When you watch professional golf on television, one thing stands out and that is how relaxed the pros at this game seem to be. To use that old saying, they almost make it seem easy to play great golf. It's deceptive to anyone who is not familiar with the sport to see that, because it makes it appear as though the game of golf is "easy" and requires no effort whatsoever.

If you are just getting started in the game of golf, you have discovered something those golf pros we watch and admire so much already know. Golf is far from easy. In fact, it is one of the most difficult sports to master and yet once you start learning how to play golf, you become driven to try to conquer it.

One reason golf is so challenging is that it is truly a sport that calls for a combination of physical skill with mental discipline. To successfully accomplish even a fairly simple putt or drive requires significant amounts of focus and concentration. And your mental state not only on the day of your game but on each individual shot is critical to your success.

The ability to stay relaxed and put themselves into a relaxed state while playing golf that we see in the great players of the pro circuit does not come from golf being easy. These great players have learned to put themselves into a relaxed frame of mind because that is the way you go about playing great golf. In other words, relaxation is not an outcome of golf, relaxation is one of the key weapons you use to be successful at golf.

When you start your "approach" to address the ball for a drive or a putt, there are is a lot of focus you must place on putting your body in the right position for the shot. The actual swing is a combination of powerful athletic ability that is confined and focused on that one moment in time for a very short duration of time. To accomplish this kind of physical precision, your body has to be able to respond to your demands like a well oiled machine.

Even the smallest amount of tension can create big problems at that moment of the swing of the club. So an "internal skill" golfers who become really good at the sport are to be able to summon is to relax at a moment's notice so their body remains loose and flexible to perform when it's called upon.

So how do you teach yourself to get relaxed for golf and stay that way over a game that can go on for hours if not all day? Well much of it is attitude. All of us have problems in life and it's easy to bring them to the golf course. But if you a mulling over your kid's bad grades or that promotion at work you didn't get, you are going to get tense and play a bad round of golf.

So you have to develop skills of putting those stresses and worries "on the shelf" for a few hours. When you can do that, you can then focus on happier thoughts and allow a mental relaxation to settle in. This is one of many ways that golf gives us good life skills too because the ability to manage your state of mind and when and where you will "worry" about things puts a lot of control in your hands over your anxieties in life in general.

It's a discipline to go through this cycle intentionally and on demand wherein you put life's struggles aside for a few hours and put yourself into a state of mental and physical relaxation. To speed the process of learning this discipline, sometimes Yoga or meditation classes are helpful. These classes also can teach you good posture and how to control your breathing, both of which are big skills you will need on the golf course.

But however you learn to relax, you will begin to see the results immediately when your golf swing becomes more accurate and you start shooting better golf on a consistent basis. And that will pay you back for learning how to relax. But more importantly, it will make the act of playing golf fun again. And that is why you got into the sport in the first place.