How eye focus affect my shots

[Zeph]

If I look 5-10 inches in front of the ball, towards the target, my impact is much better, including the result. If I look at the ball, I feel the impact better. On some shots where I focus ahead, I get the buttery feeling of a pure strike. Too bad it happens once out of every 1000 ball.

Exactly what is the difference when I look ahead of the ball? Do I use less force to hit the ball, sweeping it more, or is it the bottom of the swing arc that moves forward?

Also, are there any way to practice it without looking in front of the ball? I'd rather look at the ball, but when I do, I think I'm hitting the ball, rather than swinging through it. Closing my eyes doesn't help much, it's mainly moving my focus forward that does the trick.
I have developed a habit of trailing the club with my eyes going back, from 1/4 back I'm not sure where my eyes are. Working a lot on take away and swing plane is probably the cause for this habit.

I hit better shots when I focus on moving the bottom of the swing further ahead, still looking at the ball.

[mc0388]

If I look 5-10 inches in front of the ball, towards the target, my impact is much better, including the result. If I look at the ball, I feel the impact better. On some shots where I focus ahead, I get the buttery feeling of a pure strike. Too bad it happens once out of every 1000 ball.

Without video this is a quess. Your better strikes are happening when your focus is at the bottom of your swing (5-10 inches infront of the ball( well maybe 3-7inchess)). players that strike the ball properly hit ball first and then take a long shallow divot. The divot happens because the club bottoms out @ 5 inches in front of the ball. When you focus 5 inches out your are focusing on the bottom of the swing, which in turn, helps you get to the ball first (which gives you the feeling you hit it right).

Ways to do it and maintain looking at the ball? adjust ball 'back'??? in your stance?

[Zeph]

I don't like moving the ball around, and if my arc bottoms out where I look, wouldn't I want to move it forward instead? It does sound difficult to look at the ball and at the same time move the bottom of the arc forward by looking ahead of the ball. It's impossible.
Could try looking at the ball and focusing on the arc bottoming out ahead of it.

[mc0388]

I don't like moving the ball around, and if my arc bottoms out where I look, wouldn't I want to move it forward instead? It does sound difficult to look at the ball and at the same time move the bottom of the arc forward by looking ahead of the ball. It's impossible.

Like I said it was a guess. Its a different situation, Frankly Im not sure how he can hit the ball cleanly when hes not even looking at it?

[Zeph]

I don't hit it cleanly, that's the problem. But yes, I don't look at the ball, I'm not sure if I look at anything.

I did some work on this today and definitely think I'm onto something. I experimented some with ball position. Moving it back did not do anything useful, I just smashed the club harder into the ground. Then I moved it to the inside of my left foot, and what do you know, first shot I flushed it! Well, probably not a 100% strike, but a lot better than what I normally do. So I started thinking, if I hit the ball so well that far ahead, the bottom of my swing arc must be more forward. And how can the bottom of the arc move? By moving the head. Swung a bit into the air, looking at my shadow and noticed my head was tilting forwards during the backswing and start of the downswing.

I have lots of videos of my swing, shot with a quality camera, so I know I've had problems with my head moving forwards earlier. Seems they are still there. By moving the head forwards, the bottom of the swing moves more forward. If I were to make a good swing with lag with the head that far forward, I wouldn't even hit the ball! So I'm doing the only thing possible just to hit the ball, casting the club. This not only can, but will lead to a huge variety of shots, which I do have. It's lottery when I'll hit the ground first and when I'll hit the ball first.

Moving the ball forward really did it, butter shots with 9/7/5i (only three I had with me). It also explains why I tend to fall forwards a lot after my shots. The head has already moved so far ahead, when I swing, I get too far forward. I moved the ball back and focused on keeping my head from moving forward, much better contact. I know many play with the ball off the left heel, I might give that a go, but my primary focus is on the head.

So, how does this explain that I hit it great when focusing in front of the ball? Here comes another flaw of mine into play. The focus of my eyes. As I mentioned, I've worked a lot on my take away and developed a habit of trailing the club with my eyes, which also tilts my head backwards. From that position it's very easy to push the head forwards. What I think happens when I focus ahead of the ball is that my head doesn't move, or at least not as much. I keep the head behind the ball and hit it great.

I have to work on keeping my eyes on the ball also, not letting my head tilt to the left.

The result of this range session was the best ball striking I've ever had in my life. I have had the occasional shot which felt like I hit it today, but it's a rarity. At the end of the session I started thinking about the hips and decided to give it a go with the left knee. That gave me a great feeling through the shot. Just a nice small backswing, about 3/4, not letting the head move forwards. From the top, just push the left knee towards the target and let the rest happen by itself. My misses were also thin, not fat, which they rarely are for me. Almost all my misses are fat shots.

[mc0388]

I don't hit it cleanly, that's the problem. But yes, I don't look at the ball, I'm not sure if I look at anything.

The ball should be played off of your left heal, so bythe sounds of it, you found the correct ball position. When I hit shots fat, I do not complete my shoulder turn. I turn half way, lift my arms and collapse on the ball, leaving very little power and a poor decent on the ball. To fix my mistake I concentrate on a full shoulder turn and a quiet lower half, this usually fixes my problem. I posted my swing a few weeks ago if your interested in looking.

[Zeph]

Well, ball position is as far as I've understood not a fixed position. Some play every club off the left heel, some play the wedges from the middle, progressing forward the longer the club. I'll have to try out some more before concluding with anything. I definately hit some good shots with the ball off my left heel, but that was probably with the head moving forwards, if I manage to keep that in place, having it that far forward might not be best.

I have never seen any scientifical evidence which suggest that either works better than the other. Jack Nicklaus played everything off the left heel, Tiger plays progressively, so both options obviously works. I do however believe the reason it worked for Jack was because his head moved forward when hitting his irons. I used the video of him on Youtube which shows four swings at the same time with a 9i, 5i, 2i and driver. He says in the video that he use the same swing with every club, but his head moves when hitting the irons, it does not when he hit the driver. Which makes perfect sense to me, because I don't see how you can hit a shot where you want the club to descend into the ball (iron) and one where you want the club to ascend into the ball using the same ball position, stance and swing. Jack clearly did not use the same swing. Instead of moving the ball, he moved the head, which move the bottom of his swing arc. Look at the attached image.

Tiger pretty much keeps his head still, on some videos you can even see his head move back away from the ball slightly during the downswing. The bottom of his swing arc does not move forward, so he must move the ball depending on which club he is using. There are usually two types of ball positions out there. Those that progress from middle with short irons to left ear with the longer and left heel with driver and those that hit everything of the left heel. Why exactly do we move the ball when using the irons? Does the bottom of the swing arc move, or do we want to hit the ball at a different place in the arc with different irons? Why does the bottom of the arc move, if the head doesn't? The stance gets wider, but we always position the ball in relation to the centre of our body, which doesn't move. The middle of our stance is far away from where the club bottoms out, the closer you get to the left heel, the closer you are. Around the left heel is the bottom.

So you position the ball about 4 inches behind the bottom when hitting irons, at the bottom or slightly behind using woods and at the bottom or slightly forward when using a driver. Why do we then progressively move the ball more forwards with the irons?

I also have some shoulder/arms issues to sort out. Not sure how far back I turn my shoulders, probably not enough for a full driver swing. Still, with the irons, I usually don't want a full backswing. My biggest problem there is the arms collapsing into the body. Rotating more with the shoulders and not letting the arms keep turning is something I will address.

[mc0388]

Well, ball position is as far as I've understood not a fixed position. Some play every club off the left heel, some play the wedges from the middle, progressing forward the longer the club.

I agree with this statement about ball position. It seems that most people play the ball way to far back in there stance, which causes too many swing issues. By you having the ball towards the the front instead of the back, puts you in good position to strike the ball properly. You can move back from your front heal, but never behind center (unless a shaped shot of some sort).

As for the shoulder thing, I play my off of my left shoulder. Meaning when my shoulder is under my chin I know I can stop turning and start my downswing. Its a nice trigger mechanism too