WHAT YOU SAY IS WHAT YOU GET

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
-Norman Vincent Peale





Whether you are a professional golfer, a low handicap amateur, or a weekend links warrior, what you say to yourself before, during, and after a round will determine in large part which numbers you put down on your scorecard at the end of the day.

What you say to yourself will also determine how much you enjoy the game.

The words that you silently say to yourself inside your headand sometimes blurt out in negative bursts of emotionstring together to form the thoughts you have about yourself as a golfer and your thoughts on each and every shot. Over time, your thoughts become your beliefs. Words become thoughts, thoughts become beliefs, and all this self-talk directly and powerfully influences how you perform on the golf course and in the world.

The study of words is called linguistics. This book is about the linguistics of golf. Its about the power of words and their impact on every aspect of your golf game, and perhaps not so incidentallyyour life.

Your Body is a Puppet to your Mind
Your body is an instrument of your mind. Your mind sends moment-by-moment word commands telling your muscles what to do. In every golfing situation from driving to putting, your muscles are literally waiting for their orders.

Its critical that you understand this: once your muscles receive the word commands you send them they cannot not carry them out.

This book is about examining the moment-by-moment words you say to yourself on the tee box, in the fairway, and on the green. Its about assisting you with the discovery of what beliefs, thoughts, and words are controlling your muscles. Its also exciting to know that by simply substituting other words, thoughts and beliefs your entire game can be transformed!

The Golf Talk idea is to design personal, empowering words and phrases to say to yourself, and then practice them before, during, and after play. If you transform the way you speak to yourself you will be shifting from fear-based, negative, sabotaging talk to Winning Golf Talk.

NEW GOLF SWINGS
NEW BELIEFS
NEW THOUGHTS
NEW WORDS

FIRST, before you can begin to change the words inside your head, before you can alter what you are saying to yourself, youve got to become SUPER AWARE of the words, thoughts and beliefs currently tape-looping their way through your mind. Remember this:

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY TO YOURSELF!
The word watch is carefully selected. You want to make a new habit of watching, of observing, of noticing the things you are saying to yourself off the course and on. Only through awareness can you make the needed changes that are going to be so critical to a shift in your Golf Talk paradigm.

Just recently I was on the 16th hole of a particularly good round when my playing partner said, This hole is my waterloo; I always screw up when I get to the 16th. On automatic, I too hastily agreed saying, Yeah, its a screw-up hole for me too. But because I have trained myself to WATCH WHAT I SAY TO MYSELF, I quickly reversed myself and added: I mean, it used to be tough for me too, but not any longer. I parred the hole.

SECOND, along with being SUPER AWARE of what you are saying to yourself, the next step is to begin to alter, perhaps dramatically alter, how you speak to yourself as a golfer in general, and at every moment before, during and after play. Its going to start with changing your golfing words, thoughts and beliefsyour golfing paradigm.