My article in this month in Today's Golfer

How can your personal life affect your golf?

Kieran Harris explains the impact of home life on your game

EAGLE: NEW RELATIONSHIP
A WHOLE WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES

Finding a new love and starting out in a relationship is a wonderful time, the world seems to be full of possibilities, lady luck is on your side, and you feel like you can take on anything. Feeling confident and content in yourself automatically gives you a positive mindset that can quickly be transferred to other area’s of your live, especially your golf game. Use those positive feelings of anything being possible and endless luck to eliminate worries of slicing out of bounds, or missing that tiny putt. Let those feelings (or memories) of how you felt in the early days of love to focus your mind on the good aspects and potential of your golf game and the wonderful opportunities for great shots around the corner the golf course has to offer! In love anything is possible, and you feel unbeatable, so let that feeling transfer into your golf game.

Pro example: Greg Norman - The 'shark' announced his engagement to tennis legend Chris Evert in September 2007 and discovered a new zest for life and golf. Norman's new wife encouraged him to enter tournaments and the two time Open winner finished T3at Royal Brikdale in 2008. He played four majors that year (three were seniors) and had top 10s in all of them. Sadly, the couple separated at the end of 2009!

BOGEY: END OF A RELATIONSHIP
MOVE ON AND RE-FOCUS

Of course it’s not always love and romance, and we’ve all been through dark days when relationships have taken a turn for the worse, and all we want to do is crawl into bed and forget about the cruel world outside. Even though you try, you can’t seem to get your mind to think about anything other than the gaping wound in your chest even when you manage to drag yourself down to the golf course. But not being focused makes it impossible to plan and not planning can ruin your routine, and without a routine your game becomes erratic and inconsistent. Even the best golfers know that at times there are more important things in life than a white ball and a metal club, but being able to switch on and off high levels of focus is ingrained in high level players. Use a pre shot routine to trigger high levels of concentration and focus on the job at hand, and eliminate distractions.

Pro example: Sergio Garcia - the Spaniard's relationship with Greg Norman's daughter Morgan-Leigh came to an end in March 2009. Garcia was number two in the world at the time but has not won a title since and has slipped to 15. Sergio revealed "It definitely didn't help my game, because I felt my head wasn't where it needed to be. I really didn't feel much like playing golf at that time."

BIRDIE: HAVING A CHILD
PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

As life changing events go bringing home a baby is right up there, the sense of responsibility, happiness, love and possibly even anxiety can be a daunting prospect. Along with the emotional pressure such responsibility places upon new parents the physical demands can often be extreme, but one thing is for sure and that is many things such as the worries and frustrations outside of family life begin to take on much less importance as that little bundle of joy becomes the centre of your world, and in other words your perspective on these things changes drastically. We all know how frustrating golf can be and how annoying it is to make a mistake and mess up a promising round, but keeping it in perspective, taking one shot at a time, and seeing any mistake as a change to learn and recover is a much better reaction than throwing your clubs and getting angry.

Pro example: Phil Mickleson - There are numerous examples of golfers upping their games after the birth of a child, but 'lefty' is one that stands out. Mickleson had long been acknowledged as the best player never to win a major, but that all changed when he won the 2004 Masters - a year after wife Amy gave birth to Evan. He's since added the US Open in 2005 and another green jacket in 2006.

DOUBLE BOGEY: LOSING YOUR JOB
IT'S WHAT YOU CAN AFFECT THAT MATTERS

The days of a job for life have long gone, and now it’s not uncommon for many of us to have two or three career changes in our working lives, but still loosing your job can be a painful and harrowing experience. We can experience many emotions including anger, embarrassment, blame, helplessness, loneliness and many more as we try to start over. Friends and family often try to help with phrases like ‘pick yourself up’ or ‘what doesn’t kill you’ and many others, but these are often very hard to use practically. In golf it’s very easy to remember that pulled tee shot last time you played a certain hole or the balls you’ve lost in a green side pond and playing partners often use the same phrases, but by focusing only on the things we can effect we can eliminate negative thoughts and emotions. As with bouncing back from loosing your job, it’s what you do next that counts, so focus on the here and now, and only on the things you can affect positively and forget the pain and hurt of what’s gone before, you can’t change that now.

Pro example: David Duval - He may not have entirely lost his job, but losing your tour card, as he did in 2009, is as close as it gets in golf. The former number one will be surviving on sponsor's invites so the pressure to perform in every one of the limited opportunities he gets will be heightened further. It looks like he may raise his game accordingly and has already recorded a runner-up finish in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.