Trigger your IPS

This week the Royal Golf Club's PGA Teaching Professional, Martin Robinson, gives tips on tackling tricky shots

I CANNOT overstate the importance of being in the correct state of mind to hit a golf shot, not only should it be the correct state it should be the same state every time, whatever the shot, whatever the situation.

Everybody has an ideal performance state (IPS) in which they have been in when they performed at their best, and this will vary from individual to individual.

Some people are at their best when extremely relaxed, some when extremely zoned out and focused, some confident, some even when a little angry!

Try now to relax, close your eyes and spend some time thinking back to a game when you were at your very best. What did you notice? How did you feel?

Try to establish what sort of physical and mental state you were in. The chances are this is the way you have been every time you have played good golf, this is your IPS.

About 15 per cent of the time you are on a golf course is actually spent playing; the rest is the 'in-between time'.

It would be too much of a mental strain to stay focused for the entire time. The trick is to be able to switch on and off at will.

When you switch off after a shot you should try not to think about your game. Only when you are about to start your routine do you need to switch back on. This is where most people go wrong as they fail to return to the correct state of mind to hit the next shot.

You need to find something that triggers your IPS. Louis Oosthuizen won this year's Open Championship in emphatic style, employing just this sort of technique.

Prior to each shot, he spent a few moments looking at a little red dot on the top of his glove, this dot helped him to achieve his IPS by having images and feelings associated with it, he relived a memory and it helped him to feel relaxed and happy.

Think back to your best game of golf and try to find a phrase to associate with the performance, what springs to mind? What would you say to yourself? It might be 'I feel sharp' or it may even be the name of the golf course where you played.

This phrase should be enough to trigger some positive emotion and thus help you to be in the right place to attempt the shot.

It would be a good idea to have it written somewhere where you will see it as you arrive at each shot, such as on the golf bag or the glove.

Your emotional state has a direct effect on your performance, give it a go!