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- Strategic Tunnel Vision
Hey Fellow Golfer -
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Thank you.
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P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how mindset coaching and hypnotherapy can help you get unstuck from the proverbial bunker of poor performance on (and off) the course, click here to schedule a coaching discovery call with me.
Imagine this…
You’re scrolling through YouTube the night before your next round, watching one video on perfecting your takeaway, another on creating lag, and a third on compressing the ball.
Oh, and let’s be honest: you watched a Break 50 or hole-in-one challenge video from Bryson (insane!).
By the time you hit the range the next day, your head is spinning with swing thoughts.
Then, during your round, after a few poor shots, your buddy chimes in: “You’re standing too close to the ball.”
Another playing partner adds, “Your grip looks off.”
Suddenly, you’re trying to incorporate five conflicting tips mid-round while also figuring out whether to lay up or go for the green on that par 5.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the problem: when you try to juggle too many opinions, tips, and strategies, you end up overthinking, underperforming, and questioning everything. Your confidence plummets, your swing feels robotic, and every decision becomes a mental battle.
Now picture this instead: You commit to one focus - maybe it’s finishing your swing with balance. On the course, you stick with it, trusting the process and ignoring the noise. You simplify your strategy, playing smart and staying present.
That’s strategic tunnel vision in action. By quieting the chaos and narrowing your focus, you give yourself the mental clarity and confidence to perform your best.
Golf is hard enough without carrying the weight of a hundred swing tips. Simplify. Focus. And watch how quickly your game starts to feel like yours again.
In today’s newsletter, you’ll learn what strategic tunnel vision is (and why your brain loves it) and how it helps you learn faster, remain steadfast in navigating potential distractions, and play to your potential.
Let’s tee off!
The Problem: The Sabotaging Scatterbrain
Scatterbrain focus happens when your mind is stretched in too many directions at once, like when you’re thinking about your grip, stance, swing path, tempo, course strategy, and even that missed putt from two holes ago - all at the same time.
Instead of creating clarity, this overly broad focus overwhelms your brain’s capacity to process information, leading to confusion, hesitation, and poor execution.
In golf, trying to think about everything is the quickest way to accomplish nothing.
As you can imagine, this approach is highly counterproductive. Specifically, it overloads your mental capacity, produces inconsistent results, erodes confidence, and reduces flow and enjoyment.
To overcome this overwhelm, you need to adopt a strategic, simplified approach - one where you focus on just one area at a time, allowing your brain and body to work in harmony.
This is where strategic tunnel vision becomes your ally.
By narrowing your focus to one swing thought, goal, or aspect of your game, you’ll reduce mental clutter, learn faster, and play more consistently and confidently.
The Solution: Strategic Tunnel Vision
Tunnel vision refers to a psychological narrowing of focus where you become overly fixated on a single aspect of the game, such as correcting a swing flaw, achieving a specific score, or avoiding a particular mistake.
In some instances, tunnel vision can be thought of as a negative, even counterproductive. For instance, if you overly fixate on your driver and neglect iron play and your short game, you may improve your driver yet, experience a step back (or three) in overall scoring, leading to further frustration.
Additionally, if you overly fixate on an outcome (rather than the process), you may layer on an additional amount of pressure, tightness, and negativity that further hinders progress and positive results.
However, when used appropriately - strategically - with the right intention, tunnel vision can lead to quicker learning, improved retention, and better results.
For our purposes, I define strategic tunnel vision as an intense, intentional narrowing of focus, which channels maximal awareness and available energy to a common point of focus.
The result?
You have the opportunity to show up freely and flawlessly execute all that you’ve worked on.
You can learn more specifically about hypnosis (what it is not, what it is, how it works, and how I use it to help my clients unlock their potential) in either of these recent resources:
Why Your Brain Loves Tunnel Vision
Strategic tunnel vision is an intense, intentional narrowing of focus, which channels maximal awareness and available energy to a common point of focus.
Strategic tunnel vision is highly beneficial from a cognitive information load capacity perspective because it aligns with how your brain processes and retains information.
When you focus on a single approach or concept at a time, you can manage your cognitive resources more effectively, leading to faster and deeper learning.
Your brain has a limited capacity for processing information (often called working memory). Working memory is where you hold and manipulate ideas, instructions, or concepts while actively working on them.
It's like asking your computer to run ten programs at once when you overload your working memory by trying to fix your grip, tempo, and alignment all at once. It slows down, crashes, or worse, fails to save any progress.
Read that last part again…
Strategic tunnel vision reduces this overload by funneling all your mental energy into one task.
Focusing on one approach at a time allows the brain to allocate all its resources to understanding, executing, and reinforcing that single concept, preventing overload and improving performance.
Here’s what that means for your golf game:
You Learn Faster: Focused attention allows your brain to build and reinforce neural pathways more efficiently. When you repeatedly work on a single skill - like maintaining a consistent swing path - you’re creating a mental shortcut, making that skill easier and faster to perform.
Worth mentioning: hypnosis helps create new neural pathways more efficiently and effectively, too, which can speed up your learning curve and accelerate results. Learn more about this here.
You Retain More: Instead of diluting your practice across multiple areas, you’re embedding one concept deeply into your memory. This makes it far more likely to stick, meaning you won’t have to relearn the same thing repeatedly.
Mastery requires repetition and refinement. You can build neural pathways more effectively by using strategic tunnel vision to zero in on one skill - like a consistent takeaway or proper weight transfer.
By isolating a single focus, your brain gets repeated, specific feedback, accelerating the transition of skill from conscious effort (working memory) to automatic performance (long-term memory).Enhances (and Simplifies) Decision-Making: Implementing too many strategies or techniques simultaneously can cloud your judgment on (and off) the course. Strategic tunnel vision simplifies decision-making by narrowing options.
For example, committing to a single pre-shot routine or focusing on one swing cue during a round reduces mental clutter, making it easier to make clearer, faster, and more confident decisions.
You Stay Calm Under Pressure: With fewer thoughts competing for your attention, you’re less likely to overthink or freeze up when it matters most. Tunnel vision can help you commit fully to a shot, trust your process, and block out distractions.
As a Golf Hypnotherapist, I use hypnosis to unlearn and upgrade outdated, habitual ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving that are holding you back from your potential.
Click here to schedule a free Mental Game Strategy session to learn how I can help you make playing to your potential a habit.
How to Strengthen Strategic Tunnel Vision
Strategic tunnel vision is a powerful tool to help you learn faster, consistently perform, and enjoy the game more. But like any skill, it takes practice to develop.
Here’s what you need to know about creating a process to start strengthening it.
Step 1: Understand the Purpose of Tunnel Vision
To use strategic tunnel vision effectively, you must first understand its purpose. It’s not about ignoring everything else on the course. Rather, it’s about intentionally narrowing your focus on what matters most, whether executing a specific shot or refining a particular aspect of your game.
Tunnel vision helps you:
Avoid mental clutter
Simplify decision-making
Stay fully present during critical moments
Step 2: Start Small and Build Awareness
If your current approach involves juggling multiple thoughts during every swing or round, it’s time to scale back. Start by practicing tunnel vision in small, manageable ways:
During a practice session, focus on just one swing cue, such as keeping a steady tempo
On the course, pick a single mental target for the day, like committing to every shot
Begin using tunnel vision during specific shots, such as chips or putts, where precision matters most
This intentional focus builds awareness of when and how to narrow your attention
Bonus: Cultivate a focus-specific meditation practice in which you spend a few minutes intently focused on your breath or the flickering flame of a candle. The carryover you experience on the course and in every aspect of your life is priceless.
Step 3: Use a Pre-Shot Routine as a Focus Anchor
Your pre-shot routine is the perfect tool to engage tunnel vision. A solid routine acts as a mental “switch” that signals your brain to shift from a wide focus (considering variables like wind, lie, and strategy) to a narrow focus (executing the shot).
Your routine should include:
Assessment: Evaluate your lie, conditions, and shot options (wide focus).
Decision: Commit to your target and club.
Visualization: See (and feel) the exact shot you will hit, clearly seeing its ball flight and where it lands.
Execution: Narrow focus to one thought or feel (e.g., “smooth swing” or “center face contact”).
After the shot, disengage from tunnel vision by resetting with a deep breath or a neutral cue, like “next shot.”
Step 4: Practice Switching Between Focus Modes
Tunnel vision is most effective when balanced with peripheral awareness. To strengthen your ability to switch between the two:
Use your pre-shot routine to engage tunnel vision.
Use a post-shot routine to zoom out and reset your perspective.
During practice rounds, alternate between moments of high focus (e.g., precise shot execution) and broader thinking (e.g., evaluating overall strategy).
This skill helps you stay sharp during critical moments without losing sight of the big picture.
Step 5: Track Progress and Reflect via the After-Round Report
Strengthening tunnel vision requires regular reflection to identify what’s working and what needs adjustment.
After each practice session or round, ask yourself:
What went well? Did focusing on one swing thought or mental goal improve your performance?
What could’ve gone better? Did you find it hard to maintain focus or let go of distractions?
What was challenging?
What’s the key takeaway or learning lesson from this round? What do you need to focus on during practice or away from the course?
Here’s an example of how one of my clients completed his after-round report:
Step 6: Stay Patient and Consistent
Tunnel vision is a skill that grows over time. Early on, you might feel frustrated or tempted to revert to old habits of trying to fix everything at once. Stick with the process. By focusing on one thing at a time, you’ll improve faster and develop the confidence and clarity to perform under pressure.
A final reminder:
Strengthening strategic tunnel vision isn’t just about improving your golf game - it’s about learning to be present, intentional, and focused.
These qualities will transform not only how you play but also how you approach challenges on and off the course - the exact reason why my clients are playing to their potential beyond the course, too.
Your Next Step
Every newsletter will conclude with a suggested action step and further resources on the topic we discussed.
After reading today’s newsletter, put together a game plan - on and off the course - to begin cultivating or strengthening your skill of strategic tunnel vision.
Thank you for reading today’s newsletter.
If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow golfer ready to take their game to the next level.
Until next time,
Paul
P.S. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Reply back / drop a comment below to let me know.
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