Fifteen years ago, the average American male golfer's handicap was 16.2. The average female golfer's handicap was 29. Today, the average American male golfer's handicap is 16.2 and the average female golfer's is 29. American golfers have not gotten any better.World-renowned performance consultant and sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella, author of the best-selling booksGolf Is Not a Game of PerfectandGolf Is a Game of Confidence,has writtenThe Golf of Your Dreamsfor the golfer who is determined to get better but hasn't figured out how to go about it. Building on his success with golfers, Dr. Rotella now teaches and details a plan for lowering your handicap, ensuring your improvement if you follow his plan. His program for success in playing the golf of your dreams is based on strategies found to be successful with tour players such as Tom Kite, Brad Faxon, Pat Bradley, and Davis Love III, and is similar to approaches used by Rotella's other clients who are top athletes in a variety of different sports.WhereasGolf Is Not a Game of PerfectandGolf Is a Game of Confidencecovered the mental aspects of the game,The Golf of Your Dreamsoffers a programmatic guide for getting down to scratch or single digits. It is an approach that Dr. Rotella and his clients have tested for over twenty years, one that has been proven to work consistently with all levels of golfers.Dr. Rotella knows that if you want to play your best golf ever, you must admit to yourself that you want to be good and that you have the necessary talent to play well. But that's not all. You must commit yourself to a process that will improve your game. InThe Golf of Your DreamsDr. Rotella provides tips on how to:* Choose the fight teaching professional* Communicate your dreams and goals to your teacher* Get your teacher to teach you as a student serious about improving* Make a plan for improvement with your teacher and stay committed* Sustain and honor your commitment* Break old habits and develop new ones* Practice efficiently and effectively so you can take your learning from the practice area to the golf courseDr. Rotella also discusses a piece of very good news for any golfer: Great physical ability is not required in order to play exceptional golf. Rotella demonstrates how characteristics such as desire, patience, and persistence,more than physical talent,enable golfers to improve their performance dramatically. When these characteristics are combined with a proven plan for success, modest talent is more than enough.Dr. Rotella will reveal why, despite the billions of dollars they have spent on new golf clubs, balls, and lessons, average American golfers' skills are stagnant and their performance is lackluster year after year. Dr. Rotella knows, above all, that simply reading a book or watching a video will not make anyone a better golfer. But readingThe Golf of Your Dreamswill make you keenly aware of what you have to do in order to play the kind of golf you've always sensed you were capable of playing.

After all those decades of work and responsibility, retirement should be a welcome period of rest and relaxation, a time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Unfortunately, that "rest and relaxation" often turns out to be more a burden than a blessing. Unprepared for the vast amount of idle time at their disposal, too many retirees find themselves without direction, without purpose, without pleasure. Author Robert Faber urges retirees to use golf as therapy, proposing the game--with its competitive stimulation and social opportunities--as a fulfilling alternative to excessive unstructured leisure time. With the assistance of retired University of Michigan golf coach Tom Simon, Faber provides technical instructions specially tailored to the physical limitations of senior amateur golfers. With humor and pertinent insights into the special needs of seniors, Senior Golf: It Takes Balls To Retire offers information on the origins of the game, its equipment, its rules, and the demographics of those who pursue it. Senior Golf will help you look at retirement not as the end of employment, but as the beginning of life's second phase.

Every golfer, at every level, can shoot lower scores and play injury-free with the golf-specific programs outlined in Golf Fitness. This book looks at the tips and techniques used by today's top golfers: Master's Champion Trevor Immelman's exercise routine, Stuart Appleby on how to develop the "power move," LPGA Tour pro Suzanne Petersen's routine for top performance, Phil Mickelson's trainer Sean Cochran on staying fit in the off-season, and more. Golf Fitness includes exercises to improve the golf swing, details on better warm-ups, whole-body workout routines, and notes on nutrition. The book also looks at the mental game, and how the mind and body can work together for lower scores. Any golfer looking for an edge will find it in Golf Fitness.

The fourth World Scientific Congress of Golf, to be held in St Andrews in July 2002, will bring together all of the world's leading golf researchers. Science and Golf IV will present 90 or so of the best research papers delivered at the Congress, and represents the latest volume in a unique and essential series of scientific studies in golf. The book is organised into four thematic sections, looking at the golfer, golf equipment, the golf course, and the social and economic impact of golf respectively, and addresses key topics such as: * the psychology of golf * biometrics of the swing * new developments in clubs, balls and teaching aids * golf agronomy, irrigation and drainage * the impact of golf on the community * representing the most up-to-date collection of research available. Science and Golf IV is essential reading for all sport scientists and researchers with an interest in golf, all club professionals, and all those working in technical aspects of the golf industry.

The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail tells how a bold, imaginative investment by a public employee pension fund turned into a world-class tourist attraction that helped change the image and boost the economy of an entire state. The pension fund was the Retirement Systems of Alabama, and its alternative investment was in a string of golf courses and affiliated high-end hotels and spas. In business-speak, this was an "economically targeted investment" designed to diversify returns, create jobs, and increase tax revenue. Twenty-five years later, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is known worldwide for the quality and beauty of its courses and the hospitality and elegance of its resorts. It has significantly increased Alabama's infrastructure for tourism and conventions, provided millions upon millions in new tax revenues, spurred construction of thousands of units of adjacent housing, and helped persuade other businesses to locate in the state. Making the Golf Trail a reality involved not only the initial vision of CEO David G. Bronner and his associates at RSA, but also the design genius and reputation of Robert Trent Jones Sr. and the hard work of many dedicated engineers and builders. It also required the cooperation of scores of local and state elected officials and economic developers. This book is the illustrated historical account of the financial, legal, political, and economic impact details of RSA's investment in the RTJ Golf Trail. Such a detailed history could not have been written without the years of economic analysis conducted by author Mark Fagan dating back to the earliest stages of the concept. Fagan's ongoing involvement with Dr. Bronner and those working to develop the Trail made possible the mammoth one-of-a-kind history that is presented in this book.