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Golf Mental Game Articles

Science-backed guides on the mental game of golf from Sandy Dunlop, author of The Golfing Bodymind and founder of Better Game Golf.

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The Golfing Bodymind — Introduction · Sandy Dunlop's guide to why your mental game breaks down

Why Your Golf Posture Is Built Before You Step on the Course

Most golfers think about golf posture as something they fix on the range or correct mid-round. In my experience, that is far too late. The body you bring to the first tee is the body you have been usi...

golf posture16 min read4 Jun 2026

Why Every Golfer Needs a Model, Not Just Tips — And How to Find Yours

Most golfers don't improve because they collect tips with no framework to organise them. I've seen this for decades. A golfer reads a magazine, watches a YouTube video, gets a nugget from a playing pa...

golf improvement framework19 min read30 May 2026

The Two-Pillar Approach to Golf Improvement: Golfing Bodymind and Alexander Golf

If you want to understand how the alexander technique golf swing actually works, you need to start with a radical idea: your swing problems don't live in your swing. They live in how your mind and bod...

alexander technique golf swing19 min read28 May 2026

The End Gaining Trap: What Aaron Rai's Win Teaches Every Golfer

End gaining in golf is the silent killer of great rounds. It's what happens when your mind locks onto the outcome... the score, the win, the career-best number... and loses contact with the process th...

end gaining golf18 min read24 May 2026

Can You Change Your Golf Game? What Leadbetter Got Right (and Wrong)

Can you change your golf game? I mean really change it... not just tinker around the edges, but transform the habits of a lifetime and perform at a level beyond what you ever thought possible? David L...

can you change your golf game18 min read19 May 2026

Nick Faldo's Two Years in the Dark: The Mental Side of a Total Rebuild

The Nick Faldo swing rebuild is one of the most remarkable stories in professional golf. In 1985, a man who had already won 13 times on the professional circuits, including a win at the Heritage in th...

nick faldo swing rebuild19 min read18 May 2026

The Problem Nobody in Golf Would Talk About

Here's the problem I set out to solve over forty years ago, and it's still the problem most golfers won't address honestly. When I was playing competitive amateur golf across Ireland, Scotland, and En...

mental game golf17 min read14 May 2026

How to stay relaxed while playing golf

Golf relaxation is not something you achieve by telling yourself to relax. That instruction, so often whispered between shots, activates the very cognitive machinery that produces tension. True relaxa...

golf relaxation17 min read7 May 2026

How to Stay Focused Between Shots

Golf focus between shots is the single most neglected skill in the mental game. Most golfers obsess over the pre-shot routine or chase the elusive flow state, but neither addresses what happens in the...

golf focus between shots19 min read30 Apr 2026

Golf Flow State for High Handicappers

The golf flow state is not reserved for touring professionals. That belief alone keeps more golfers locked out of peak performance than any swing flaw ever could. In three decades of coaching and writ...

golf flow state18 min read29 Apr 2026

The Victory You Couldn't See: How Rory McIlroy's Brain Won the Masters

When people ask me about Rory McIlroy's Masters mental game, they usually want to know about the shots, the putts, the moments of brilliance on camera. But I believe the greatest achievement in last y...

golf bodymind Masters performance15 min read25 Apr 2026

How to Play Golf Without Fear

Learning how to play golf without fear starts with understanding that fear on the golf course is not a character flaw, a mental weakness, or something you need to bulldoze through with positive thinki...

how to play golf without fear20 min read25 Apr 2026

How to Build a Golf Pre-Shot Routine That Holds Under Pressure

A golf pre-shot routine that works on the range but collapses on the first tee of a medal round is not a routine at all. It's a performance. The routine that holds under pressure is one that regulates...

Golf Pre Shot Routine21 min read23 Apr 2026

Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted — and Matt Fitzpatrick Proved It

We live in an era where you can measure almost anything in golf. Trackman, force plates, 3D imagery, Gears, Whoop straps... there are numbers all over the place. But as Einstein told us, not everythin...

golf under pressure20 min read20 Apr 2026

Golf and Anxiety: How the Course Trains Your Nervous System

Golf anxiety pressure is not a flaw in your character. It is your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do... responding to perceived threat. The golf course, with its social exposure, ...

golf anxiety pressure22 min read16 Apr 2026

Fear-Based Swing Patterns: How Anxiety Changes Your Technique

When golf and anxiety collide, the damage isn't just in your head. It's in your grip, your posture, your shoulders, and the rushed tempo that ruins an otherwise solid swing. Most golfers assume their ...

golf and anxiety21 min read14 Apr 2026

Why Do Golfers Get the Putting Yips?

The golf putting yips are not a character flaw, a sign of weakness, or evidence that you've somehow forgotten how to putt. They are a nervous system event — a deeply patterned protective response wher...

golf putting yips19 min read7 Apr 2026

Choking in Golf — Why It Happens and How to Stop

Choking in golf is the sudden, involuntary collapse of skilled performance under pressure. It is not a character flaw. It is not weakness. It is a predictable neurological event where the prefrontal c...

Choking in Golf18 min read3 Apr 2026

How to Stop the Yips in Golf

The yips are not a technique failure. They are a nervous system event — a freeze response triggered by the autonomic nervous system when the brain perceives a threat that doesn't actually exist. If yo...

how to stop golf yips18 min read30 Mar 2026

Golf First Tee Nerves — The Nervous System Explanation

Golf first tee nerves are not a character flaw, a sign of weakness, or evidence that you lack competitive fibre. They are a precise, predictable activation of your autonomic nervous system (ANS) — spe...

golf first tee nerves17 min read27 Mar 2026

How to Trigger Flow State Before a Round

What we're focusing on here is not just "warming up," doing a few stretches and hitting a few shots — but recognising that there is work to be done on the ideal state of mind you bring to the competit...

golf pre round routine mental19 min read25 Mar 2026

Golf Flow State: How to Get In the Zone

A golf flow state is what happens when mind and body are so fully integrated that you perform with an ease and efficiency you barely thought possible. It's not about being Rory McIlroy or Scottie Sche...

golf flow state20 min read22 Mar 2026

Why Your Best Golf Happens When You Stop Trying

Every golfer who overthinks knows the frustration: you sense something is wrong in your swing, you try to fix it, and things get worse. The path to an effortless golf swing is not what you expect — it...

effortless golf swing17 min read20 Mar 2026

How to Stop Overthinking Your Golf Swing

To stop overthinking your golf swing, shift your focus from conscious control to developing integrated, habitual movement patterns. Adopt a systems thinking approach that incorporates techniqu...

stop overthinking golf swing21 min read9 Mar 2026