You're Correct!

With this swing tip we are going to look at what you should focus on when playing a golf shot over water.

If you are new to golf, facing a shot over water can be a daunting prospect, but with the correct focus you will start to become more successful when in this situation and you will begin to hit the ball over the water without a problem.

Whatever image you have in your mind is where you are focusing. For example, if you wish to throw a ball into a basket your eyes look at the basket so that you have a clear image of it and your brain then transfers this information from your eyes and the image that you have in your mind, to your muscles, so that you throw the ball at the basket. If you do not interfere with the image that you have, you will successfully complete the task.

When you are faced with hitting a golf ball over water, the majority of beginners focus on not hitting into the water. However to hit the ball successfully over the water you need to get your focus on to where you want the ball to land. You need to focus on the far side of the water, whether that is the fairway or the green and have this image in your mind as you swing. Work on focusing more positively on what you want to achieve, rather than focusing on what you want to avoid.

With practice at focusing on where to land the ball, youll begin to hit the ball over the water with no problems at all and once you are doing this you should find that your scores get much lower and that you are enjoying your golf much more.
Focusing on your last failed attempt and thinking "dont do that again" leaves an image of the ball being hit into the water and your brain sends this information to your muscles for them to achieve. Learn to recognise your thoughts and the fact that you are focusing on being unsuccessful and then regroup and change your thoughts to those of successfully achieving the shot over the water.

As you walk up to a shot that needs to be played over water, if you are focusing on the water you have an image of this in your mind. Your brain is extremely clever and whatever image is in your mind, your brain will help your body to react to it. You have an image of the water in your mind and now you swing the golf club. Your brain transfers the information from the image to your muscles and you now hit the shot into the water. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and highly frustrating.

If you focus on swinging the golf club really hard and you increase your tempo and rhythm as a result, you will now swing much faster than you are used to, or are comfortable with and you will end up forcing the club rather than swinging it. Doing this you will find that you are more off balance than usual and that it becomes more difficult for you to achieve a crisp connection. You will either end up hitting the top of the ball and producing a low shot straight into the water, or you will hit the ground first and this will produce a shot that does not travel its usual distance and again ends up in the water.

Approaching a shot to be played over water can be very daunting, especially if you have failed in your attempt a few times previously. Recalling these failures is the wrong mindset to have if you want to successfully hit over the hazard. If you focus on failure, then that is what you will achieve, another failed attempt. You achieve whatever is in your mind and unfortunately your brain does not respond to the word "dont".