Phil Mickelson - A great example of the chunking process, Golf's Mental Game

Phil Mickleson shows how detailed his shot selection process is. This is a huge part of Phil's golf mental game and was built up over hours of deliberate and contextual practice.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced golfer, recreating and simulating the specific challenges you will face on the golf course is such a powerful training methodology for one main reason – it gives you the opportunity to chunk. Which isn’t as terrible as it sounds.

Imagine a piece of information. Within that piece of information, there are details, nuances, concepts, movements and much more. The piece of information is what’s being referred to as a chunk and is stored in our memory. Chunks then become accessible pieces of information that, if trained to do so, golfers can retrieve and use in a tournament situation.
To be accessible during the competition, your practice must have heavily involved both the recreation and the simulation of game-like situations.
Over a period of time the stimulus that is created from the environment around a golfer will fire the right patterns, connect to the right chunks of information and allow you to transfer skills you’ve practiced into tournament play.

[Ducksoup]

I actually do much of what Phil is talking about here. If it's an early morning round and I hit a full 2 inches behind the ball I know my 5 iron is going to go about 37 yards. But that same shot in the afternoon will easily carry an extra 5 yards.

[actionfigure]

Like telling a heart surgeon your chest hurts then he explains the process down to the tool of a quadruple bypass. Gotta love Phil

[whenmullet]

...and if I hit off the hospitality tent floor, the rebound off the hard floor with 3/8" artificail turf going against the grain gives me 1.75 yards more distance, so I choke down 3/4 of an inch, open the club .5 degree and knock it over the green by 7 yards and think why the hell don't I practice driver more?

[billdunlop]

I'm just happy to find my ball !!

[mikemissesthefairway]

Feherty once said, "Phil's watching a movie only Phil can see."

[bc]

I love watching Phil. Followed him around at the Honda one year. He's so respectful of the volunteers. Made sure to say hello and thank each one of them. And he is hilarious! Hits it every where but in the fairway and shoots 4 under LOL. Was behind about 17 trees after a drive and some guy says " nice positioning Phil " and everyone laughed. Phil says " yeah, I have the perfect opening from here ( he had no shot, so we thought) " and proceeds to hit four iron through the first set of trees and then it slices around the next group lands 12 ft. and says to the guy " it's all about positioning " with a shit eating grin. Oh yeah, made the putt!!! UNBELIEVABLE LOL

[seizethecarp_]

Faherty's face at 1:56 lol... Like "Hooolyyyy sh*t".

[vivaunited]

A true genius, honestly, a genius of his trade. This level of detail and knowledge is akin to that of a surgeon or a rocket scientists for their respective professions.

[jasonwalsh]

Boy when I am standing over the ball I say just hit dame thing Jason sometime it works for me 😂😂

[darren]

I'm almost the same as this....when i stand over my wedge I'm thinking, ...." please don't chunk it, ....please don't chunk it!!!"

[cozyslor]

I factor in temperature and altitude as it pertains to my beer consumption on the course. Higher temperature requires faster beer consumption. Higher altitude and I'll drop down to a slightly lower ABV.

[paulh]

Watched this 6 times, I will probably still be a 4. Amazing insight into the mind of a great golfer. I never even thought about half the factors he mentioned. What I wonder about is the power of the subconscious mind and his ability to trust himself when even his caddy tells him he is wrong. We, as humans, are quite a bit smarter than we give ourselves credit for.
I like Phil's analytical approach to the shot making process, but I also think that he has eye-hand-body coordination that will correct mistakes before they happen. This is extremely interesting to me. Using a baseline for every club makes perfect sense, but anyone who has seen him play knows that he is not entirely analytical.
He is a psychological case study. I mean that in a good way.

[irnbrubhoy]

Yeah I do exactly the same thing: I process wind, temperature, time of day, lie, cut of the grass etc etc.
Then lift my head on the downswing and fuck it 20 yards with a huge divot.

[kevinmcniff]

Great !! Thanks Phil !!

Next time I'm in the fairway waiting for Mister "thorough analysis" to get done deciphering his shot, lie, temp, wind speed, grain, open face dew AND if the drink cart has caused a mini vortex I'll have you to blame. Now hit the damn 24yd chip shot!!!

[bleedinblue]

I do not feel that I am remotely worthy to even look at my irons much less touch them now.

[curtlewis]

Still the most entertaining golfer on and off the course.thanks Phil for always making it a show

[waltersreads]

As a fellow lefty, I would kill to have a lesson from Phil. He honestly seems like a great teacher.

[TheProdigalCat]

I love how Feherty was just cheesing as Phil explained his process. To be fair, it was really cool.

[sduke]

This really hits home now after watching Phil win the 2021 PGA Championship. Congrats to Phil for making history!

[ctcv-tokq]

I'm just happy I found the fairway.