ABSTRACT
Unfortunately, although this psychological principle is easy to understand, it is difficult to put into practice in competitive sport because so often your mind can be sidetracked by a host of situational factors – bad refereeing decisions, opponents’ gamesmanship and even weather conditions on the big day. To make matters worse, you can even distract yourself by the way in which you think. Interestingly, this problem applies at all levels of sport. Imagine the jumble of thoughts that must have gone through the mind of golfer Paul McGinley as he faced a tricky six-foot putt to win the 2002 Ryder Cup for Europe against the USA at the Belfry. Should he concentrate on the ball, on the hole, on some technical aspect of his stroke action, or, simply, on not missing the putt because of its importance to his team? Fortunately for Europe, McGinley not only chose the right target to focus on – the line of his putt – but by holing out, he helped his team to victory.
