I have taken a lot of lessons in the 22 years since I started playing tournament golf. A few were from of some of the “best” teachers in the country, controversial as that term may be.

Interestingly, only one of those golf lessons ever addressed the mental process — how to approach and prepare for shots on the course to achieve an optimal result. A sports psychologist gave me that lesson 13 years ago, not golf professional, and it was also one of the most valuable learning experiences I ever had. But, few of the things we worked on during that first mental game lesson were beyond what a teaching professional can pass on to their students.

I work with sports psychologist and fellow GolfWRX Featured Writer Greg Liberto now, and continue to use ideas and habits I developed as a result of that first mental game lesson when I teach. Although most golfers stand to gain just as much by learning how to approach the psychological challenges a golf course presents from an experienced teacher, most students (and many teachers) seem to focus just on technique.

Like a lot of players, as I’ve matured, I’ve become a smarter golfer. In so doing, I’ve realized that my mental state before and during a round controls everything. A sense of calm and trust can control your rhythm, which controls balance and sequencing, and can thereby affect club head path, speed, face angle at impact and centeredness of contact. Calm and self-assuredness comes from practice and experience, but also from effective self-talk and visualization, and properly addressing negative thoughts when they arise.

Learning how to visualize your next shot and control what sports psychologists like Liberto call ANTs — Automatic Negative Thoughts — is central to developing a golf game that can stand up to pressure. Combine this with performance-based practice, and you can make faster progress and develop golf skills that are rapidly transferable to the course.

Any time you have an important round coming up you should prepare by trying to reduce your stress the day before. I often take a day off before playing in an significant event. Ben Hogan said that he would drive under the speed limit on the way to the golf course regardless of whether it was a tournament or not. Aside from preparing yourself away from the course, most of us know that a reliable pre-shot routine helps reduce stress and increase focus over the ball. Any good routine starts with the player standing behind the ball where he or she assesses the conditions and visualizes the desired ball flight. A golfer has to be able to see the ideal shot based on the conditions to execute it.

After visualizing the shot, the player should rehearse the motion that will produce that shot. How a golfer goes about aiming after that can be a matter of style, but it shouldn’t take long, and he or she should remain engaged with the target. Finally, the player needs to trust his practice swing and hit the shot he saw from behind the ball. The key is keeping the image of the ball flight in your mind’s eye while you are standing over the ball.

I’ll leave you with an example from a lesson I taught one of my students this year. One of my more talented juniors, we’ll call him Billy, came to me early in the season for a playing lesson. I met him on the range, where he seemed happy and calm, and was hitting the ball very well. It was a cold day and our course is a links layout that can be very windy in the spring. The temperature was barely 50 degrees and the wind was blowing close to 20 mph as we headed to our first hole.

Billy’s tempo changed on the first hole. He was rushing and not spending a lot of time behind the golf ball before hitting it. He wanted to impress me, and the wind was also probably making him feel he had to swing harder. We worked for the next several holes on having him settle down and think his way through shots before pulling a club and making a rhythmic swing.

We finally reached No. 8, a long par 3 over a 120-foot gorge. You have no other choice than to hit a good shot at High Bridge Hills’ 8th hole — there isn’t a bailout area anywhere on the hole. The shot was playing 174 yards into a crosswind that was quartering into us and to the right. We began talking our way through the shot, how the wind would affect it and what club to hit. Knowing he had to hit a 4 hybrid, I asked Billy what club he wanted to hit and his first words were, “I can’t hit my hybrid, it won’t get there.” The visually intimidating shot over the gorge and the wind had already beaten him.

I asked him how far his 3-wood went and he said 210 yards. I noted that hitting the ball long would leave him with a difficult downhill pitch. Then I asked him how far he hit his 4 hybrid and he said 195. I asked him to pull the 4 hybrid and stand behind the ball. He did, and then I told him to see the ball starting at the left side of the green and gently fading to land on the green pin high. Then I asked him to take a smooth practice swing that would produce that shot. He took two swings, after which I told him to trust that the swing he just rehearsed would make the ball fly to his target. He set up and hit the ball flush with a smooth, balanced swing. The ball flew perfectly, the wind pushing it slightly from left to right until it landed softly 15 feet from the flag.

Teachers live for the smile Billy gave me after hitting that shot. It came as no surprise that he felt so good after that that he holed the putt.

Until 25 years ago, good golf psychology was considered an intangible that players simply either had or didn’t. Later it became the realm of professionals — something that only a few sports psychologist like Greg Liberto, Dr. Dick Coop or Dr. Bob Rotella were able to grasp and communicate to their privileged students. Many of the newest generation of golf teachers, however, have read many of these experts’ books and have adopted their teachings in their own development as players. If you can find a teacher who has implemented mental coaching as an integral part of their playing and teaching, chances are you will get more out of their instruction and achieve your playing goals faster.