instruction, golf tips, and/or golf lessons to satisfy all levels of play, from beginners to experienced players.

How many of you can relate to that? She went onto say that if any sort of thought enters her head, even positive thoughts, she then starts trying too hard. If she just swings and hits without thinking then she gets much better results. She believes the problem lies with a deeper lack of trust within herself to play the shot well. I thought this was a great way to lead into this week’s newsletter and I hope that this will help to put into perspective how I believe a lot of you feel on this subject. So what is trust? Simply put ‘trust’ means ‘confidence’. When you trust others it means that you have confidence in them; in their abilities and their integrity. If you do not trust someone it means you are suspicious of their motives, capabilities and their agenda! We all know when a relationship is built on trust and when one is not. Communication is easy and flows and this is also true when you trust yourself. Personal trust is all about having a good relationship with YOU! Your self-talk will be positive and motivating and above all else your actions will effortless. Your mood will be good and any task a breeze. I often talk about ‘playing in the zone’ a term you may have heard top athletes and golfers use; if you do not fully trust yourself to be capable of what you want to achieve, then it will be impossible to achieve this state.

Self-trust is also about credibility; it is all about developing integrity, intent and a capability to create the results that make you believable to yourself and to others. It is about delivering that great shot time and time again and giving it your best. This is where your trust can take a battering. If you play a series of poorly executed shots your trust in your ability will begin to waver. To maintain a good sense of trust in you ability then you need to have the facts to support this. Well I have news for you – even the best in the world do not hit perfect shots each and every time they step up to the ball! This is a game called GOLF – frustrating, fun and above all else it is challenging. If Tiger or Laura Davies have a few bad shots (of course their bad shots and ours are likely to be quite different) then losing trust in their ability to play is only going to compound the rest of their game. It is the same for golfers at any level. If you go out and start a round of golf with the expectations that every swing and every putt has to be great and anything less will send you into a spiral of negative emotions and loss of confidence then maybe you should choose another hobby! Golf is all about how you handle the ‘not so good stuff’ – the good stuff is of course easy to handle. It only takes one or two bad moments to throw your self-talk and mood into a place where making a good golf shot will be almost impossible. This also needs to be put into perspective because if golf was really easy and every shot was great then where would be the challenge to come back and try again? Essentially, it all boils down to the question ‘Do I trust myself?’ When you step up to take a swing at that ball and you do not trust yourself to create the results you seek then your confidence will suffer and along with that so will the shot you take. Whatever decision you make with regards to how you play your golf shot make sure you make your intention to yourself clear and always act with integrity. By that I mean if you do not fully trust yourself and make that commitment to your golf club choice, direction and your capability to execute a strong and confident swing then you will simply lose trust in your ability to follow through. When this happens you will lose confidence in your ability. Thus a downward spiral can begin as you start to create your own reality based on a lack of trust in yourself. It will then be difficult to restore trust in yourself that will give you the confidence you need to play well. It is very similar to when someone else lets you down and you lose trust in that person. It is hard to feel the same way about them again.

If you start to create this self-fulfilling prophecy as you step up to take that swing; a belief that you do not trust yourself to make a good shot will become a part of how you play your game of golf. Then when the result is a poor shot this can often be accompanied by self-talk such as ‘I am no good at this why do I bother’ etc. This in turn will affect your confidence and essentially take a lot of the enjoyment away from playing. I often hear from my clients that they are unable to focus on every shot and that they find it difficult to put previous bad shots behind them; ultimately what will then happen is all this pent up frustration will be taken out on the next shot. The trust in your ability has gone along with your confidence to play well.

REMEMBER: The past does not define your future; unless you allow it! Losing trust in yourself which in turns affects your confidence is not a great plan when golf is ultimately a game of confidence! You are not giving yourself the best of starts to execute a natural and effortless swing if this is where your emotions and feelings are being guided! The good news is that whatever level your lack of self-trust happens to take on board at any given moment during your game; that as a human being you have a great propensity to restore trust not only in others but in yourself. Humans really do want to think and feel the best of others and of themselves. The key is in your ability to ‘forgive’. In the case of a poorly executed shot you can either berate yourself; which means losing trust in your ability and along with that the confidence needed to step up to the mark and take the next shot. This will also encourage you to buy into the belief that you are ‘no good’ which in turn will affect your trust and confidence. SO WHAT CAN YOU DO? You can look at every shot as a BRAND NEW OPPORTUNITY… A GIFT… and approach your swing with the knowledge that you have at some point in your golfing journey made (more than) a few really great swings and shots; so why not use EACH brand new opportunity as a new challenge to do your best? If for what ever reason your shot is not as good as you had hoped there’s always the next shot and the next BRAND NEW OPPORTUNITY! That is the game called golf J

You have the power within you to be your own ‘best-friend’ – it is just up to you to use that ability to support yourself when you need it the most. Give it your best and if that means picking yourself up after and dusting yourself off afterwards and forgiving yourself – then DO IT. Remember it is just a game, a hobby, not a matter of life and death. MAKE EVERY SWING AND EVERY SHOT COUNT AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR SCORE CARD and your confidence! Above all else put it in perspective and ENJOY YOURSELF!