Shorter Golf Swing Drill 7 Close your front eye for head stability (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Shorter Golf Swing Drill 7 Close your front eye for head stability (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

There’s one thing that I really see is the classic mistake for people who swing the golf club back too far. When they turn back too far around, the shoulders get too involved. And if the shoulders can’t do enough, the chin then gets involve and then the head moves away from the golf ball. And if you’re in the position where the top of your swing you’re going too far around and your head is moving off the golf ball, that’s the classic sign that you’re in trouble.

Here’s a little check point for you to see whether that’s happening in your game. What I’d like to is to set up to the golf ball but close your front eye. So for me it’s my left eye. I'm going to blink with my left eye and shut it down. Then I make my back swing. And as I get to here, and I’ve turned my head away from the ball which is incorrect, I can no longer see the golf ball because my right eye can’t look past my nose to see the ball. All I can see is a silhouette of my nose and I can’t see the golf ball.

If I close my left eye, but now make a correct backswing, so I shift my left eye there and make a correct backswing, I can see the golf ball perfectly. It’s right in the middle of my field of vision, my head still looking down rather than tilt to one side. Now there are two issues relating to this. If you’re turning your head, you’re swinging too long, you lose control. But if you lose the perception of looking at the ball from your right eye as well and you can only see it out of your left eye, looking at something with two eyes gives you depth perception. You can tell how far away it is. Looking at it with one eye, that becomes a lot more difficult. So as soon as you’ve turn here your right eye looks through your nose, you can lose your depth perception and that can cause you lots of problems with hitting the ground too early or hitting the top of the golf ball. So your long swings out of control if you’re utilizing the head turn to help you with the long swing, you lose your depth perception on the golf ball as well.

So good exercise to make sure you’re not too long but also to encourage better focus on the ball, better depth perception, close your left eye set up and pitch the ball away. And if you can see the ball the whole time, your head clearly didn’t move too much. But if when you swung back the ball disappeared, you were turning your head too much, possibly turning your shoulders too much, not keeping a good field of vision on the ball, that’s going to cause a long swing, bad depth perception, bad striking on the ball. So left eye close for good shoulder turn and good movement through but a shorter backswing.

 2012-11-29

There’s one thing that I really see is the classic mistake for people who swing the golf club back too far. When they turn back too far around, the shoulders get too involved. And if the shoulders can’t do enough, the chin then gets involve and then the head moves away from the golf ball. And if you’re in the position where the top of your swing you’re going too far around and your head is moving off the golf ball, that’s the classic sign that you’re in trouble.

Here’s a little check point for you to see whether that’s happening in your game. What I’d like to is to set up to the golf ball but close your front eye. So for me it’s my left eye. I'm going to blink with my left eye and shut it down. Then I make my back swing. And as I get to here, and I’ve turned my head away from the ball which is incorrect, I can no longer see the golf ball because my right eye can’t look past my nose to see the ball. All I can see is a silhouette of my nose and I can’t see the golf ball.

If I close my left eye, but now make a correct backswing, so I shift my left eye there and make a correct backswing, I can see the golf ball perfectly. It’s right in the middle of my field of vision, my head still looking down rather than tilt to one side. Now there are two issues relating to this. If you’re turning your head, you’re swinging too long, you lose control. But if you lose the perception of looking at the ball from your right eye as well and you can only see it out of your left eye, looking at something with two eyes gives you depth perception. You can tell how far away it is. Looking at it with one eye, that becomes a lot more difficult. So as soon as you’ve turn here your right eye looks through your nose, you can lose your depth perception and that can cause you lots of problems with hitting the ground too early or hitting the top of the golf ball. So your long swings out of control if you’re utilizing the head turn to help you with the long swing, you lose your depth perception on the golf ball as well.

So good exercise to make sure you’re not too long but also to encourage better focus on the ball, better depth perception, close your left eye set up and pitch the ball away. And if you can see the ball the whole time, your head clearly didn’t move too much. But if when you swung back the ball disappeared, you were turning your head too much, possibly turning your shoulders too much, not keeping a good field of vision on the ball, that’s going to cause a long swing, bad depth perception, bad striking on the ball. So left eye close for good shoulder turn and good movement through but a shorter backswing.