Managing Eye Movements During The Golf Swing Itself (Video) - by Pete Styles
Managing Eye Movements During The Golf Swing Itself (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, we've now worked on the principles of correct eye movement and what we're looking at in the pre-shot routines, but now we've got to look at what did the eyes do actually during the genuine swing. So, the first thing we consider is actually making sure that we don’t watch that club head in the back swing. So, as we're setting up to the golf ball, we look at the golf ball, we go ahead and make the swing and we keep looking at the golf ball the whole time. It's important we don’t watch the club having get distracted way back in the back swing. Another thing we need to be careful of is actually that you don’t get distracted by your shadow and that's particularly important for me today because if I turn to the way, I'll be playing if I was hitting balls down the range I'm just looking at a clean shadow of myself. The ball sits here almost kind of between my knees in the shadow and actually as I make my swing, my left knee would move over the ball and then back again, I don’t know whether you can pick that up on a camera but my left knee actually covers the ball. That can be quite off putting particularly if I haven't registered that that's going to happen, I would surprise myself when it happens in the real swing. So, actually in my pre-shot routine I stand back here and I just think, okay, my knee is going to be over that ball so I need to practice that, see what that would look like, not be surprised by my body motion, then as I hit the ball I can go ahead and commit to it without being surprised and watching myself. You'd been amazed by how many people here, they're kind of looking at their own head which is up here somewhere in the shadow and I'm swinging up and then seeing my head, ah, didn’t realize my head moved that much, you're trying to hit the golf ball and you're watching what your head is doing. So, make sure you do all that pre-watching and watching the shadow in the practice swing. Then when you actually hit the ball you don’t get surprised by it.

The last thing we need to be conscious of is you don't get too anxious during your swing. So, when you're hitting the shot, you've got to stay down, commit to hitting the ball and we're not going to get too anxious and look up and see where it went because we're seeing an awful lot of golf shots ruined by perfectly good swings coming down to the golf ball, panic a little bit to see how the shot goes particularly when the golfer is under pressure. Pressure because it's the 18th hole of a tournament or pressure because there's a pond right there in front of him. They're so keen and anxious to look up and see whether they cleared the pond, generally they don’t clear the pond and I'm sure we're all familiar with that situation. You hit 10 perfect iron shots, put a pond in front of you and you top that one straight into the pond and often that's because you're a bit anxious to see it, your eyes lift up. So, keep the eyes down on the golf ball, don’t watch the club head coming back, don’t watch your shadow or be prepared for your shadow as you swing through the ball. And hopefully that will help with your eye movements during full swings. 2016-04-22

So, we've now worked on the principles of correct eye movement and what we're looking at in the pre-shot routines, but now we've got to look at what did the eyes do actually during the genuine swing. So, the first thing we consider is actually making sure that we don’t watch that club head in the back swing. So, as we're setting up to the golf ball, we look at the golf ball, we go ahead and make the swing and we keep looking at the golf ball the whole time. It's important we don’t watch the club having get distracted way back in the back swing. Another thing we need to be careful of is actually that you don’t get distracted by your shadow and that's particularly important for me today because if I turn to the way, I'll be playing if I was hitting balls down the range I'm just looking at a clean shadow of myself. The ball sits here almost kind of between my knees in the shadow and actually as I make my swing, my left knee would move over the ball and then back again, I don’t know whether you can pick that up on a camera but my left knee actually covers the ball. That can be quite off putting particularly if I haven't registered that that's going to happen, I would surprise myself when it happens in the real swing. So, actually in my pre-shot routine I stand back here and I just think, okay, my knee is going to be over that ball so I need to practice that, see what that would look like, not be surprised by my body motion, then as I hit the ball I can go ahead and commit to it without being surprised and watching myself. You'd been amazed by how many people here, they're kind of looking at their own head which is up here somewhere in the shadow and I'm swinging up and then seeing my head, ah, didn’t realize my head moved that much, you're trying to hit the golf ball and you're watching what your head is doing. So, make sure you do all that pre-watching and watching the shadow in the practice swing. Then when you actually hit the ball you don’t get surprised by it.

The last thing we need to be conscious of is you don't get too anxious during your swing. So, when you're hitting the shot, you've got to stay down, commit to hitting the ball and we're not going to get too anxious and look up and see where it went because we're seeing an awful lot of golf shots ruined by perfectly good swings coming down to the golf ball, panic a little bit to see how the shot goes particularly when the golfer is under pressure. Pressure because it's the 18th hole of a tournament or pressure because there's a pond right there in front of him. They're so keen and anxious to look up and see whether they cleared the pond, generally they don’t clear the pond and I'm sure we're all familiar with that situation. You hit 10 perfect iron shots, put a pond in front of you and you top that one straight into the pond and often that's because you're a bit anxious to see it, your eyes lift up. So, keep the eyes down on the golf ball, don’t watch the club head coming back, don’t watch your shadow or be prepared for your shadow as you swing through the ball. And hopefully that will help with your eye movements during full swings.