Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game | Dr. Gio Valiante

Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game | Dr. Gio Valiante | Outstanding

books:

Fearless Golf: Con...

	Fearless Golf: Conquering the Mental Game Dr. Gio Valiante Doubleday, 2005 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Taking the fear out of golf

First rate, informative and easily understood. Insightful, yet not too technical. Many good verbal illustrations to complement text. Very, very helpful.

Outstanding

It's a pleasure to see a sports psychology book written with such clarity and insight. This is top of the line scholarship.

Blaze your trail to the goal

More and more books are being writen about the mental side of the game. It is being seen now as the last frontier in golf instruction, and with good reason: it is the one that even the top players have yet to master completely.

Despite the fairly obtuse title, Fearless Golf does seek to present the reader with a model for just that. This is not through mere "mental toughness", a vague term at best, or through a regiment of psychic gymnastics. Rather, the focus is on fear: its causes, and our preceptions of it.

The model used to describe golfers and their sense of achievement is one of mastery (success for the sake of succeeding and improving) and ego (success for the sake of secondary gain, like fame). Much of the book portrays the fear golfers experience as being rooted in an ego-centered mindset, which perhaps 90% of it is (what if I duff it and look stupid? What if I shoot 100 and look like a complete beginner?). Attention is shifted to encouraging the reader to take on a mastery mindset, where personal improvement is at the center and questions of ego are set aside.

This model has its limits, though. A person could, for example, be playing for mastery, but still be afraid of chunking a shot, not out of fear of how he'll look, but simply because it is a habit that he's afraid will show up. Thankfully, this dualistic model is set aside after it is explained at length for something far more useful: description of a pure, fearless mastery mindset.

In short, the reader is asked to think simply about things. Simply, as in, "What is my target". Period. Not "What have I shot so far", or "I need to keep from slicing it". Just "What is my target?" This is the essence of the message: do not run from fear, but do not give it any place to germinate.

Highly detailed and filled with real cases of every kind of thinking, good and bad, that is described, this book serves as an excellent read on the golfer's mind. It could be noted, though, that this isn't a book that anyone can simply pick up and start to put into practice. Read this only if you have begun to uncover your own fears and the possible reasons behind them. You may not agree with everything in here, but this book should help you in dissecting your own thinking.

for more information click here

Fear no More

Books on the mental game can be disappointing at times and I was glad to see that Valiante provided some meat into this book. Valiante brings a different twist to handling the mental game by focusing his attention on fear. But he doesn't just focus on that one point, he provides insight with what he reminds his clients about. Things such as not playing against a certain score, person, or tournament, but rather play the course (page 91).

I am not a fan of books that have a lot of filler. Fearless Golf has some filler, but it is not something you will feel is a waist of time. Throughout the book, there are sections titled "Words of a Champion". I found this part to be a nice addition and it made the book an enjoyable read.

If you are a competitor who enjoys reading and learning about the mental game than this book is one for your library. I would put this book up there with the likes of "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham and "The Inner Game of Tennis" (I think this is better read than the "Inner Game of Golf") by Tim Galdwey.

for more information click here

Not bad, but not great either.

I bought this and Pia Nilsson's "Every Shot Must Have a Purpose" at the same time, and I found Pia's book to be much better from a standpoint of having practical information that you can start using on the practice tee and on the course. This book was more academic and less practical. However, I did think that many of the ideas he presented apply not just to golf but to life, and from that standpoint the book had value to me as an inspirational or self-help type book. On the other hand, I think his golf-related ideas could have been presented in a book of half as many pages.

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6

products you might be interested in