Serious Sports

The Patriot News

Florence, South Carolina

Professor Receiving National Recognition For New Golf Book

Matt McColl

Dr. Tom Dorsel, professor emeritus at Francis Marion University, recently released his third book titled GOLF: The Mental Game. The book is the culmination of 12 years of columns written by Dorsel for Golf Illustrated.

It was released in April, 2008, by Cumberland House Publishers in Nashville, Tenn.(now owned by Sourcebooks: Naperville, IL), and has been attracting national attention on talk shows and in the print media. It was the book of the month on Tee to Green Radio out of Colorado Springs, the longest-running golf talk radio show in the country, and is a candidate for the United States Golf Association's book of the year.

Prior to joining the psychology faculty at Francis Marion in 1986, Dorsel taught for 12 years at Western Carolina University. He earned degrees from the Universities of Notre Dame, Kentucky, and New Mexico, and completed a post-doctoral internship in clinical psychology at the University of California at Davis Medical Center. He is a past president of the South Carolina Psychological Association.

A sport psychology columnist for Golf Illustrated, Dorsel has published more than 100 sport psychology articles in various publications.  He has authored two previous books (The Complete Golfer: Physical Skill and Mental Toughness and the Putting Machine) and made numerous television appearances.  He is also an accomplished golfer himself having played in tournaments at the state and national level during his career.

According to Dorsel, the best aspect of GOLF: The Mental Game is that its content is organized logically and the themes presented in the book are easy to find.  "It's comprehensive, organized around certain themes, and also flexible in that you can jump in wherever you want."

Each lesson, as the brief chapters are called, was once an independent article written for Golf Illustrated.  "Each lesson had to stand on its own when it was originally written and be useful and practical for the magazine-reading audience, and nothing about that has changed," he said.  The articles are now simply organized around the themes of golfers thinking their way around the course, controlling their emotions, and producing effective action.

"Another strength of the book is its immediate usefulness," Dorsel said. "Drills and strategies are provided that you can immediately take to the course and apply."

Dorsel said that he drew on time-tested, traditional principles of the science of psychology, and presented the lessons in a conversational tone that makes these principles easily understandable and useful for the average golfer.  "There is no pop-psychology gimmickry here - just a sound blueprint for working on the mental side of the game as hard as you work on the physical side," he said.

Among the 50 lessons in the 350-page book are "What exactly is the mental game, Tips for eliminating negative thoughts, Seven ways to build confidence, Sharpen your mental toughness, Six ways to prevent choking, and Golf's mental mysteries.