Consider a moment — five seconds to be exact. For a golfer, what happens in these five seconds before a shot and what runs through a player’s head can make the difference between success and failure. What many tend not to realize, is how much can go into determining what actually happens physically, mentally and emotionally in these five seconds.

Dr. Todd Kays, author of “Sports Psychology for Dummies,” founder of the Athletic Mind Institute and a sports psychologist at Ohio State, points to this time as “the most critical in golf.”

“If you get your head right for these five seconds, you play better golf,” it says on the Athletic Mind Institute website. “With your mind in the right place during this time, you improve your swing mechanics and your ability to win.”

Dr. Kays’ “Mental Mechanics and Swing Mechanics” is just one of the many topics that the Illinois women’s golf team has discussed in its mental preparation and in working on confidence. Head coach Renee Slone has consistently stressed the importance of maintaining a high level of confidence throughout each individual aspect of this season. Perhaps the idea that she has emphasized most to the team is to not base the level of confidence on past results.

This lesson is one of the core teachings of another recognized expert in the field, mental training consultant and Associate Athletics Director for Championship Performance at Columbia University and Illinois graduate Dr. Brent Walker. Walker has spoken with the team about confidence and keeps in touch with players in order to assist them in maintaining a high level of confidence on a wide range of topics.

“It varies week to week depending on how my practice is going,” sophomore Michelle Mayer said. “If I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing much that week, we talk about why that might be, like if I’m focusing on something else.”

Walker suggests different ways in which to help the process along. To help Mayer, Walker suggested a visualization technique that involves recording her swing on her camera phone and watching it, as she will be doing on the plane to Arizona for the team’s next invite. When asked about the word “confidence” and how to go about addressing the fluctuation of these levels for an athlete, Walker said: “Since confidence is a belief, from a psychological perspective, part of changing confidence comes from changing belief patterns. For instance, many athletes believe that they need to be successful to be confident. This is a faulty belief pattern. How can you be successful if you aren’t confident to start? This is often the problem with an athlete on a cold streak — they lack confidence because they lack results. Developing confidence comes from taking the focus off of the results and going back and ensuring we are doing everything within our power to achieve those results.”

Considering Illinois’ youth, there has been a more concerted effort on the part of the coaches to ensure a clear and comfortable state of mind, not just before each competition, but also before each practice. In order to successfully compartmentalize different facets of their lives, some players have even gone as far as writing down what non-golf related things are on their mind and simply crumpling up the piece of paper and disposing of it.

Jeff Janssen, of the Illinois Leadership Academy, has also contributed exercises in order to assist the team in organizing its thought processes. The team completes “confidence worksheets” in which they have to write out what they are confident about in 10 different categories and they add to it as they progress through the season. These include what the player did in preparation, her strengths, past successes, people who believe in her, etc. The purpose is to physically and visually remind players of all they have going for them and they are instructed to place the list in a spot where they can see it every day. The “confidence script” is another exercise the team writes out in order to basically plan out a desired mental or emotional state each player wants to be in when they leave for the golf course, when they arrive and when they finally step onto the green.

But it is not just a single exercise or two that Slone wants for the team. She tries to continually keep these goals in mind so that the process does not falter. The “confidence worksheet,” for example, is completed a number of times throughout the season. Having a specific focus, attempting to only control what is controllable and always trying to look at situations positively may be techniques heard time and again from childhood, but they are still constants in chasing success with trained professionals helping the team.

The team also has other individual approaches that help in staying consistent. Sophomore Samantha Postillion literally counts in order to maintain a rhythm for each swing she takes on the course.

“I want to go into the tournament knowing that I will stick with the same routine for each shot and each putt,” she said. “I think that helps with scoring better because if I get in a nervous situation, I’ll still be doing the same thing.”

Other methods include a “self talk” to reassure themselves of the possibilities, taking care of non-golf related work before a tournament starts and maintaining one specific swing style to create a sort of muscle memory. These all can contribute to consistent confidence. From an overall standpoint, though, Slone acknowledges the constant struggle but is pleased with the team’s effort.

“It’s easier said than done,” she said. “But I think for some, they really have taken that to heart and really have started doing a very good job with that.”

Alex can be reached at [email protected].