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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Pre Shot Routine Tests

Use the feedback from these three tests to decode your natural performance style for the execution phase of the golf swing.

  • Feel - quiet over the ball, then explode into action
  • Rhythm - like a dance - always move to your inner tempo
  • Visual - need clear pictures and let the body produce the movements

The three tests that you will use here are hitting a shot with your eyes closed. Hitting a shot from complete stillness. Hitting a shot from constant motion. There is no one definitive answer, but if you pay attention to your movements, or have someone else watch you, you should get a good idea as to what your performance style will be. Watch the videos on Feel, Rhythm, Vision to learn how to use this new information.

For more details on this system, check out Dr. Bill Campbell's program "Hard Wired for Golf"http://hardwiredforgolf.com/

Tags: Mental Game

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This video is the test for determining your pre-shot routine.

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So in this video we're going to go over a way that you can kind of get a gas or at least

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determine or try to determine what's your best performance style.

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Now this is a little bit of an art more so than a science, but I'll give you three different

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ways that I like to use that I've learned from Dr. Bill Campbell and they seem to work fairly

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well.

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So the first test that we're going to go through is the eyes closed test.

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Now as it sounds, you're basically going to set up to the golf ball and then when you're

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about ready to swing you're going to close your eyes and you're going to swing.

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So if you want to, if you're trying this on the range and you're watching this on your

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smartphone, go ahead and try hitting a few balls with your eyes closed and press pause and then

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come back and kind of learn the answer.

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So assuming you hit a couple balls, I don't really care how well you hit them.

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That's not really the purpose of this.

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The purpose is to figure out what part of your brain you're trying to access.

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So the important question is how did you know where the golf ball was?

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What you'll find is that visual golfers will tend to actually say, you know what I could

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see a clear picture of where the golf ball was and I just tried to hit it.

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Field golfers will kind of almost try to, they'll either say that they trust their positions

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like they'll say I just trust where my body was or they'll actually, you'll see them

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kind of touch the ground, you'll see them maybe even nudge the ball though kind of really

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be engaged with what they're feeling that way.

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Rhythm golfers will tend to say, hey, I just kind of went one, two and trusted that the

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ball will get in the way or they'll basically, you know, they'll say that, oh I just

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just trusted the ball will get in the way.

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Something like that where they make it sound like it's just a one motion that's got no

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start, no end and the ball's just going to be hit.

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So field golfers are very aware to what they're feeling, you know, pressures as far as

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what muscles are active, where their joints are all that stuff and visual golfers, they're

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just, they're seeing it.

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They're painting a picture.

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So the next one we're going to do and we're going to use a couple different drills that

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will help us identify what your pattern might be.

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So the next one we're going to do is the stillness drill.

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So basically there's two different versions of this.

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One, you're going to get over the golf wall and then you're going to try to go from a complete

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stop.

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So nothing moving, just one moment of calmness and then you're going to try and swing.

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The other version is you're going to tie in your breath.

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So you're going to get perfectly calm.

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You're going to take a deep belly breath and then when you get towards the end of the

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exhale, you're going to go ahead and swing.

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Now if you are a field golfer, this will tend to feel very, very comfortable because

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it kind of creates that moment of calmness for the sensations and your body to yell a little

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louder.

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If you're a rhythm golfer where you tend to kind of go off of counts and feeling tempo

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and sequencing, this is going to be torturous.

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If you're a visual golfer, what's going to happen is you're going to start to feel a little

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bit anxious like you've lost sight of where your target is.

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So you may even find yourself glancing to look back at the target.

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So again, we're just using these as pieces of information.

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So you got your eyes closed your earl and then you got your stillness drill.

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Now the opposite is going to be continuous motion.

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So basically what you're going to do is you're going to have everything kind of moving.

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So you're marching, you're wiggling, everything's moving and then you're going to swing

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without stopping.

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If you're a field golfer, this is going to feel terrible because you're going to want

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that little moment of calmness.

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If you're a rhythm golfer, this will actually feel pretty good.

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Maybe not the part of marching, but you'll feel pretty loose and free swinging from

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something that's already in motion.

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And then if you're a visual golfer, again, you will tend to glance a lot at the target.

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So you'll be kind of going like this and then you'll swing out of a look or pretty much

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while you still have a clear picture.

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So all this marching is going to be a little distracting for you.

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So basically the eyes closed, you're going to pay attention to how did you know when the

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ball was there or where the ball was.

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If the stillness drill, if you like it, there's a good chance you're a field golfer.

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If you don't, depending on why you don't like it, you could either be visual or rhythm.

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And then the continuous motion drill, you're probably a rhythm golfer.

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If you like it, if you're a visual, again, there'll be different reasons than if you're

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feel as to why you don't like it.

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But factoring that in, you can then design your pre-shot at routine for the part of your

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brain that you want to use the most.

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And I've found this to be really helpful for golfer's holding up under pressure.

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