Whatever kind of sport you play, mental toughness plays a vital role in how the end result of the game would be.
How you are prepared mentally to go through and play under pressure would certainly be a key in how the outcome of the game would be decided in the end.
Remember, success or failure starts in the mind. If you believe you can’t do something, it will be difficult for you to do it at all or do it well. This is very true when you play golf.
The best golfers are those who play with the right mentality, those who refuse to be intimidated, who believe they can win and go ahead and do all they can to win.
Every player knows that what separates the good from the elite are the mental aspect of golf. You know this is exactly true!
Sure, there are the issues of natural talent, starting golf at quite a very young age with excellent coaches, disciplined practice, strength and conditioning and pure determination.
However, in pressure packed situations, only the person who has the best mental approach to playing golf would go on as the winner.
That is why mental preparedness and golf mental toughness is a skill that you should develop as part of your game. The right mentality can be cultivated and learned you know!
Below, we discussed a great book that can help you strengthen your mental focus when playing golf.
Leverage Your Mindset for Golfers: Breaking Mental Barriers and Elevating Your Game
Ricky Kalmon’s Leverage Your Mindset for Golfers is a book that touches into the golf psychology/mindset genre. It is aimed at helping golfers overcome mental blocks and perform under pressure.
Across 208+ pages, Kalmon presents a suite of mental tools — stress reduction, mental rehearsal, mindfulness, self-talk (especially the ideas of “AutoThoughts”, guided imagery, reframing negative thinking, building consistent routines, and body language awareness.
The book encourages golfers to see “mindset training” as essential (not optional), to quiet mental noise, recover from mistakes faster, and trust one’s preparation.
The book also offers supplemental audio support (via Kalmon’s app) to help reinforce the lessons.
This book is part motivational/mindset self-help and part practical mental-game guide, directed at golfers who already recognize the importance of the mental side and are looking for structured strategies.
Strengths and What Works Well With The Book?
Practical Mental Tools
One of the book’s strongest features is that it doesn’t just preach mindset importance — it gives concrete exercises and techniques (mental rehearsal, reframing, body language cues, etc.) that a golfer can try on the next round.
The “AutoThoughts™” concept (constructive vs destructive) is a useful framing for catching and adjusting internal scripts.
Sport-Specific Framing
Because it’s tailored to golf, many of the examples, cues and suggestions feel more grounded (versus a generic “sports mindset” book). Golfers may more easily map the techniques to swing situations, pre-shot routines, mistakes, etc.
Bridging Into Life / Leadership
The crossover appeal—to business and life—can make this book attractive even to non-athletes or those who want to apply mindset lessons broadly.
Awareness Emphasis
Kalmon encourages readers to become more aware of their internal narratives (“catch yourself overthinking,” name the thought, replace it) rather than simply suppressing or ignoring negative thinking.
Weaknesses, Criticisms and Caveats
Some Overlap / Familiarity
For readers already versed in sports psychology or mindset work (e.g. familiar with self-talk, mental rehearsal, reframing), parts of the content may feel familiar rather than groundbreaking.
Balance of Depth vs Brevity
At ~208 pages, the book must balance breadth and depth. Some readers might wish for deeper case studies, longer guided routines, or more elaborated examples.
In other words, the book may serve best as a springboard rather than an exhaustive manual.
Dependence on Reader Follow-Through
The utility of mental techniques often rests on consistent practice and discipline. In the absence of accountability or coaching, some readers may struggle to sustain use of the techniques over time.
Overall Assessment and Recommendation
Leverage Your Mindset for Golfers is a well-intentioned, practically oriented contribution to the golf mental game literature.
For golfers who are open-minded about the mental side, it offers a useful toolkit — especially for those newer to structured mindset work or looking for a mental-training companion to their physical practice.
It may not revolutionize the field (especially for those already steeped in sports psychology), but it is likely to help many players gain incremental improvements in focus, resilience, and consistency.
If you’re considering reading it, I’d suggest approaching it with an experimental mindset: pick a small number of techniques (e.g. catch & replace AutoThoughts™, do mental rehearsal, tighten your body-language cue) and try applying them over multiple rounds to see what sticks.
Use the audio support, revisit the techniques, and reflect on what changes you observe.