Who is Using Golf Hypnosis for Golf Improvement?

So who’s using hypnosis to improve their golf performance – apart from Tiger Woods and maybe Phil Mickelson? Well, taking first things first, it’s difficult to be sure who’s using hypnosis because most people who do don’t want to let on. Why’s that? Well firstly, they want to keep the competitive edge that golf hypnosis gives them to themselves. Secondly, although it’s becoming acceptable for a top golfer to admit to using a mind coach, their marketing people are still wary of saying they use golf psychology or, worse still, hypnosis – that’s all to “new age.” You only have to look at the comments of Angel Cabrera, a real man’s man, after he won the Masters, “Now I don’t have a sports psychologist and I don’t smoke.”

If a golfer won’t tell you he’s using hypnosis, then what are the signs to look for to know he or she is? Well let’s take Tiger Woods as our first example. I’ve not heard him say that he uses hypnosis or read anything that confirms that he’s admitted it. However, just watch the controlled and methodical series of blinks he makes just before stepping into every shot. If that’s not a hypnotic trigger or anchor, I had better hand back my Hypnotherapy Diploma and my NLP certificates. It’s clear to me that he’s using that trigger to enter self hypnosis once he’s decided on the shot he’s going to make. The self-hypnosis quiets his conscious self-talk and leave his unconscious golf programming to execute the shot.

Now Tiger must have learned this from Jay Brunza, his mind coach from the age of 13. From what I’ve read, Dr Brunza followed up his Ph.D. in Psychology with a long career as a psychologist with the US Navy including a period as a combat stress psychologist, before working as a sports psychologist. This brief extract from Golf Digest, in December 2002, appears to confirm Tiger’s training included hypnosis

"Woods' ability to produce peak performance by 'willing myself into the zone' is unprecedented. And at age 13, Tiger began mental training with Dr. Jay Brunza, a family friend and psychologist. Among the techniques Brunza used were subliminal tapes and hypnosis. 'The first time Jay hypnotized Tiger, he had him stick his arm straight out and told him that it couldn't be moved, 'Earl [Tiger's father] says. 'I tried, but I couldn't pull it down. [Tiger says hypnosis is] 'inherent in what I do now.'"

Thinking about all this, I just wish a few other top golfers would admit to using hypnosis for golf improvement then I wouldn’t have to keep talking about Tiger Woods.

Come on Phil Mickelson, it’s obvious you’re using self-hypnosis; you couldn’t just keep smiling through adversity like that without hypnosis, now could you. Why not sit down, relax a bit more and tell us all about it. Now!