Let's take a look at the typical profile of a ‘lucky person' as defined by a study carried out in America.

-    Lucky people are more likely to create, notice and act upon chance opportunities

-    Lucky people are skilled at seeing the opportunities that arise. Their relaxed approach to life helps them to notice what is happening around them. Ironically, by not trying too hard to look, they end up seeing far more.

-    Lucky people also are not afraid of change and will introduce new experiences and act upon those chance opportunities.

How could you apply these traits to the way you approach your game of golf increasing your chances of having ‘luck' on your side?

Firstly, you could develop a ‘more relaxed' attitude to your game. It's a fact that anxious people have a very narrow focus of what is going on around them and hence tend to miss out on the opportunities that present themselves.

The ‘Lucky Golfer' is more relaxed about his or her game and hence will pay more attention to what is going on - their course management will most likely be effortless and making a great swing will be far easier because they are not in a state of anxiety and liable to mess it up. So what maybe seen as ‘lucky' is just an ability to relax and play the game without too many expectations.

Lucky golfers are open to new experiences - they are not likely to keep doing the same old, same old! They welcome experimenting and are more likely to try new learning techniques to help them make the changes they need to play better golf.

Many golfers learn techniques that do not always help their game but nevertheless have become habitual. Instead of booking a lesson with the Golf Professional at their Club or brushing up on the mind side of the game by reading Gail's ‘7 Secrets..' e-book, they will just keep on doing the same things, but all the time expecting different results. When they watch someone else get the results they seek it's because ...'they are just lucky!'

Finally, it has been psychologically proven that the human mind just loves ‘familiarity' and it will always walk down the path most trodden. So even if you have developed a swing that is not helping to improve your game you will most likely continue to use the same old methods despite the poor results.

Often when someone is faced with a playing partner who is playing really well their reaction might possibly be that it's because they have had luck on their side. It may not occur to them that their fellow golfer has actually been practising some sound skills in order to achieve their accuracy. That the person may have taken a few lessons and made time to really understand how to play the game better.

Often we are almost chastised for actually wanting to do well and in making an effort to improve. This is because there are a lot of people out there not prepared to make the effort to improve (I am clearly not talking about my readers here).

It's so much easier to label someone as ‘lucky' rather than shine a light on the fact that if we had been better ‘prepared' we might have improved our own ‘luck ratio' and done well too!

I hope what you have read this week has inspired you to relax more, not be afraid to take on change by practising more and to see opporunities and go for them.

I will leave you with a final thought from Gary Player (who knows a thing or two about golf) - "The harder you work the luckier you get!"

But remember RELAX and ENJOY too!