Does Field Indepdendence (FI) and Field Dependence (FD) Affect Swinging at the Golf Ball?

When I was doing research in cognitive psychology, one of our projects studied the difference between people who tested out as being Field Independent (FI) orField Dependent (FD).  After a lot of studying the various theories of striking the golf ball, I'm beginning to believe that this difference influences one of the aspects of striking the ball that interests me.

Field independent people are said to be LESS attracted to the visual energy created by an object, such as a golf ball, or larger objects such as a pot hole in the road, the individual trees in a forest, or even the side walk in a park.  Field dependent people are said to be MORE drawn to the energy field related to an object., such as being drawn to a pot hole in the street when you are driving in the lane that contains it, or walking on a sidewalk in a park without thinking about it.  Field independent people are said to look at the forest or the big picture, while field dependent people are said to look more at the trees.  People who can find Waldo in the Where's Waldo pictures are said to be more likely to be field independent because they are not distracted by the energy in all of the interfering lines in the picture.

So, now to the golf ball.  I see tips on using soft focus, to swing as if the ball isn't there, and to just let the ball get in the way of the club.  I can't seem to do this comfortably.  I can do it for a swing or two, and I can even hit on the driving range with my eyes closed, but it is psychologically uncomfortable.  On the other hand, I am quite comfortable with the tip to swing down on the upper rear quadrant of the ball to stop from hitting thin or fat.  I'm also comfortable with the tip about hitting an imaginary small ball inside the golf ball.

Even the interpretation of "hitting the ball" seems to be different for FI and FD people. FI people see to say, "you don't hit the ball, you swing through it."  FD people say, "That's what I mean."

I'm comfortable with what's called "the hitter's swing," where the objective is to "pound the ball into the ground," but I'm not comfortable with the "swinger's swing," where the objective is to focus on a wider, graceful arc, and just let the ball get in the way of the club.

I've played sports that require eye-hand coordination (E-H C) for years at high levels, and my E-H C is good but not exceptional.  I'm good at racquet sports, but lousy at fielding a long fly in baseball.   I've tried using swing tips that relate to field independence theories but can't get the hang of them.  I have more success with tips related to field dependent theories, but most other people try to get me to stop.

My #1 focus is on good ball contact because my scores go up and down depending on how many fat or thin shots I hit.  So, until I find out who a field dependent person can learn field independent processes, I guess I'm stuck with focusing on the ball.  Changing from FD to FI is almost like changing from being right handed to left handed or left handed to right handed.

I don't know about hitters "pounding the ball into the ground", but there are definitely hitters and swingers.  I tend to be a hitter.  See ball, hit ball.  Hope ball goes in the general direction it was supposed to.

It sounds as if what you're talking about helps to explain the differences between the two general types of players.  Interesting from that perspective.

Don't we have a decent thread on this somewhere?

Yeah, I think the take away was that it's all in your head. Everyone is a combination of "swinger" and "hitter", which group you identify with is simply a question of how you feel things and what your thought processes are. In terms of actual measurable motions I think it's pretty difficult, if not impossible, to say with any certainty that this guy is hitting and that guy is swinging.

Above I referred to myself as a hitter on the backswing and a swinger on the downswing, but again, purely a metal thing. I am very ball bound or ball oriented on the backswing, my mind is in my hands and my hands are "seeing" the ball all the way back almost as if there is an imaginary stretchy-string of energy connecting my hands to the ball. I "feel" this keeps me on plane, but that is clearly mental gymnastics and mumbo-jumbo that really doesn't mean anything in the real, measurable universe. By contrast, on the downswing I have no awareness of the ball at all, my focus is purely target and finish - aka swinging.

Drawn to a golf ball's energy field ? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you are saying, but this sounds like a bunch of new-age mumbo-jumbo.

If you are trying to say some people are more visually oriented, I can understand that. But if you are trying to say inanimate objects put off some type of energy that draws people to them, then I think you've crossed the line into the world of psychics, voodoo, tarot cards, and pyramid-power.

David in FL--I went to goflagtips.com to find exact quotes and found this--"Drive it strongly down and out. Destroy the ground!"  I'm sure that the "destroy" part is meant figuratively to express the hitting action.

It may sound like something unreal, but I've read enough about it, conducted research on it, and made observations for years to be convinced that these differences do exist, to different degrees i different people, and to different degrees of being able to perform the task that uses a person's opposite field orientation.  If you simply think of the times you've heard people say that someone couldn't see the forest for the trees, or someone understood the overview but not the details, and if the patterns repeated often, you probably were seeing this difference.  It would not be uncommon for a field independent golfer to not see a specific danger up ahead, hit the ball into it, and say, "I didn't see that hazard."  On the other hand, you also hear about people who are so "ball bound" that their swing changes between the practice swing and the actual swing.  While there may be several causes for this, one might be that the ball diverted their attention away from the swing.  As far as "energy field associated with the object," that may not be the actual phenomenon but simply a way to talk about why an object can grab your attention.  I guess that it may be as difficult to accept, just like some people have difficulty accepting that the earth pushes back against you as you push against the earth.  I had trouble accepting the latter in my physics classes and simply had to accept the conservation of momentum law or fail the course.

Ernest--I don't recall reading about your specific combination of hitter on the backswing and swinger on the downswing, but there are articles on swinger on the start of the downswing and then converting to hitter through impact.  It goes by the name of the four-barrel swing.  I don't know how polite it is to mention another website here, but I found it on the golflagtips.com website.

And what exactly does that mean? What does it entail, and how can you differentiate it from someone who is is a swinger all the way through.

I just swing the club head, with out regards to the ball just sitting there. So, I suppose that means I have a hitter's swing since the ball just get in the way of what ever club head I am swinging. Even though I can see the ball, I don't focus on the ball. If anything, I am focusing on a spot/area just in front of the ball. This is especially true with my iron play, because I want my divot to start after the club head contacts the ball. Plus I tend to prefer to hit the ball on the (very) thin side of things.

So  I guess I am "field dependent". If true, how can I use it in my golf swing?

I agree with the value of the bolded text. It helped me hit less fat in early stages.

If you look at the inside / back of the ball, but visualize the sole of the club contacting the ground (with a shallow divot ) at a point in front of the ball that is still in your field of vision (or maybe vice-versa: focus on low point and still see ball in your field of vision) it might help some.

There was an old-school feel for putting that had a very tight-focus visualization. The idea was, to think about 'nailing a tack through the back of the ball'. Visual focus stayed on the contact point on the back of the ball with an action 'picture' that would move the club through that point toward the target. The same visualization seems to happen when you are swinging an axe or hammering a nail properly. You focus on the point of contact, but drive the motion through that point to send the energy of the swing through the working surface.

Personally, I am generally comfortable zooming in and out, but it wasn't as easy as normal when I first started golf. As I got more consistent with my contact, I started focusing less on the ball itself. For me, consistent setup and ball position helped in 'trusting' where the ball was.

I can't describe it exactly. The best advice I can give is to go to golflagtiops.com and search the web page for tutorials on the hitting, swinging, and the four-barrel swing.

Patch,  can't give a solid answer to your "how can I use it in my golf swing question because I don't now enough about golf, but I can make some comments relative to what I hear and read on the Internet.  I've seen the terminology "soft focus" used many times, which refers to not letting the appearance of the golf ball in your real swing change your swing from your practice swing.  Field dependent people would have more difficulty using soft focus.  I'm sure they can implement it, but it doesn't come as naturally.  Here's another concept from months ago on the Sand Trap.

A Dr. Piparo, who is a sports psychologist and has written about golf, wrote that eye-hand coordination processes actually interfere with a golf swing and should be shut off, or maybe just toned down.  I understand the concept of the possible interference of one cognitive process with another, but I  I don't know how you shut of eye hand coordination.  Perhaps this is what soft focus does.

I would imagine that a person who is field independent might be one who is able to tone down eye-hand coordination processes, but this is just a conjecture.

As for making use of field dependence and hitting the golf ball, I happen to be one of the types who does better when I try to swing down on the upper rear quadrant of the ball, a tip I saw months ago about curing fat and thin shots.  I'm not comfortable with the process of swinging my idealized swing and just let the ball get in the way, even though I can shut my eyes and still make contact with the ball.  I'm far more comfortable looking at the ball.   I think that my ability to focus on the ball helps me use the "swing down on the upper rear quadrant of the ball: tip, even if several golfing friends strongly debate the value of this tip.

I also think the field dependence  helps me with another problem--my head head  moves a little during the downswing.  Physics tells us that if the head and eyes are moving and the ball is stationary, this is the same as if the eyes are stationary and the ball is moving.  So, in essence, I'm swinging at an object that is moving slightly, but moving just the same.  My theory is that field dependence helps me keep track of the location of the ball because I'm looking at the ball.  My golfing friends tell me that is not able to change a swing if he/she detects a displacement of the distance between the eyes and the ball, so you have to take what you get, but this is not part of my mind set, having played a lot of racquet sports hitting moving objects.  Maybe this is erroneous thought in golf, but I'm stuck with it at this time.

I don't have any theories at this time on how field dependence/independence might affect using the concept of the aiming point.  I imagine that some use the aiming point in the sense of a target to swing at, and some use the aiming point as a result of where  your swing bottoms.  In this case, both field dependence and field independent can make use of the aiming point concept.

These are all conjectures, except for the physics principle of the relative movement between a moving head and a stationary golf ball and the concept of field dependence/independence.

Perhaps the biggest use of the concept might be a match or mis-match between teacher and learner.  My piano teacher continuously instructed me to learn to play without looking at the keys, but I was always more comfortable taking peeks at the keys for reassurance.  I can play without looking at the keys if my hands don't move left or right, but as soon as I have to play notes by moving my hands, I have to look.