The book I read was called Your 15th Club by Dr. Bob Rotella. Throughout the book Rotella talks about the mental side of golf. He begins by telling us the truth. No matter what people think, golf is a rough sport not in the way football is. It is more like a war of attrition against your mind and your score, in the end, depends on if your head can stand the constant grinding from the course. Dr. Rotella also talks a lot about your sub-conscience and how it sees you. Your sub-conscience, if you will, is blind. So the only thing it knows is what you tell it. For example, if you tell your sub-conscience that you can never make a three-footer for a birdie on a casual round with friends then you won't be able to make one in crunch time when you need it. Next, is the chapter "Remember to Remember" which was all about taking the good shots you hit in a round and basically downloading them to your brain, but also you have to completely relinquish the memory of bad shots. Rotella then goes on to talk about the problem with trying to reach perfection in golf, he has this to say: "When a an ambitious, driven golfer falls prey to perfectionism, he is at risk in many ways" (61). All that means is that, a great golfer can be just that, a great golfer, without being perfect. It is in the strive to become perfect that a golfer starts he inevitable downfall. Now we move to the more mental aspect of the book.

About half way through the book Rotella starts to talk about playing the round in your head before you tee off, your conscience, sub-conscience, and how to train, yes train, your brain. First, seeing you round the way you want it to go down before you throw down, but seriously Rotella says picturing your round before you play is a great helper if your nervous or doubtful. You get to play while your comfortable, you also get to see the shot that you want to hit before you hit it and all of this is helpful to the real round because you have already 'hit' the shot, relieving the pressure. The conscience is next, Rotella says that the conscience is constantly taking in data and processing it. The conscience sees what you see. It knows you. On the other hand the sub-conscience is like the dumber, blind brother. Like earlier I mentioned how the sub-conscience only knows what you tell it and in golf the sub-conscience can either be your greatest ally or you worst enemy. If it is your enemy don't fret, Dr. Rotella has got the power to change it. Rotella says that to get you sub-conscience, which is inadvertently tied to your confidence, up you have to remain positive with yourself just about all the time. He also suggest that if you have been badgering yourself for years that you need to do some deeper training, like keep a golf journal to record all the good things you did during a round and don't use don't in a sentence when talking to yourself because most of the time whatever you told yourself not to do will end up happening.

Ms. Terrell this was the best book I have ever read about golf. It was so enlightening. Dr. Rotella really opened my eyes in that there is more to golf then just the swing mechanics, but there is also a mental side and it is waging on like World War III. One of my favorite things that Dr. Rotella talked about was the training of the mental game by keeping a shot journal, I have started to do so in my life and I feel like it is working (the feeling is meniscal but regardless it is there). But all in all, Dr. Rotella knows what he is talking about and I agree/believe in every word written in his book. The topic I feel the greatest connection with is the staying positive, even though I don't do it. This is my favorite topic because it showed me what my belittling comments to myself do to my game and my potential, also that if I ever want to be better I have to mature a lot and keep on the sunny side.

Rotella, Dr. Bob. Your 15th Club. New York, NY: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2008. Print.