Keep Your Eye On The Ball
What It Really Means

     Perhaps the very first piece of golf instruction ever offered was "keep your head down." A close second and what would seem to be even the same thing is "keep your eye on the ball." High-tech photography has shown us that in many cases the head does move during the swing. However, the eyes do stay on the ball -- or should.
     The head moves in the swing because it has no choice. It is attached to turning shoulders. That is not a bad thing if the movement is to the side and not up and down, but you can get away with either if you keep your eye on the ball. It's the eyes that are really critical when you want to hit the ball solidly and play your best golf.

The Benefits
     Keeping your eye on the ball in the moments before you begin your swing has a number of benefits, both psychological and physical. It is the best way to focus your attention on what you are going to do. It has a way of eliminating thoughts that have nothing to do with your goal.
     When you are paying attention to the golf ball, and by extension how and where you want to strike it, you are not likely to consider what you want for lunch, your upcoming dentist appointment or the cost of tea in China.
     At the same time, such focus will go a long way toward overcoming anxiety about your shot. It will act as a diversion from the tension you are prone to develop over the importance of the shot to your score, your match and your self-esteem.
     Keeping your eye on the ball is the key component in the hand-eye coordination equation that is at the heart of swinging a golf club. If you aren't looking at the object you intend to hit with the club that's in your hands, your hands aren't going to have anything to obey. You may hit the ball, but not with the center of the clubface -- the sweet spot.
     Modern clubs are designed to make off-center hits more effective, but for all that, a ball hit on the toe or heel of the club will cost you 20 percent of the club's value in terms of distance.
     Keeping your eyes on the ball also produces good balance when you swing. It helps minimize fluctuations of your spine angle. The whole purpose of the swing is to bring the club back to the same spot from which it started -- right behind the ball. Keeping your eye on the ball is going to make that happen more often than not. It's the same as when you are hammering a nail. Take your eye off the nail when you swing the hammer back and the odds are pretty good that you will miss it -- or at least mishit it. We won't talk about what may happen to the fingers on the hand holding the nail in place.
     Hitting a cue ball is another apt analogy. You bring the tip of the cue stick very close to the ball and pump it back and forth a few times just a breadth away from where you want to make contact. But if you take your eye off that point, no matter how close you are to the cue ball, the cue stick is almost invariably going to slide off the side of the cue ball.
     By keeping your eye on the ball, you are less likely to move your body off the ball -- sway to the right in the backswing and/or raise your body up when bringing the club to impact. Many golfers top shots or otherwise mishit the ball because they don't "stay down to it," as the saying goes. A corollary effect is to slow the club down at a time when it should be moving at its fastest. None of this occurs if you keep your eye on the ball throughout the swing or until the ball is struck and is on its way. You won't decelerate because it is against your athletic instincts to see the club stop at the ball. You expect to see the ball being hit. That may not actually be the case.
     High-speed photography has also shown that many golfers' eyes are shut at impact. Furthermore, the speed and force of impact is so fast and intense that even if your eyes remain open you don't actually see the club meeting the ball. But by trying to see that impact, you achieve the ultimate goal -- solid ball contact and a good shot.
     The most effective way to swing the club is around your spine. As Jack Nicklaus has said, swing the left shoulder down on the backswing and the right shoulder down on the forward swing. Keeping your eye on the ball is vital to maintaining your spine angle, especially in the forward swing. If you take your eye off the ball at this point (and raise your head at the same time), your right shoulder will rise up out of position. The ball is then usually topped.

Which Part Of The Ball?
     Bobby Jones once said you should not look at the ball itself but at the area around it. He meant that for when you are in the address position, and was suggesting that if you only look at the ball, you put yourself in a kind of frozen trance. You get so wrapped up in looking at the ball that you forget your swing thought. When you finally do swing the club, the action lacks flexibility and is too tight or tense.
     There is another aspect to this. When you have a normal shot from a good lie in the fairway, look at the ball in general for a second or two, then narrow your focus to a point on the ball where you want to make contact.
     With a good lie in the fairway, look at the very bottom center of the ball, where it meets the ground. When you want to hit a draw, look to strike the lower inside half of the ball. For a fade, look at the lower outside of the ball.      These are the points of contact that instinctively produce the swing path for the flight pattern you're seeking. If you mean to hit the outside portion of the ball, you will swing the club slightly outside to in to make that contact.
     To take this idea a step further, if the ball is sitting in deep grass, visualize the club hitting a half inch or so behind the ball. Essentially, it becomes an explosion shot from a sand bunker. Indeed, the same method applies to sand bunker shots.
     If the ball is sitting in a low spot or in a divot, your visual attention is at a point just below the ball's equator. You don't want to top the ball, but you do want to make sure of catching it first.
     The same concept applies to the short game -- pitch shots, chip shots and putting. In fact, it is even more important to your success because golfers are more anxious about how these delicate shots turn out. They're often so anxious that they tend to look up before the ball is away. Here is a case when you actually can see impact with the ball, because there is virtually no body movement, and the club is moving slow enough. Taking your eye off the ball for these shots causes body movement, and it takes very little of that to cause a mishit.
     Keeping your eye on the ball and the point on it where you want to make contact will help you stand still throughout the stroke. Why not help yourself a lot on short shots, long shots and all shots?