Focused for Golf

Playing good golf requires more than physical skills- it demands positive and strategic thinking. PGA golfer Chip Beck knows better than most the mental challenges of the game. As a former Ryder Cup player and one of the few players ever to shoot a 59 in a tour event (as he did in the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational) Beck has experienced what it's like to be completely in the groove and confident. On the flip-side, Beck also knows the psychological fallout of failing to make the cut several weeks in a row.

In Focused for Golf, Beck teams with sport psychologist Wayne Glad to provide practical advice and mental training exercises proven to work for players on the PGA and Nike tours. Sprinkled throughout the book are Beck's and others' helpful insights and memorable experiences in dealing with the game's psychological ups and downs. Profiles of fellow pros Hale Irwin, Mike Reid, Mark Calcavecchia, Lee Janzen, Bill Glasson, Fred Funk, Ben Crenshaw, Bruce Lietzke, Kenny Perry, and others highlight just how much of golf is a head game. You'll learn how remarkably similar the pros' mental challenges are to your own, and how each one of them has used the Focused for Golf principles to overcome mentally challenging situations.

Regardless of your handicap, Focused for Golf can help you remain confident, stay in control, thrive in competition, and keep your concentration on the course. How you think is often how you shoot. Play it smart-play better golf with the help of this comprehensive mental training manual.

A clinical psychologist in private practice since 1978, Wayne R. Glad, PhD, added a new twist when he became a sports psychology and performance enhancement consultant in 1990. Since then, he has consulted with professional, college, and high school teams in golf, football, basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, wrestling, and ice skating.

In 1997, Glad presented ground-breaking research in optimal mental preparation for peak performance golf to the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sports Psychology in San Diego. Making his home in Glendale, Wisconsin, Glad currently serves as a sports psychology and performance enhancement consultant to the PGA Tour players and the Marquette University golf team, the USA Junior Golf Association, and the David Leadbetter Junior Golf camps.

When he's not improving the psyche of the world's top golfers, Glad enjoys home-schooling his 12-year-old twins, traveling, scuba diving, and hitting the links himself.

One of the PGA Tour's most successful golfers-ranking in the top 25 all-time money winners-Chip Beck has seen his name consistently reaching the leader board throughout the 80's and early 90's.

Co-record holder for the lowest score ever shot in a PGA Tour event--a 59--Beck has won four PGA Tour events, placed second in three of the PGA Tour's Majors (at the U.S. Open in 1986 and 1991 and the Masters in 1993). Beck played on three Ryder Cup teams and has solidified himself as one of the top U.S. players over the past 20 years.

A true student of the game, Beck has co-authored several articles for Golf Digest and serves as Director of the Western Golf Association. When away from the tour, Beck likes spending time with his family, playing paddle tennis, and landscaping and gardening. He lives in Lake Forest, Illinois, just north of Chicago.