Practice For the Mind

Video Transcript

I have worked with hundreds of professional athletes and one of the relationships that I would like to reveal is that they practice in the following proportions. They do two-thirds physical practice and one-third mental practice. What do I mean by mental practice; visualization and mental rehearsal, the actual thinking through of the game or the game plan. Sam Snead talked about blueprinting when he went to the British Open; he planned out where he was going to hit shots. In Olympic athlete training, and in professional baseball and football and other training, they try to keep the relationship constant; two-thirds physical practice and one-third mental practice. I do not think that amateur players appreciate this enough. A legend like Jack Nicklaus has talked about the fact that he has never hit a shot without first visualizing it. All of the great athletes were gifted at seeing the shot or seeing what had to be done first before allowing their bodies to go through the program to get the job done. So try to implement what we have learned from the legends of the game, two-thirds physical practice, one-third mental practice.

Dr. Fran Pirozzolo
Baylor College of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza
Houston, TX 77030

Fran Pirozzolo is the mental coach to many PGA Tour Pros and is a performance coach for the New York Yankees. He is also the author of The Putter's Pocket Companion.

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