What happened in this remarkable golfing episode not only clearly confirmed the effectiveness of my teaching method.  It also demonstrated what can be accomplished out on the course when the imagination and the whole of the mental process are under control.

  The control, in this case, was exercised from outside.  It was an experiment in post-hypnotic suggestion aimed at discovering how a player would perform when the mental doubts, fears, and anxieties were divorced from the physical side of the game by specially undertaken measures.

  Here was a man, once a 3 handicap golfer, whose game had deteriorated over a period of years through lack of time and the demands of other interests.

  An earlier experiment, when he had submitted to post-hypnotic suggestion, had proved inconclusive because of serious flaws in the physical side of his game, that is, of course, his swinging of the club.

  So he was brought along to me, and my task in the space of one thirty-minute lesson was to re-shape his swing and give him a delivery.  I was able to do this notwithstanding the limited time available, and before he left me he was hitting well-struck shots in my net with the instruction, and the confidence it had produced in him, fresh in his mind.

  I had no further part in the experiment, but I learned later what happened when he played his round of golf next day.

  First he was told by the hypnotist that he would have no difficulty in remembering what I had told him and what it felt like when he was swinging the club the way I had made him swing.  He would be able to do exactly what I had told him, for the first nine holes and the last five.

  For four holes midway through the round, the tenth to the thirteenth inclusive, the remembering would be left entirely to him.  In other words his mind would be released from the hypnotic control.

  Next day on the High course at Moor Park, he hit his full shots for the opening nine holes well nigh to perfection.  Note that in the half-hour lesson I had had time to deal only with his long game and when he was on the course next day his short approaches and his putting let him down at times.

  Then he came to the four "de-controlled" holes where his game collapsed entirely.  But with the last five holes to play, those five holes which the hypnotist had told him he would play well, he struck the ball straight and far, reaching each green in the regulation number of strokes.

  I have related this story to underline the results to be obtained by relying implicitly on the golf swing once you have given it the essential shape and fitted a delivery to it.

  I am not suggesting for one moment that aspiring golfers everywhere should reach for the telephone and call up the nearest hypnotist.  Let us keep golf in a proper sporting perspective and not take it into an esoteric realm where one man will contrive to beat another by three up and two to play purely because he is the better subject of the two for post-hypnotic suggestion!

  This experiment was undertaken purely to show how much more simple it would be to learn and progress if imagination and fear could be firmly kept under control.

  It clearly succeeded.  It confirmed what I already knew from my years of teaching experience-that no man can do better than his swing and his delivery will allow.  Too many, too often, cramp and distort the swing by letting the imagination run amok.

The Simple Swing

I guarantee you'll lengthen your drive and cut your handicap by 7-12 strokes in just 2 weeks.

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