LPGA

June 27 at 3:32am ·  · Sports

SHE’S THINKING ABOUT IT

Sandra Gal has seemed to find her form in her ninth appearance at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. She posted her two lowest rounds of the year the past two days (65-66) in Arkansas. Her best finish this year was T13 at the HSBC Women’s Champions. The German said it’s been a tough season for her so far and has been working on every aspect of her game. She also started using a Focus Band, a device that studies brain activity.

“It just kind of tells you whether you are left brain or right brain,” said Gal. “So you want to be in your right brain when you are executing shots, and that’s basically a quiet mind. So you’re just working on, you know, being as athletic as you can during your routine.”

Gal, whose only LPGA Tour win came back in 2011 at the Kia Classic, has now made 136 starts since her lone victory. She said she won’t start the day on Sunday with a number in mind but know she’ll have to go low.

“I just want to enjoy it, which that’s a cliche, but it’s true. I want to enjoy it and play well, and I don’t want to put a score out there,” said Gal. “I haven’t the last two days. So if I just kind of go play and hit one shot at a time, I think whatever happens, happens. You know, if you put too much pressure on yourself to score, I think some people do that and they play well. I’m not going to do that.”

Measuring Mental Toughness

Henry Boulton

Ask a PGA Tour player how much he can bench-press, and you'll likely get a fast, specific answer. But how do you quantify "soft" skills like mental performance and emotional resilience—which are arguably more important to winning? A handful of players are doing this with the technology in the FocusBand—a wearable device that tracks emotional state and stress response through electroencephalography readings. It might sound like science fiction, but Jason Day used one of the devices to build his distinctive eye-fluttering pre-shot routine—which he credits for moving him into a calm, hyper-focused state.

Australian electronics engineer Henry Boulton developed the FocusBand with his father, Graham, in 2009. "We were coaching some guys on the Australian and Japanese tours, and they had all the technique, fitness and diet, but they'd get to a tournament and fall apart. We started looking for products that would address the mental side, and we couldn't find one. So we built our own."

Three sensors inside a bioprene headband measure brain activity and link the data to a smartphone app. By following the app's exercises and responding to visual cues and sounds, the user can learn to change the reading on the app's brain avatar from red (thinking) to green (creative). Boulton calls this green state mushin, Japanese for the "zone" or "no-mindedness."

The ability to measure brainwaves has been around since the 1920s, but interpreting these waves for the average consumer is a new frontier in performance training. The system a user gets with the FocusBand, while basic, offers analysis at the level you'd get with a body-tracking device like Fitbit.

"Once we defined the process, we were able to score the process," says Boulton, who splits his time between Brisbane, Australia, and Aliso Viejo, Calif. "If you can change your scores you can change your results. Once you get those results, you get belief. That's the edge the top players are looking for."

The device costs $600. Users can download apps specific to golf, yoga, baseball or general mental performance. Boulton is testing the newest FocusBand element, GPS Brain Tracka, which will allow users to review their brain state with each shot—showing the lift or hangover that comes with each outcome. Call it a real-time mental scorecard. "Usually, the starting point for training has been technique," Boulton says. "You start with technique, work on fitness and then finish with mind training. We're showing that you should be training the mind first. Get your mind right, and everything will get better together." —Matthew Rudy

FocusBand Used In A Tournament

Sandra Gal

27 March at 19:52 · 

Well, I ran out of gas at the end of this week, but it is still my favorite trophy wink emoticon It was still a special week as I wore the FocusBand for the first time in competition (wearing it in the picture) and we got some good data. It's an exciting learning process - just need to be patient with the changes I'm making. On our level it is 95% mental, so I'm looking forward to the progress and insights! Thank you @kiamotorsusa, Aviara Golf Club and all the lovely fans and volunteers for cheering for us! Congratulations @lydsko 🎉