Louis Oosthuizen and The Red Dot!
Louis Oosthuizen the 2010 Open Champion illustrated how a simple mental golf technique can help win a major championship.
He painted a red dot on his golf glove that reminded him, whenever his mind wandered, to focus on the task. Since the dot was visible as soon as he took his grip for a shot he was able to block all distractions and concentrate on one shot at a time.
It worked in spectacular style as he won by 7 strokes.
It will be very interesting to see how many other players adopt this idea and also to see when the glove manufacturers pick it up and incorporate a dot or a swing thought.
UPDATE 20th July 2010
It seems that the red dot on Oosthuizen’s glove was something specifically intoduced to him for The Open Championship.
He has been working with sports psychologist Karl Morris who walked 9 holes with him in the previous weeks tournament at Loch Lomond and he thought that “It was clear that mentally, he was a mess.” They worked together on a way in which Oosthuizen could “learn when to concentrate fully on the task at hand and when to switch off.”
Morris explains further how it works “The key to it all was the red spot we marked on his glove, which Louis referred to a couple of times after he had won The Open. That was designed to act as his trigger, in the same way that the referee’s whistle concentrates a player’s mind in football. The idea is that Louis would look at that spot as the beginning of his pre-shot routine and use it as his whistle. I watched him closely at St Andrews and it was noticeable how well he put that into practice. He looked totally focused before every shot but a lot of people remarked on how relaxed he looked for the rest of the time. It is impossible to keep your concentration at peak level for five hours, especially under the pressure that comes with leading a Major championship.”
