ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how specific cognitive processes optimise golf performance, reviews the evidence from sport and other contexts for individual differences in cognitive processes, and considers the implications of the findings for tailoring psychological skills training (PST) programmes in golf. Research on individual differences in cognitive processes has a number of implications for those working with golfers. Sport psychologists and coaches conducting PST interventions should not assume that the programme has to match players' processing preferences as if verbalisers benefit more from self-talk and visualisers from imagery. Instead they should ensure their presentation format facilitates cross-modal information processing to enhance learning and performance. Golfers may prefer particular types of information and make more use of that information when thinking about their shot. A group of professional golfers was found to favour kinaesthetic information. However, golfers also process task-relevant information in other modalities and switch their attention between modalities as the task demands.
