We can define golf routines as all the chains of actions and thoughts that we do in a more or less conscious way with a certain purpose in a certain time.

They are of vital importance since they have the purpose of facilitating and preparing our mind and/or body to do something.

In golf, we can create as many routines as we want: training, pre-competition, during competition, pre-hit, post-hit, post-competition, etc.

Attention: having routines does not make us robots, on the contrary, it makes us much more aware of the moment we are in and makes it easier for our minds to do the work to do when facing the different moments, when assimilating the stimuli we need, saves us time and ultimately puts order within the context in which we find ourselves.

Bearing in mind that routines are facilitators and preparers for something in particular, let’s see what we need to create quality routines.

How do we create a quality routine?

Determine an objective, why we are going to create a routine. Once this objective is determined, we will begin to build our routine.
What kind of movements and actions are we going to introduce to reach the created objective (behavioral aspect).
What kind of thoughts should we incorporate to achieve the goal (cognitive aspect).
Every routine must have a time parameter to facilitate both the behavioral and cognitive process (time aspect).

The goal of the routine

This objective will be the nucleus from which we generate the other aspects related to the routine. It depends on this whether the routines will have more or less behavioral aspects or more or less cognitive aspects and, therefore, will be longer or shorter in time.

The clearer and more specific this objective is, the better we can define it.

The behavioral aspect of routine

The behavioral part of the routine refers to all the body movements and actions that we do, aimed at achieving the final objective of the routine.

With actions we make it easier for our head to direct our attention to what we want to do and we awaken the neural connections that we are going to need.

The cognitive aspect of routine

Thoughts are our best allies when it comes to achieving the goal of our routines.

Those that we include in our routines must be preconceived with the idea of ​​focusing all our attention towards the objective, each routine must include specific thoughts in relation to said objective.

The temporal aspect of routine

Time is the parameter into which each routine we have must fit, depending on what we want to achieve, we will have to have time limits for our routines to be effective.

Each player has to find the movements and thoughts that best suit him and then fit them into the time that best suits him.

HOW TO CREATE A PRE-HIT ROUTINE

What are you looking for with the pre-shot routine?

The first thing you have to do is answer this question, to make the answer the goal of the routine.

There will be players looking for maximum concentration, players looking for muscle relaxation, others looking for a sense of fluidity, the important thing is to know what you really want or need for the moment of execution.

What behaviors and movements do you create to reach the goal?

In my case, my goal is maximum concentration, focusing all my attention on the ball and all my behaviors and thoughts are directed towards that. When I get on top of the ball, all my movements are from the ball: I put the club behind the ball, I line up from the ball to the target, while I waggle I put the thought in my impact head to the ball, look at the target, go back to the ball and start the movement.

Do you have controlled the time of the routine?

Always doing the same movements, I ensure that the time of my routine is always very similar and at least, I have controlled that an excess of time is a sign that something is not going well and I can stop and start again.

I hope it helps you in your improvement process!