A Slice of Golfing Literature Part 14:  Gary Moran engages both of his 'selfs' in an effort to understand the 'Inner Game'

If you are unshakeable in your belief that the only way to better golf is through accumulating more and more swing tips and hitting more and more practice shots then W Timothy Gallwey's Inner Game of Golf (1980) is not the book for you. However, if you are open to the idea your state of mind can affect your score and that you can use pragmatic, mental techniques to improve your game then Gallwey's work is for you.

Gallwey believed the point of diminishing returns had been reached in the study of golf technique. Future breakthroughs would come from study of the mental aspects of the game, "specifically, how to learn and how to overcome the self-interference of tension, self-doubt, fear of failure, anxiety and a limiting self-image".

His interest in the subject stemmed from an incident that occurred in his teenage years when he competed at the top levels of junior tennis. Gallwey missed a simple volley on match point in the US National Junior Championships and although he went on to captain the tennis team at Harvard, he made his name as a teacher rather than a player.

His teaching focused on the mental side of the game and his first book, The Inner Game of Tennis, was a bestseller. If tennis was fertile ground for mental training then golf was likely to provide a bumper harvest. There is all that time between shots for introspection and analysis.

So as a 40-year-old who played only a couple of times a year and usually shot in the mid-90s, Gallwey set about applying his inner techniques to golf with an outer goal of breaking 80 on a diet of one round per week.

His key concept is the existence in each of us of a "Self 1" and a "Self 2". Self 1 is the "judgemental little voice barking away like a drill sergeant inside our heads", the voice that says "mind the out of bounds on the right, you went there the last time and you just need to par these two holes to better your handicap".

Self 2 is the sub-conscious and the body itself, capable of splitting the fairway, if only Self 1 would shut up. Better still, get Self 1 to lend a hand.

For example, tour player Al Geiberger explained to Gallwey if he continued practice putting while chatting to someone, his results were remarkably good. When the conversation stopped and he got down to some "serious" putting, the results were considerably worse.

Gallwey encouraged him to actively engage his conscious mind in trying to feel where the putt had gone in relation to the hole rather than trying to get the ball in the hole. As his feel improved so did his results but Geiberger admitted he would have real difficulty letting go of concerns about results in tournament play.

There are many other examples described in the book and many stories of satisfied "Inner Game" students. But a big leap of faith is required. Gallwey managed to break 80 just before the publication deadline.