In chapters such as "During Your Swing Is Not the Time to Give Yourself a Lesson", "Isn't Where You Have to Play It From Punishment Enough?" and "How to Enjoy a Bad Round of Golf," the author guides golfers with simple yet powerful techniques to prep...

Zen Golf

From Dr. Joe Parent, noted PGA Tour instructor and best-selling author of Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game, comes a new book of simple yet powerful techniques for success in golf's game within the game: putting. Confidence, as every golfer knows, ...

Zen Putting

From the best-selling author of Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game and the tennis champion and world record holder of the Golden Set comes the most innovative and powerful book since The Inner Game of Tennis. Combining deep Eastern wisdom and practical tennis expertise, Zen Tennis will help you get out of your own way and into the zone. 

Zen Tennis

Dr. Joe Parent, PGA tour instructor, executive performance coach and best-selling author of ZEN GOLF: Mastering the Mental Game and ZEN PUTTING: Mastering the Mental Game on the Greens, has drawn on a career coaching the masters to write a hundred ea...

GOLF: The Art of the Mental Game

The benefits of mindfulness are well recognized: greater peace of mind, less stress, and the opportunity to work through and transform thoughts, memories, and worries. It also fosters equanimity, helping us accept the changes and challenges life brin...

A Walk in the Wood

Zen Golf Deck is a collection of brief lessons and exercises drawn from Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game. Applied in actual on-course sessions with golfers, including many PGA TOUR and LPGA players, they will introduce you to a unique perspective ...

Zen Golf Deck

Simple yet powerful keys for keeping your composure and the mental edge over your opponents, which will help you play with more consistency, experience less frustration, and shoot lower scores. 

Zen Golf Daily Tips

Once a man wanted to get to a particular island just outside the harbor. He went to the dock and found that two boats moored next to each other were both leaving for the island at the same time, but taking different routes. Not being sure which would...

Be Decisive

A young monk was spending some time each day in meditation and contemplation. He wondered how many of his thoughts during those sessions were virtuous (about doing good deeds) or non-virtuous (about deeds based on hatred, greed, or prejudice). He col...

Pebbles in the Bowl

The best preparation for any shot is to have an image that is as complete and precise as possible. For putting, imagine the ball rolling the full distance to the hole. See in your mind’s eye the way it will change speed and direction. See the path it...

Putt with Imagination

Here’s a pre-round putting warm-up routine I have given tour players and amateurs alike. Step 1: Putt to nowhere. In an open area of the practice green, stroke a few putts with no target at all. Vary the distances you roll the putts. Do this until you feel your stroke is smooth and consistent.

Warm-Up Routine for Putting

Chris, a good junior golfer, came for a lesson. He complained that his swing gave him trouble when he “got quick at the top.” That usually refers to an especially quick start to the downswing. It sometimes reflects a premature transition, starting th...

The Slow-Motion Walk Up

Many years ago in Japan, a student came to a master swordsman and said, “If I become your devoted student, how long will it take for me to master the sword?”The master replied, “Perhaps ten years.”“That’s a long time,” said the student.“If I try real...

Patience Pays

Facing a difficult recovery shot is a particular situation that’s likely to give rise to an anyway. There’s a method to avoid compounding one mistake with another. When you set up as though to play the shot, tune in to your body. Using the body scan,...

Listen To Your Intuition

As we address the ball, occasionally something happens that makes us want to change our mind. It may be a change in the wind, something about our lie or stance that we didn’t notice before, or an uneasy feeling about our club selection. When you chan...

Give It Time to Sink In

All too often we try to get something extra out of our drives, and the results are usually the opposite of what we desire. Even if we’re lucky enough to find the ball, it has traveled less than our usual distance. The golf swing is a series of muscle...

Beware of Trying for a Few Extra Yards

Players often rely on swing thoughts, but as we discussed earlier, thinking while swinging isn’t such a good idea. It’s preferable to have a swing image, one that includes at least the path and finishing point of the ball, but can also include the fe...

During Your Swing Is Not the Time To Give Yourself a Lesson

Everyone agrees that when we have a lot of thoughts while swinging, poor results follow. Why wouldn’t we want to be thinking during our swing? Why wouldn’t thinking help our body to do what our mind wants it to do? To understand this dynamic, we need to understand different aspects of mind and how they relate to the action of our body swinging a golf club. The many expressions of mind can be described in various ways.

Never Keep More Than a Hundred Thoughts in Your Mind

I’d like to congratulate you. You have a perfect swing. Now, you’re probably thinking, “What’s that about? He’s never seen my swing.” Well, I don’t need to, because I didn’t say the perfect swing (which, by the way, doesn’t exist, since we are all as...

A Perfect Swing

Often a golfer will have a bad start to a round and get completely depressed, assuming that the day will go that way. His discouragement creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. But since each hole is physically independent of the others, isn’t it possibl...

How to Enjoy a Bad Round of Golf

Brian had entered the Qualifying School for the PGA Tour for twelve years, but had fallen short every time. The Q-School is actually a series of tournaments, culminating in the finals, a grueling six-round tournament. It is the ultimate pressure cook...

Nothing Special, Nothing Extra

We’re so hard on ourselves. We tie our self-worth to the results of our actions, to how well we hit a golf shot or what score we make on a hole. When things go badly, we start to doubt our basic goodness as human beings. We start to say things like “...

Isn't Where You Have to Play It from Punishment Enough?

In the martial arts and similar mind­-body traditions of the East, the body’s “center of gravity” is the source from which all movement and energy flow. It is located a few inches below the navel, in the center of the torso. Awareness of this center ...

Center of Gravity

Let’s start with an exercise. Take your golf stance and close your eyes. For a few seconds, think of a situation that you’re afraid of or that causes you anxiety when you anticipate dealing with it. Now check on your breathing—is it deep and relaxed?...

Remember to Breathe

This is one of the many paradoxes of golf. The control we want to get refers to consistent accuracy, control over where the ball will go. The control we have to give up is the kind we exercise when we “steer” a shot. Steering is an expression of the ...

Give Up Control to Get Control

One of the challenges faced by all levels of golfers is expressed in this lament: “Why can’t I hit it on the course the way I was hitting it on the range? It feels so frustrating!” There are many reasons, one of which is purpose. When you are on the ...

How To Get from the Practice Tee to the First Tee

One of the most fundamental principles of the Buddhist and Shambhala traditions is that the true nature of human beings is basic goodness. As my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa, said, “This is not a matter of talking yourself into believing that everything ...

Basic Goodness

In golf, if we keep thinking about a mistake we made on a previous hole, or project how our score will turn out at the end of the round, it’s as if we’re daydreaming. We spend much of the time “asleep” to the present moment, preoccupied with thoughts...

Cultivating and Strengthening Awareness: Part I

There are reactions to good and bad shots that are common to most golfers. If we hit a drive down the middle of the fairway, we might bend down and pick up our tee before the shot has even landed. If we hit a poor shot, we follow it to the finish and...

The Post-Shot Routine

Sense perceptions are necessary for creative imaging of the shots we intend to play. Our senses collect information that we use to direct our mind and body in executing a golf shot and everything else we do. Therefore, it is very helpful to practice ...

The Vividness of the Moment

My teacher, Ösel Tendzin, had a favorite response when his meditation students would ask how to control their thoughts and emotions. He’d say, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. One person will struggle with the waves and be batter...

You Can't Stop the Waves, But You Can Learn to Surf

While playing well in a tournament, we might think to ourselves, “Well, you’ve gotten away with it so far, but you’ll screw up before too long.” Believing in this thought gives it power. It creates feelings of doubt and anxiety, which interfere with ...

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Once there were two monks walking along a path through the woods. When they came to a stream, they encountered a young woman dressed in fine silks, unable to get across without ruining her clothes. One of the monks offered to carry her on his back. S...

Why Are You Still Carrying Her?

Our actions are shaped by our intentions. When I ask golfers the purpose of making a golf swing, most of them answer, “To hit the ball.” Yet focusing on the ball as the target is a problematic perspective. Thinking of their job as “hitting the ball” ...

What Is Your Target?

I’d like to suggest a new definition for “making a putt.” To most golfers, whether or not they make a putt is defined by whether or not it goes in the hole. This emphasizes the result of the putt more than it does the process of putting, and that int...

How to Make Every Putt

The mental skills necessary to play your best golf need to be learned and groomed, just as good swing techniques do. The tendency to “focus on the negative” needs to be replaced with the habit of accentuating the positive. A conversation with a touri...

Accentuate the Positive

Once a Zen master was listening to a student complain about his uncontrollable temper. The student said, “I’m a very angry person. Please help me to change.”“Sounds like a big problem. Let’s see this terrible anger of yours,” the master demanded of t...

The Angry Guy

Do you talk to yourself on the golf course? Out loud, silently, or a bit of both? Most of us engage in some form of self-talk. We don’t usually pay much attention to the quality of what we’re saying, but perhaps we should. The way people talk about s...

Fire Your Evil Caddie

After taking your seat with good posture, direct your attention to your breathing. Notice the feeling of your torso expanding and contracting, the sensation of the breath flowing through your nostrils. It is important that you don’t manipulate your b...

Cultivating and Strengthening Awareness: Part II

A man from town asked an old farmer to be on a citizens’ committee that would work on improving the town. The farmer asked, “Do you want me to be involved or committed?” Puzzled, the man asked, “What’s the difference?” The farmer answered, “It’s like...

Bacon and Eggs Breakfast

Everyone has comfort levels. They are the levels of performance or spheres of activity that are familiar to us. We’re comfortable playing in the B-flight, we’re comfortable chasing the leader from behind, or we’re comfortable just making the cut. We’...

Overcoming Self-Sabotage

There is a very clear correspondence between our state of mind and how our body manifests. When our mind has anxiety or fear, our body feels tight and agitated. When we are discouraged or depressed, our body feels heavy and sluggish. When we are conf...

Uplifted Body, Uplifted Mind

Playing the game of golf can inspire us to embody gentleness, inquisitiveness, and fearlessness. Gentleness means being kind to ourselves and considerate of others. We can take delight in conducting ourselves as gentle men and gentle women in golf an...

Gentle, Inquisitive, Fearless

A musician came for instruction from the Buddha in practicing meditation. He asked, “How should I hold my mind when I practice? Should I try to concentrate hard and keep it under tight control, or should I relax and let it wander wherever it wants to...

Not Too Light, Not Too Loose

A vital part of our preparation for a golf shot has to do with alleviating tension from our body. Excessive muscle tension is an obstacle to making a fluid, powerful golf swing. There needs to be just enough tension to maintain our posture and hold o...

Cool, Calm, and Collected

Less than one percent of all golfers have completed a round of golf on par or better. That makes it a rather unrealistic target score for all but the most skilled among us. Measuring yourself against the par on the scorecard is a setup for failure fo...

Par for the Course

Trust is one of the most important qualities in the game of golf. With trust, it feels like you and your golf club are partners dancing as one. Without trust, it feels like you and your golf club are on opposite sides in a tug-of-war. Golfers often h...

In Golf We Trust

Impatience compounds mistakes. Making a poor shot, we should accept the situation and play the smartest shot from there. Instead, we try to make it all up with the next shot. If we miss a few putts, we begin pressing to get our approach shots closer ...

Take Your Medicine

A young man had read all the books he could find about Zen. He heard about a great Zen master and requested an appointment with him to ask for teachings. When they were seated, the young man proceeded to tell the master everything he had understood f...

Empty Your Cup

Every golfer has had the experience of setting up to a shot and not feeling completely comfortable with some aspect of it. We might have a vague feeling that something is not quite right, or we might know what’s wrong but not bother to do anything ab...

Avoid the Anyways

When we say to someone, “Don’t think of a monkey,” the image that comes to mind is a monkey. That’s because the word “monkey” refers to something we can perceive, but the word “don’t” is purely conceptual. On the golf course, when we say to ourselves...

Don't Hit It into the Lake

To deal with last­-minute thoughts, those internal conversations about the shot right before you swing, I suggest an approach taken from body surfing. If you want to swim out where the wave starts so you can ride it in, you have to get past the break...

Dive Under the Waves

The key to getting the distance right on long putts is getting a good feel for the speed of the green. Here’s a putting drill that will quickly give you a feel for the pace of the green. On a level area of the practice green, line up several balls ab...

Putting Games

When body and mind are synchronized for a golf swing, they are unified in purpose, presence, and focus. They are functioning in the same place at the same time. Can you send your body into the past or the future? Of course not. Our body is in the pre...

Synchronizing Body and Mind

Shambhala is a legendary kingdom that is a model of enlightened society, like the story of Camelot and its ideals of genuineness, confidence, and dignity. Shambhala warriorship is not about conquering others and wreaking destruction. It is about having the bravery to overcome aggression, to manifest fearless gentleness. The fundamental training of a Shambhala warrior is based on the Buddhist practices of mindfulness and awareness in action.

Listen to Dr.Joseph Parent

Books

Similar Narrators