Your Attention Please!
What every golfer needs to know about focus and concentration
I’ve got some great news for you. The editors of Golf International magazine are back in print with a new title ‘Atlantic Golf and Lifestyle’ and yours truly will be writing for them every issue.
Here’s a short excerpt from my article on Attention Training from the launch issue, out now.
“In our distracted world of news feeds, texts and tweets, more and more people are bemoaning their inability to remain focused on the task at hand and the prevalence of what we might term ‘scattered thinking’; indeed, it often seems the entire Western world is suffering from ADHD!
Distractions of the modern-world (and a lack of self-discipline when it comes to training our attention skills) are only part of the problem; the wider issue is that most people simply don’t understand what attention is – they think it’s all to do with focusing intensely on a single object or task to the exclusion of everything else, without understanding that attention comes in various forms, all with unique strengths and weaknesses, which can be employed or rested according to the situation.
By its very nature, golf requires that you use all of these different forms of attention depending on where you are in your game – i.e. preparing on the range, walking to the 1st tee, going through your pre-shot routine, walking between shots, formulating strategy and so on. In this two-part feature we’ll examine the various types of attention and how to use them effectively – but first, let’s examine more closely what attention actually is.
What is attention?
Attention, simply put, is the ability to focus on certain stimuli or thoughts to the exclusion of all others; it is the concentration of consciousness. Ultimately, what we decide to pay attention to and what we choose to ignore shapes our very existence.
To illustrate this, there is a wonderful anecdote concerning Jack Nicklaus, who always maintained that he had never missed a critical short putt on the closing nine holes of a major championship. On one occasion, during a media interview, Nicklaus was in full flow when he stated, categorically, that he “never missed a putt inside six feet on the back nine of a major”.
At this a member of the press raised his hand and challenged Nicklaus’s assertion, providing details of the time, date and venue at which he claimed he witnessed the unthinkable – Jack missing a critical putt from short range.
Nicklaus, utterly unflappable, simply retorted by thanking the gentleman for his question before repeating over and over again, verbatim, that he had never missed a short putt on the back nine of a major…
Whether he had or not the incident illustrated perfectly the mind-set of the game’s greatest player and the fact that champions consciously choose where to place their attention and thus what to believe; Nicklaus simply didn’t allow himself to believe he could ever miss a short putt on the back nine of a major.
The Golden Bear had no trouble with his memory – he simply conditioned his mind to pay attention to all the important putts he had made over his career”.
Find out more about Atlantic Golf and Lifestyle and read the full article; simply click to access the digital version and turn to pages 20-21
