· Golf Psychology Tip - Monitoring your breathing is a very effective way to calm yourself down. The best part is that you can do this at anytime. Whether we have realized it or not, all of us have started breathing faster on the first tee of a tournament. To give yourself a baseline, practice at home. Monitor your breathing at home when you are relaxed and notice how much tension in your body, how fast you are breathing and are you breathing from the top of your stomach or your lower stomach.

· Golf Psychology Tip - Another thing that you can monitor is your walking pace. Again, this is a very effective way to calm yourself down and you can monitor your walking pace at anytime. Although most of us guys would rather go to an insurance seminar than to go to the mall, you might earn some bonus points with the spouse by going to the mall and walking. On your mall walk, you would be able to monitor what is a slow pace, what is a comfortable pace and what is a fast pace. In addition, try walking at different paces during the day and monitor how your body feels at the different rates.

· Golf Psychology Tip - Focus on your pre-shot routine – once you have a pre-shot routine ingrained then this is a good way to click into auto-pilot. It is critical that your pre-shot routine is repetitive and does not waver. A change could cause anxiety and mis-trust in your golf swing.

· Golf Psychology Tip - Picturing a calm place such as a beach or a lake will also calm you down. This may sound a little corny to some but, it works. It is probably my favorite golf psychology tip. We visit my in-laws from time to time. They live in the middle of Kentucky horse country. It makes it easy to relax away from the usual city life. To give you a clearer picture, in this particular county you may only purchase land in five acre plots or more. While we are there, I walk everyday and there is a big barn that sits on tops of a hill in the distance. These walks are very relaxing. The Kentucky quarter happens to have a picture on the back of the coin that reminds me of that barn that I look at on my walk. When I mark my ball with a Kentucky quarter, I am able to remember my relaxing walks and I can feel my body relax right there on the putting green. You need to find your place whether it is the beach for you, your back yard or a sunset. The point is it does not really matter as long as it relaxes you.