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What is Focus in the golf swing Skill?
Focus of Attention is a psychological term used mostly in
perceptual psychology and also in cognitive psychology,
referring to the mind's ability to direct its inner
awareness upon an action or a particular target. The term
‘focus’ described by sportspeople is the state and intensity
of concentration. Sport psychologists prefer the accurate
term focal of attention or
focused
auditory/visual/kinaesthetic attention.
It is to describe the selective aspects of perception
sportspeople employ when they are executing a task.
Being focused means operating at the highest possible level
of attention, screening out irrelevant stimuli in the
environment and selecting only the wanted auditory, visual
and kinaesthetic information to produce an effective action
that is pertinent to the immediate task.
Focusing on the golf swing technique is to engage and manage
your full attention on moving your body with the golf club
in a swing motion patterns as perfect as you want it to be,
resulting in a flawless impact on the golf ball. To make
this action happen consistently and repeatedly with high
proficiency we need to utilise our motor skills integration
of auditory, visual and kinaesthetic sensory to direct each
part of our body during the actualization of our perfect
golf swing action.
Why we need to Focus on the golf swing technique?
The golf swing technique is complex motor skill. This skill
requires the body to be responsible for intricate sequence
of physical behavioural to achieve a predetermined objective
with consistency, repeatability and most of all with
economical effort. Employing your focusing ability will make
you productive in your learning perception and thus shorten
your learning curve. It will engage your inner awareness on
what you have to do for the skill acquisition. Your
retention of the skill learning will also be high. This will
enhance your self-efficacy belief to master the skill that
you are motivated to do. Thus, the results of the time in
the learning process are well spent, enjoyable and fun.
The lack of knowledge on focusing of a skill requirement or
do not know how to focus correctly may lead to a long
learning curve. This will also develop emotional contents
such as frustration, anger and ambiguity. Eventually the
labelling of yourself or categorising the difficulty of the
skill will set in your mind - motivation will be subsided.
How to Focus for our golf swing technique?
Auditory-Focal is the first stage of attention control for
your intended golf swing action. What you say to yourself
for your golf swing motion will manifest into your swing
action. Golf psychologists encourage golfers to use positive
words and mnemonics relating to the effective swing activity
you want to achieve. That is saying to yourself “good
impact”, smooth swing” or “follow-through”. The correct
words will activate your mind to integrate with other
sensory for your golf swing action. The intensity of your
Auditory-Focal will coordinate with part of your
visual-perception - seeing your body, arms, hands and golf
club happening right in front of you during your golf swing
execution.
Visual-Focal is the target point where your want the optimum
dynamic of the golf swing action to happen. That is, you
want the golf clubface to impact on the particular area of
the stationary golf ball with the correct swing path,
angular acceleration and velocity. The Visual-Focal will
enhance your visual motor integration - the hand-eye
co-ordination, where and how you want the clubhead to strike
the golf ball. Golf psychologists insist golfer should
visually lock the eyes on the specific area of the golf
ball’s surface where they want to be strike by the clubface.
Kinaesthetic-Focal is how you want each part of your body to
move in coordination to achieve your perfect golf swing
motion. Your desired outcome of the ball flight performance
is directly related to the efficiency of your golf swing
action. Therefore your Kinaesthetic-Focal will initiate and
manipulate your body movement patterns for the execution of
an effective golf swing. It also directs your postural
controls and intensity on each of the golf swing components
namely: backswing, down-swing, follow-through and
finish-swing motion. The Kinaesthetic-Focal can be felt by
your contractions of agonist and antagonist muscles during
your golf swing motion.
The intensity of our Focal-Attentions
The golf swing motor skills vary widely in complexity from
the simple pendulum putting stroke to producing a high speed
clubhead for the tee-shot, but the learning process that you
go through when acquiring each technique is similar. At the
learning stages, you often start with different focal
strategies to find out which ones work best for their golf
swing goal. At this stage you also have to consciously
follow the step-by-step execution of the golf swing
technique namely: the backswing; downswing; follow-through
and finish-swing motion. A great amount of focal-attention
is considerably required at this stage. Energy is required
for these trial-and-error, and test-and-measure experiential
learning. At this time, beginners can get tired easily.
As with more practice, you will see an improvement in your
body coordination and the ability to swing the golf clubhead
to impact on the ball efficiently. This will result in the
golf ball to fly in the air. Your body movement patterns
also become more consistent and able to perform the skill
with less mental and physical efforts. Through the learning
and practicing process you learn to manipulate the golf club
to produce the appropriate forces at the right time and in
the appropriate directions. As your proficiency improve, you
use lesser energy for their physical and mental attentions.
Your intensity of focal-attentions reduces. The
focal-attentions have become sub-conscious and you improve
to be proficient player. Your golf swing skill has progress
to the stage of “Automaticity” which sport psychologists
termed as the property of a process that operates
independently of conscious control and attention. A golfer
at this stage will enjoy hitting the golf balls to the
intended targets
The tour playing professionals and advance golfers do
perform their focal-attentions in the different dimensions.
Through their thousand of golf swing practices and plays
they developed their self-focused attention strategies.
Their focal-attentions have advanced to the golf course
management skill, game plan, shot positioning and other
emotional controls during the game.
In conclusion, the duration of a physical golf swing
technique is less than two seconds - from the start of the
back-swing to finish-swing movement. We want the right
dynamic body's movement with the golf club to produce the
best shot. This performance requires the
anaerobic
alacrity
of our body energy system to produce the optimum physical
power. In your golf swing mastery, the ability to focus is a
vital element to your swing technique perfection within your
athletic and physical ability.
Philip Ang
Asian Golf Centre
Certified & Licensed
USGTF
Master Golf Teaching Professional - USA
Certified Professional Teacher and Trainer - University of
Cambridge UK
Singapore Sport Council - NCAP Level 1, 2 & 3
Singapore WDA-WSQ ACTA Certified Trainer & Assessor
Certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP™) Practitioner -
USA
Certified Professional Clubmaker by GCA (USA)
GCA Winner International Clubmaker of the Year - USA
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