WATCH: Playing naked – Dr. Bob Rotella’s amazing recipe for success on the golf course

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Few sports psychologists have had as much impact on golf as Dr. Bob Rotella has.

His clients have won over 75 major tournaments and nine of those were Open Championship victories including Padraig Harrington’s in 2007 and 2008 (pictured above).

Born in 1949, Rotella actually beat four-time Open winner Bobby Locke as a boy before studying psychology at university.

He returned to golf in the mid-1970s and never left the game.

His advice is often focused on practice and his most popular book is ‘Golf Is Not a Perfect Game’.

In this video he makes a shocking call for golfers to “play naked”.

“The biggest mistake people make is to test your talent when you don’t have complete confidence that you will release it and give it up,” he said.

“We call it going out of your way.

“But getting out of your own way means going beyond self-doubt, going beyond fear, going beyond self-awareness, going beyond other people’s opinions of you or judgments about you, and saying, ‘I have a ball doing this and I’m doing it. I’m going to go out there and release it and whatever happens, happens.’”

Here is the important point. “When you do that,” said Rotella, “you have to be willing to make mistakes.”

“Or you have to be willing to let people judge you harshly, even if they don’t like you, or if they tell you off, or if they laugh at you, and say, ‘Well, one day people will appreciate me.'”

Here is the plain truth.

He says: “We call it going out when we play naked.

“Because it’s like you’re being deprived of everything you love, like being careful and being careful and making sure you’re not trying to mess up.

“The minute you try not to interfere, you’re going to waste it.

“And that’s what’s hard for people to get their heads around: if you let it go, you do better.”

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