Effects of imaginal flooding on golf putting performance

The goal of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of flooding on golf putting among golfers who report anxiety in putting situations. The subjects were 52 golfers primarily from four Long Island golf clubs. There were two experiments conducted in this study. In the first experiment there were a total of 37 golfers from three courses. The subjects were randomly assigned by club to one of three treatment groups: flooding, attention control, and waiting list. In the second experiment there were a total of 15 golfers from one golf course (Bethpage). The golfers from Bethpage were randomly assigned to one of the three treatment groups: flooding, attention control, and waiting list.; The dependent measures were strokes per round, putts per round, performance on putting contests, and self-reported scores on the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2). The subjects' strokes per round and putts per round were monitored throughout baseline, treatment, and posttreatment. Putting contests and CSAI-2 measurements occurred during the baseline and posttreatment phases. Individuals in the flooding and cognitive control groups were individually interviewed to assess the conditions surrounding their anxiety. The flooding treatment consisted of listening to individualized audiotaped scenarios that imaginally exposed the subjects to the stimuli and responses associated with putting anxiety. The flooding participants received four 45-minute sessions of imaginal exposure. The attention control groups' treatment only differed from the flooding with respect to the content of the audiotapes, which was loosely based on an inert and incomplete form of a cognitive-behavioral therapy.; It was hypothesized that the performance gains of subjects in the flooding group would be superior to those in the attention control and waiting list groups. The results of the study indicated that the flooding group's most consistent pattern of improvement appeared to be in the comparison of baseline putts per round of golf with posttreatment measurements of this variable. While the flooding group outperformed the wait list group on several measures, the flooding group and the attention control group did not differ to a statistically reliable degree on any of the dependent measures. It is unclear whether the positive findings for the flooding groups were due to treatment effects or placebo effects.