If you've golfed competitively you've no doubt had nerves affect your game! When I say competitively I don't just mean competing on a professional or mini-tour. If you have a $5 bet with a colleague or friend it's still competitive! Whether you're a 27 handicap or scratch you are likely to feel at least some nerves during your round.

For many people it doesn't even have to involve competiton at all. Just stepping to the first tee can cause a serious case of nerves. Maybe it's when you must make a put to tie a hole or to win on the 18th green. If you're standing on the 17th hole in a match and you're 1 down then you have to deliver. Period. If you can't channel your nerves you had better hope that swing you've been grooving for the past 6 months holds up now!

Regardless of skill level and/or on course scenario there will be times when you'll require some way to calm your nerves so they don't adversely affect your stroke/swing.

Have you made any conscious attempts to reduce your experience of nerves in your game? What did you try? What have been your results? Did they work and if so was it immediate? Or did you, like most every golfer alive, simply fill your head full of self talk saying things like, "ok, calm down. Just breathe...there's nothing to be nervous about...hey, maybe he'll miss his putt....yeah...miss-miss-miss!..."

Does this sound familiar?! Have you noticed that this doesn't really do all that much to reduce your nervousness? Unless of course your playing partner does miss the putt!

Seriously though, you must have a means of noticing the onset of nerves and a method for not only calming them but using them to your advantage. How does that sound?

While I can't go into detail in this article on how to transform nerves into actually playing your best golf under pressure, I will provide a few excellent methods you can use right away. They will improve your performance.

Breath is a very powerful state enhancer. What I mean is that your breathing provides deep physiological links to your internal states. When you're nervous you make short, shallow breaths. Quick breaths actually instruct the brain to respond in a "fight or flight" manner. The brain is hardwired to respond to fast breathing by being on the lookout for an emergency. Not the most effective place from which to make a smooth putting stroke on that 10 footer for par now is it?!

Tip #1

1) While waiting for your turn to hit stand aside and follow this breathing pattern:

Inhale - 4 counts

Hold - 5 counts

Exhale - 6 counts

Long, deep, slow breaths. This process interupts the breath influenced aspect of your state and directly instructs the brain to become still. Another adverse affect of nerves is a noticeable loss of feel in your hands. Sometimes you may even wonder if you're even holding the club!

Tip #2

2) Simply hold a golf ball in your hands. Now squeeze it gently and hold for a few seconds. Then release. Then squeeze once again but this time do so very firmly and hold for a couple seconds then release. Roll the ball around in your hand and make a note of how the dimples feel.

Repeat this sequence 2 or 3 times and you will immediately increase the feel in your hands. Nervousness and shallow breathing directs extra blood to the brain, diverting it from your extremities. By doing applying this simple technique blood will flow back into your hands and improve your feel.

These 2 exercises work quickly. Self talk alone can't compete with the psycho-physiological intensity of nervousness. Try them and let me know how well they worked?!

What if there was a way to transform nervousness into a calm, inner confidence? To actually have the onset of nerves "trigger" an inner calm. How powerful would that be in improving your performance? I will show you how to achieve this.

By: Wade Pearse
Wade Pearse is a Peak Performance Coach who spent 7 years applying the most advanced mental game strategies in golf with his clients and in his own game. Visit his website. It is filled with mental game resources you can use in your game right away. He has a mental game ezine and a daily blog you can subscribe to.
Keeping you on target!
Visit the website now=> Mental Game Development and Mastery.

Featured by the golfing directory in the lifestyle section at Resources For Attorneys, a legal resource and lifestyle directory.

Tempo must be the overanalyzed aspect of a golf swing. Why? It is because the concept of tempo is not constant. In reality, there is not one perfect tempo to follow. As you can observe, all the greatest golf players in the world have different tempos, but they are equally successful.

But to effectively set a good tempo for a perfect golf swing, here are tips that you can follow:

1. Practice with your clubs. The best clubs to use when improving tempo are the 7, 8, and 9 clubs. But you can move through your bag and do the same swing with all your irons and clubs. Do it repeatedly until after you have the ability to embrace a constant swing tempo.

2. Be wary of the proper timing. Tempo is nothing but a combination of sound mechanics and the right timing. It is produced with both the arms and the body functioning together to generate the greatest club head speed.

3. Tempo is a mind game. Your tempo should be highly rhythmic. Before you start a game of golf, condition your mind. As your game progresses, always put your tempo on check. More often than not, it is your disposition that influences your tempo or the speed of your club. And to excel in golf, it is a must that you maintain a consistency throughout the game.

4. Coordinate your movement. Good hand and body coordination is the key. To achieve this, allow your shoulders and your arms to execute the swing in a harmonized movement. Then transfer your weight from the rear foot to the forward foot. Do this regularly and you'll get both tempo and balance at the same time.

5. Position the ball properly. Put the ball just within the left heel. Your head, hands, and weight should all be behind the ball. Proper ball positioning will ensure that you'll have solid contact all the time.

With all of these said, you should now be ready to establish your very own tempo. You'll see that this can be the very aspect tempo to hold both your swing and your game together.

By: Anthony Lee
To learn more tips for improving your golf swing, please go to http://www.improve-golf-game.info.

Featured by Resources For Attorneys, a legal resources and lifestyle directory.

How many times have you gotten to the green in regulation only to "three-jack" your putts and walk off with bogey or worse? I have done it more times than I want to think and it is humiliating to say the least!

I have alway looked at putting practice as boring, so I never use to do it. Big mistake that was! The more I ignored my putting, the more strokes I was leaving on the greens from every round I played.

Does this scenario sound familiar? Do you have putting woes that jack up your scores beyond where they should be? If so, keep read as I want to burn in your brain the importance of golf putting and practice.

Practicing your putting doesn't have to be boring. In fact there are many excellent golf putting aids that can keep you focused and really get you dialed in on your putting. I have taken my putting aid to the practice green and spent over an hour there. That's unheard of for me! I have to laugh now.

These putting aids are very effective at helping you groove a perfect putting stroke that will hold up for 18 holes. In fact, after taking my putting more seriously, I dropped 5 strokes of my score and I was already a 9 handicap!

Now you've got to do some research at your local golf store to find the putting aid that will work for you. Hopefully you can even try one out before you buy it. Doing this gives you an idea of how effective it will be and if you will stick with it.

Some of these aids may seem hokey! Don't take those seriously. Look at the ones that will directly help your putting stroke and tempo. Thank goodness there are not as many golf putting aids as there are clubs!

The bottom line to lowering your scores is to practice your putting! Putting is over 40% of your score...don't ignore it!

By: Mike Pedersen
About The Author: Mike Pedersen is one of the top golf performance experts in the country. He is the founder of 8 golf performance and information websites, including is golf swing training aid site. For more information on the best golf putting aids, visit his site today.

Featured by Resources For Attorneys, a legal resources and lifestyle directory.

Water Hazard

A golfer tried three straight times to hit a golf ball over the inlet of water between him and the green. But each time the ball splashes into the drink. In utter frustration the golfer said, "Caddie, take my clubs on in, I'm going to jump into the water and drown myself."
The caddie replied, "I doubt that, sir. You couldn't keep your head down long enough to drown!"

Old Golf Ball

I was recently playing a round of golf with a nice young fellow. On the first hole, which was a long par four with water to the right and a deep ravine to the left, the young man took out a brand new sleeve of balls, teed one up and immediately hit it into the water on the right. Undaunted, he pulled another ball from the sleeve and hit that one into the ravine, as well. Then he took the last ball from the sleeve and hit it, too, into the water. He then reached into his bag and pulled out another brand new sleeve of balls. "Why don't you hit an old ball?" I asked. He responded, "I've never had an old ball."

5 Iron

A pretty terrible golfer was playing a round of golf for which he had hired a caddie. The round proved to be somewhat tortuous for the caddie to watch and he was getting a bit exasperated by the poor play of his employer.
At one point the ball lay about 180 yards from the green and the as the golfer sized up his situation, he asked his caddie, "Do you think I can get there with a 5-iron?" And the caddie replied, "Eventually."

7 Iron

Two friends were playing golf one day. They decided that they would adhere strictly to the rules, i.e., no improving their lie. After a few holes, one guy's ball landed on a cart path. As he reached down to pick up his ball to get relief his friend said, "We agreed that we would not improve our lie." No matter how much the first fellow tried to explain that he was entitled to this relief, the second fellow would not allow it.
So the man went to the cart to get a club. As he stood over the ball he took a few practice swings, each time scraping the club on the pavement, taking out big chunks of blacktop and sending out lots of sparks! Finally, after several practice swings he took his shot. The ball took off and landed on the green about 6 feet from the pin.
"Great shot!" his friend exclaimed. "What club did you use?" The man answered, "I used your 7-iron."

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