Opinion & Analysis

Improve your game at your cubicle

Published

13 years ago

Nov 7, 2013

Are you wasting valuable time at work, daydreaming about golf when you could actually be using this time to lower your scores?

If you’re like me you probably catch yourself staring at a golf calendar in your cubicle recounting missed shots from recent rounds and replaying some of the great ones you pulled off. What if you took this “wasted” time and used it to focused on improving your game. At your desk. During work hours.

Major James Nesmith used his time in a POW camp in Vietnam to escape to a golf course everyday. When he was released seven years later, he improved his golf game to an astonishing degree. Without touching a club.

The Major served in the United States Military and was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He spent most of his days in a tiny cell, speaking to no one, performing no physical activity, fighting off insanity. He accomplished the latter by playing full rounds of golf in his mind in vivid detail. He essentially tricked his body into thinking it was on a golf course for four hours.

Major Nesmith would imagine arriving at the course, smelling the freshly cut grass and flowers. He would imagine walking onto the first tee and going through his pre-shot routine before hitting a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway. He would then walk after his ball, imagining every step before hitting his next perfect shot.

In vivid detail.

He never missed a shot. He played perfect rounds and so can you, in your cubicle.

Visualization

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What Major Nesmith practiced for seven years was creative visualization. When this type of mental rehearsal is performed in a focused state, it has a real impact on the mental triggers that fire your muscles.

The reason that creative visualization works is that you are physiologically creating neural patterns in your brain, as if you actually physically performed these actions. This type of mental training is directly related to teaching our muscles to react in a specific order and rhythm.

Creatively visualizing what one desires (shooting lower scores), by involving all your senses, has proven to help athletes achieve greater performances. These visualizations involve vivid details of what you see, what you smell, what you feel, what you hear and more importantly what you do (hitting great shots).

The Cubicle Golfer

Now I am in no way comparing our plush sterile cubicles to the conditions that Major James Nesmith endured, but we can take a very valuable lesson away from his story and apply it to our daydreaming.

If you find yourself staring at your golf calendar yearning for your next round on the course, then do exactly that. Go to your favorite course and play a round, or maybe just a few holes.

Try this: Pick two or three holes at your regular golf course that cause you the most torment. Play them: include every detail imaginable, making it as real as possible. Do this over and over again whenever you have 10-to-15 minutes to spare. And when you play them, play them perfectly.

What do you have to lose other than 10-to-15 minutes you’ve would’ve spent staring at a golf calendar. I’d say that’s not a bad day at the office.

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Colby Johannson

Colby Johannson writes from the West Coast of Canada. He's logical, practical and a bit of a smart alec. He's taken his film and TV background and his passion for golf and parlayed it into www.QuiteTheChap.com, which brings simplicity, humor, and personal opinions to help alleviate the torment of this devilish game we call golf. I have a few other words for it as I'm sure you do too.

15 Comments

jc

Dec 12, 2013 at 5:08 pm

man, this works…I was visualizing that I was in a pro-am with Natalie Gulbis and Paula Creamer. It got really slow and they asked if I wanted to skip the back 9 and go back to their place and get in the hot tub….so I didn’t play the back 9..and….well, they made me promise not to tell.

Reply Report comment
- Colby
  
  Dec 13, 2013 at 10:56 pm
  
  Well, now I know what jc stands for. I can only imagine you can walk on water after that experience.
  
  Reply Report comment
Dakota

Nov 10, 2013 at 9:12 pm

Colby is 100% right about visualization in golf, its a key factor to success in golf. I have under went many surgeries that have caused me to be out of the game for over three months, without touching a club. Whenever I am not allowed to play the game for awhile. I visualize shots that I would be faced with when back on the course. When thinking of shots that I am going to be hitting, I Can literally feel my muscles moving in the way that they would need to without actually moving at all. I am a very low handicap golfer so it might be different for me than it would be for a 8 handicap.

Reply Report comment
Juan

Nov 10, 2013 at 12:19 am

I can’t daydream at work for hours doing nothing,I’ll get fired plus I’m not in a prison camp or am I….

Reply Report comment
4pillars

Nov 8, 2013 at 5:54 am

There is no Major James Nesmith.

There never has been. http://www.snopes.com/sports/golf/innergolf.asp or any other POW who did this.

It is a total urban myth.

Shame on you Golfwrx for putting this up.

Reply Report comment
- jim
  
  Nov 11, 2013 at 2:46 pm
  
  there was a great movie called “bat 21” where they rescued a pow (gene hackman) by using his local course distances as a grid to extraction locations…lol
  
  Reply Report comment
David Smith

Nov 7, 2013 at 4:47 pm

This is no lie! I live in Canada and all of last winter i did this same exact thing. I started by plotting out the courses I play on in my mind and how I can change my game to possibly score lower then I played them in my head all winter long and sure enough I significantly lowered my scores, I played some of my best golf the first round after being dormant for 6 months with only indoor simulators to practice on!

Reply Report comment
Kevin Simms

Nov 7, 2013 at 12:04 pm

Nice article, Colby! Visualization is a great tool that I use on the course, but I never thought of trying it in the office. I’ll have to give it a shot!

Reply Report comment
tyler

Nov 7, 2013 at 11:51 am

Humans werent designed to sit motionless for the most part, 8 hours a day. I would rather have been born a caveman being chased by sabertooth tigers.

Reply Report comment
- Colby
  
  Nov 7, 2013 at 2:48 pm
  
  Are you visualizing that?
  
  Reply Report comment
Brian

Nov 7, 2013 at 11:45 am

Wow, I’m 2 under after 9.

Reply Report comment
- Ben
  
  Nov 7, 2013 at 2:20 pm
  
  I’m stuck behind a slow foursome. sitting in my cart, waiting to attack the pin.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Colby
    
    Nov 7, 2013 at 2:49 pm
    
    I would hit into them to speed them up.
    
    Reply Report comment
  - AJ
    
    Nov 8, 2013 at 9:11 am
    
    For a start you should be walking, with a tour caddy by your side, and playing behind Tiger, Rory and Phil!
    
    Reply Report comment
    - AP
      
      Nov 8, 2013 at 3:05 pm
      
      Even more reason to hit right over them. Strange how I’ve gone 18 hole in ones in a row, this visualization exercise is incredible.
      
      Reply Report comment

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Opinion & Analysis

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