Ronald Bruce Romberg Info

When speaking about the topics of trust and commitment, many people's first impression is that we're discussing one's relationships with others. In this column, the trust and commitment to which I'm referring has to do with the relationship you have with your golf swing, your putt or your shot selection.

The ultimate place to be as a player is to be so confident in your game that you can simply "trust your swing" or "free it up" as many of my fellow mental game gurus would advocate. That sounds good in theory, but how do you trust your swing if you're struggling? How do you trust you're going to make this putt if you've missed four like it previously? How do you trust that you've made the correct club selection? The answer is that you don't need to trust.

The best case is the situation where you do trust, but that doesn't mean that complete trust is a necessary component of hitting good golf shots. Again, ideally, it would be great if players trusted their games completely. This would make their mind less cluttered, create less worry and probably inspire them to new heights of confidence.


However, virtually 100 percent of the players with whom I've worked over nearly two decades in the field of mental training have had times when they don't trust one aspect of their game or another.

When trusting is very difficult, then the idea of commitment becomes important. I look at trust and commitment as being at different points on the continuum shown below, where trust is the ultimate place to be from a mental perspective:

No commitment or trust >>> Commitment without trust >>> Full trust

Committing to a plan of action, a shot selection, or a putting line and actually striking the ball with authority can be done without full trust. The fascinating thing is that shots hit with commitment but without complete trust still have a high probability of being successful.

Playing with commitment is how players learn to develop trust. Without commitment, there's the tendency to be mentally distracted, have doubts and second guess yourself prior to executing.

While the full trust may not be achieved, with commitment you give yourself the best chance for something good to happen. As Payne Stewart was once quoted as saying, "better to commit to the wrong thing in golf than to be uncommitted to the correct thing."

So, put in practical terms, how can you implement this notion into your game? If you are in between clubs on a shot, pick one, be decisive and commit fully to that choice. If you aren't sure if the putt breaks four inches or two inches left to right, choose one and make an authoritative stroke.

Another example: You have calculated that the shot that is in front of you is a hard 8-iron or an easy 7-iron. You feel as though you are between clubs. If you're uncommitted, you may choose the 8-iron, but still be thinking about the 7-iron possibility, even as you stand at address or swing the club. This is the recipe for disaster in a golf shot!

If, however, you've made a full commitment to the 8-iron shot, you are going to swing with full assertiveness, which gives your shot a reasonable chance to be successful. If I asked you prior to the shot if you fully trusted whether or not the 8-iron was the correct choice, your honest answer would probably be "no." But the fact that you're swinging with commitment means that you will likely hit a solid golf shot.

A solid golf shot swung with full commitment typically misses only slightly. A golf shot swung without full commitment can go anywhere. On the golf course, begin to recognize the times when you hit a shot without being committed and challenge yourself to pull the trigger only after you've completely eliminated the other options out of your mind.

Remember there are many "right" ways to play a golf hole and/or golf shot, make sure you're fully committed to only one of those "right" ways.

Every time you're on the golf course is an opportunity for you to get feedback about yourself as a player and the most accurate feedback you'll receive is when you've made full commitments to the shots that you hit. This feedback help you make quality adjustments for the future. Without that type of accurate feedback, you may never trust certain aspects of your game, no matter how regularly you practice or play!

Ronald Bruce Romberg Profile

Confidence is one of the most important mental factors in golf. With it we perform well and without it, well - we just don't perform.

While golfers know what confidence does, many golfers do not know what confidence is or how to get it. In this two-part series I'm going explain what it is and tell you how to go about developing the ultimate in golf confidence.

What is golf confidence? First of all, it's not an on-off switch where you either have it or you don't. It may feel like that some days, but a lack of confidence is not an absence of confidence, it's not having enough or not having the right type.


I tell my clients to think of confidence as something that occurs on a continuum and develops in layers. The continuum ranges from low to high and the layers range from thin and fragile to thick and resilient. These two articles will outline how you can develop high confidence that is thick and resilient and works well under pressure.

In its simplest form, golf confidence is feeling good about your abilities and having positive thoughts when you play. Lots of golfers also try to "forget" about their shank or their quad with no penalty strokes, but they don't. Why not? It's because they have shallow confidence; mindset that is dominated by thoughts of whether they will play well.

The classic example is the golfer whose confidence is evident on the first tee but immediately disappears after one or two bad shots or holes and immediately reappears after good ones. Shallow confidence is at the lowest end of the continuum because it is only based on knowledge and it is thin and fragile because it is not based on active mental strategies. Golf confidence does not happen because we know about it, it happens because we work at it.

Golfers would be better off acquiring "deep confidence"; a stable, consistent and reliable mind set in which golfers believe they can play well. The classic example is the golfer who never lets one or two bad shots, holes or rounds affect them. Their confidence is built by active mental strategies and isn't performance-dependent.

Deep confidence is demonstrated by how you think, what you do and how you react after an occasional gaff. It's an overall and pervasive sense that you can consistently execute when you need to. It's trusting your abilities and it's disciplining yourself to have more confidence in your game than doubts.

Golfers with deep confidence play this way because they use specific strategies that make them feel totally secure on the golf course. I want you to go deep with your confidence and walk to the first tee thinking "I can play well!" rather than worrying "Will I will play well?"

There's a hint on how to get it in the following comment by Phil Mickelson. After a terrible 2003 he won the 2004 Bob Hope Classic. In describing his change of fortunes he said, "Last year my confidence just slowly, slowly dwindled. After the time off I took and the work I accomplished on my conditioning and my game, I couldn't wait to get out and start playing. I was just itching."

I want your confidence to go deep, your scores to go deep, and I want you to be itchin'!
How can I go deep?

Deep confidence comes from carefully setting down layers of different types of confidence. These layers are interrelated and form a mental approach that is thick and resilient like rubber, not thin and fragile like glass.

Deep confidence is the psychological security that we can hold up under pressure and the physical security that we can perform skillfully. You can think positive but all is for naught if you can't perform.

Therefore, to set down your first three layers, create confidence by setting and achieving personal golf goals.

Which goals? Well, nothing builds confidence more rapidly and sustains it like having reliable skills.

Imagine how confident you would be if you knew your good skills would be there every time you teed it up? Not your best skills, just your everyday skills and your normal game. If you're like me, you'll be smiling and taking all the bets your partners' wallets could suffer! That's deep! This doesn't necessarily mean taking lessons, but it does mean practicing.

It's faith in our respective golf skills that builds unshakeable confidence, not striving for perfection. I can't guarantee that your regular game will always show up, but I guarantee it won't if you don't give it a chance!

Physically working on your game to build confidence is the first layer. Your second layer comes from your "positive decision" to work on your game. Don't downplay your conscious and courageous decision to do the right thing. Give yourself credit for it and pump your confidence.

Your third layer is a product of the first two because having a plan and practicing engrains an extra deep order of confidence, one that comes from "sincerely knowing" you have done your homework. I call this golf swagger and all my clients love it.

Golf swagger is an unshakeable inner sense of confidence that's with us all the time, not outwardly visible but realistic and tangible on the inside. It is not susceptible to performance. It's there for the long haul.

In the next article I'll tell you how to use more layers to develop ultimate confidence and I'll outline what to do when the confidence wheels really fall off.

Ronald Bruce Romberg

Bruce Romberg Articles:
How can you develop more power in your golf swing? That's probably a question that almost all of us want an answer to.

Most of us go to great lengths to do whatever it takes to get that power into our drives off the tee. I think we probably all have some ideas of where 300-yard drives come from, but I want to give you the answers without any fluff.

Golf swing power is the result of three specific factors. Two out of the three are much more important, but the third does have a bearing on the outcome of how far you hit that ball.


The first and probably most evident of the three is your swing mechanics. You're probably not surprised by this one.

No. 2 is what we term "golf strength." This is defined as how well your body is conditioned (i.e. fitness) to swing a golf club with maximum power. It's probably the least understood of the three and maybe the most needed by golfers in general. We'll talk more about this later.

No. 3 is your equipment. Yes, equipment does make a difference in how far you drive the ball. The equipment manufacturers have let this fact be known and I'll bet we have all gone to the golf shop - probably more than twice - to pick up a new driver that claims to give us another 20 yards on every drive.

That extra 20 yards might not be down the middle of the fairway, but it will give you an extra 20 yards -- it could be left, could be right or it could be in the center of the fairway. That all depends on points No. 1 and No. 2 of this article.

Equipment and technological advances have definitely lengthened the distance of our drives. But without better swing mechanics and your body in better golf shape, new technology won't help your game. A bad swing will produce a bad result, regardless of what type of new driver you may have just purchased.
Swing mechanics

I think all of us are aware of how important the mechanics of a swing are when it comes to driving the ball down the fairway. It's essential, if you are over the top with your swing or come inside too much, you'll see that dreaded slice or snap hook. The drives will be short, too low, too high, left, right, or a combination of these if you're putting bad swings on the ball.

It's essential for a golfer to work on the mechanics of their swing, week in and week out, to improve their game. If it weren't important why would all these tour players have swing coaches that work with them on a consistent basis? The golf swing is such a finite, mechanically complex movement, that requires constant work to keep it highly efficient and in check.

One of the most common mistakes I see amateurs make is probably a lack of instruction. I see amateurs over and over at the driving ranges, week in and week out, pounding balls without any improvement. This, I feel, is a result of one of two things: A lack of instruction and/or low levels of golf strength.

A lack of instruction leads to the development and ingraining of improper swing mechanics. This only results in slices, hooks, topping the ball and hitting it fat on the course. And we all know that those types of swings lead to frustration and bad rounds of golf.

I would suggest to most anyone to find a good instructor and take lessons on a consistent basis. This can only help your game in the long run.
Golf strength, fitness

Golf strength is a term we use to describe the golf fitness level of an individual pertaining to swinging a club. This is much different than how much you can bench press or squat, which I like to refer to as "weight room strength."

Understand that these two terms, golf strength and weight room strength, are very different. If you don't quite understand the difference, ask yourself one question: How many bodybuilders do you see teeing it up on tour? The answer to that question is quite obvious, none!

It comes down to this idea: the mechanics of a golf swing require specific levels of flexibility, balance, stability, strength, endurance and power to perform it efficiently. If your body does not have the required capacities of the aforementioned list, then the result will be a less than optimal and less efficient swing than possible.

Essentially, your body supports your swing much like a foundation supports the house you build upon it. I'm sure that all of you would choose to build a house on a stone foundation rather than a sand foundation, wouldn't you? I will say that many of you make a different choice when it comes to your golf swing. I quite often see amateurs developing their swing on a foundation of sand - not a good thing to do in my book.

Regardless of how much time you work on your swing mechanics, if your body doesn't have the golf strength to support your swing, you are limiting your potential. I have seen it numerous times: People practicing at the range who struggle, not because of trying to get better, but because their bodies are limiting what they can do with their swing.

Quite often I see people with limited flexibility, poor balance capabilities and low levels of strength and power. The bottom line is that your mechanics won't get better until you fix the body that swings the club.

A review of the topics tells us that they are optimal swing mechanics and the proper levels of golf strength in the body. One without the other is going to leave you short when it comes to your potential in the game.

Again, I probably see point No. 2 (golf strength), being addressed less often than swing mechanics when you get right down to it. The pros are all aware of the importance of golf strength, so you should be, too.
Equipment

We've come to the final point and that deals with equipment. I think the majority of golfers are aware of the technological advances that have occurred in golf equipment over the last 20 years.

Think about the '80s when we were still playing with woods that actually had wood club heads. Now we're using drivers with space age faces that shoot the ball off of them at warp speed.

In addition, we have to mention the advances in terms of golf balls. How manufacturers design golf balls today makes a huge difference in how far they travel.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the USGA has set standards on how "hot" driver faces can be and how fast balls can come off the face of drivers. Most clubs are reaching this limit and anything past these USGA rules becomes illegal to play.

So what does improving your power really come down to? It comes down to three simple ideas:

No. 1 is improving your golf swing mechanics. Improved mechanics will improve your driving distance.
No. 2 is improving your golf strength. By improving your body as it pertains to the golf swing you will improve your distance off the tee.
No. 3, equipment does make a difference - if you hit the ball correctly.

About Bruce Romberg
Bruce Romberg Articles
Ronald Bruce Romberg Contact


Usually when your approach shot falls short of the green, you do not have an ideal lie. Many times you must hit out of deep grass leaving you with the choice of a wedge shot or a flop shot.

I will give you some pointers on how you can successfully obtain the shot that ends up on the green.

First you must check your lie: If your ball is at rest "sitting" on top of the grass, you will want to execute a flop shot. To do this you must move the ball forward in your stance and attempt an explosion shot similar to that in the sand. You don't actually hit the ball, but you make contact with the grass behind the ball with your sand wedge.


Depending on how far you are from the green, you will use either a U shaped swing, or a V shaped swing which I have discussed when explaining the sand shot. Let the speed of the clubhead moving through the grass lift your ball. Make sure you follow through, or similar to the uncompleted sand shot, you will still be in the rough!

If the ball is sitting in a hole or buried in the tall grass, you will need to use your pitching wedge. To do this move the ball back in your stance and make sure your hands are ahead of the ball.

Pick the club up and try to hit the ball first when descending into your shot. This should create a high shot due to the ball shooting off the clubface.

You must follow through on this shot even though it's more of a "pop" shot.

As with any shot in golf, you must refrain from looking up to see your wonderful shot! I always tell my students that if they look up too soon they will most likely see a shot they would rather forget than keeping their eye on the spot where the ball was and looking after the shot is completed. Remember you want to end up on the green to putt, so practicing these shots will make them habit when you're playing!!
Golf Tip of the Month

Has anyone told you to keep your head down? I'm sure all of us have heard this innocent comment that is meant to help, but in actuality it restrains us from executing the proper swing!

This comment promotes lifting your hands and arms on the take away, and increases the chance of a reverse weight shift and poor balance. I tell my students to keep their eyes on the ball and the spot where the ball was and let their head move with the rest of their body through the swing. Count 1, 2 and then look up to see a perfect shot!!


Ronald Bruce Romberg Bio
Ronald Bruce Romberg Bio:
What separates a good golfer from an average golfer? The Scoring Zone, from within 100 yards, there isn't a good player who doesn't expect to knock it close.

This was the case at Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill tournament earlier this year. On the 16th hole, Tiger Woods drove his ball into the deep rough, where from a bad lie, he decided to lay-up to approximately 100 yards from the green.

There he played a perfectly played wedge shot to within 4 feet of the hole, making par and taking the lead in the tournament. That wedge shot put him in position to win the tournament.


The Scoring Zone is where average golfers can dramatically improve their scores. The difference between a long birdie putt and a short tap-in is in playing the right kind of shot from within 100 yards of the green. There are three basic shots from within this distance: a low pitch, the medium pitch and the lob shot.

Once you master the mechanics of these shots, you will see improvement in your scores.
The low pitch

Typically, this shot is used when the terrain between your ball and the green is flat, uphill or there is a back pin location.

First, take a lower lofted club, your 9-iron or pitching wedge, instead of your sand wedge. Next, choke down an inch or two on the grip, and address the ball taking a slightly open stance. Play the ball back in your stance near the center of your body.

Finally, pick out a spot where you want the ball to land, and make a swing to land the ball in that area. (Practice these shots on the driving range to get the feel for distance control.)
Medium-pitch shot

The medium-pitch shot flies high but releases somewhat once the ball hits the green. They're the shots you hit most often from within the Scoring Zone, especially if you have water, a bunker or other obstructions between you and the green.

Depending on the distance, these shots are played with your wedges, the gap, sand or lob. As with the low pitch, start by taking a slightly open stance, and play the ball toward the middle of your stance.

Allow the loft of the club to get the ball into the air; don't try to help it up, hit down and through taking a divot on these shots. (Practice these shots on the driving range to dial in your distance control with each wedge.)
The lob

The lob shot is used to hit shots over an obstruction, bunker, etc., to a tight pin. Of all the shots you will hit from within the Scoring Zone, this is the shot that requires the most practice to perfect.

It starts by taking a narrow and open your stance. Next, at address, make sure your clubface is open ... and by open, I mean very open. The ball is going to fly where the clubface is facing, so aim your feet and shoulders well to the left of your target.

Now, play the ball forward in your stance (up by your front toe) and stand a little further away, with your hands lined up behind the ball. Finally, break the wrists early on the back swing, and increase the speed of your hands and wrists during the swing on these shots. (You need speed to pop the ball up into the air on these lob shots.)

On the PGA Tour, watch Tiger and Phil hit these shots around the greens, they have mastered these shots to perfection. With a little practice you can, too.


Bruce Romberg

Many golfers have the impression that the head needs to stay fixed and down throughout the golf swing. This is a common misconception that keeps a lot of players from not reaching there potential and improving their golf swing.

If you have the opportunity to watch a tour pro swing the golf club you will notice two things about what the head does in the golf swing.

1. There is some lateral movement to the right on the backswing.


2. The head releases up and to the left immediately after impact.

How will this help the average player increase their power?

1. The movement of the head in the backswing allows the upper body to properly coil over the lower body.

2. Proper releasing of the head on the after impact will give the body the freedom to rotate through to a full finish.

3. These two things will help establish correct weight transfer and will maximize power in your golf swing. By allowing your head to move, you will allow your body and arms to move freely and efficiently which will help to increase your distance.







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