Focus on the Process not the Outcome!

From my experience working with students every day and watching golfers practice on the range, I think that gofers tend to miss out on opportunities to learn and improve because they are paying too much attention to the ball. Sounds weird I know because this game is about the ball, however sometimes the ball takes our attention away from the thing we are trying to learn or should be focusing on.

Coaches will often use the term "Focus on the Process not the Outcome" and here is my best explanation of what that means.

Coaches, golfers who have a coach, or just golfers who put time into practice, this should be helpful.

Read this:
http://www.bradfordprogolf.com/?p=991

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Pro, the link asking for username n password ?

Sorry about that.

Fixed now!

Slicer51 thanks for the heads up!

Wow, good stuff. It given me a different prospective. Thanks for the free lesson Pro

nice write up.

I originally posted this one as a link but I think most people turned away when they saw it was a link so here it is. No link.

I really like this one and I think it's something that golfers and coaches need to know.

It's a little long so if you do happen to make it all the way through without sleeping, congratulations! and thanks for reading.



If you’ve put any effort into improved performance on the golf course you might have heard someone say, “focus on the process, not the outcome.” Long story short, it’s super important. The best way I can explain what it means is by telling the story a recent session that I had with Gary.

Gary and I started working together a couple of months ago and during our first lesson, it took two swings for me to know where we needed to start. Balance. He was barely balanced before he started the swing, standing on his tip toes by the time he got to the top, and after impact the only thing he could do was take a full step forward to avoid falling over completely. He was hitting it all over the clubface and his shot pattern was all over the map, one left, one right, one straight, etc.

When I brought the balance issue to his attention, Gary said that balance was something that had never even occurred to him as and important factor. Only when I showed it to him on the video and did a comparison to a golfer with good balance did he start to understand the importance.

The next step was to help Gary understand how to direct his attention to his feet and his sense of balance in order to correct the issue. Gary proceeded to hit a few shots with the intention of improving his balance. Our conversation over the course of those shots went like this:



Gary hits a shot:

Me: “Gary where was your attention during that swing?”

Gary: “Not sure.”

Me: “Ok, I want you to be prepared to answer the same question after the next swing.”

Gary: “Got it.”



Gary Hits the next shot:

Me: “Gary where was your attention during that swing?”

Gary: “I was thinking about my back swing.”

Me: “Gary do you think it’s possible to improve your balance while you are thinking about your back swing?”

Gary: “I suppose not.”

We then spent a little discussing and working on swinging the golf club with his attention on balance.



Gary hits the next shot:

Me: “Gary where was your attention during that swing?”

Gary: “Balance.”

Me: “Ok great, how was your balance?”

Gary: “I lost my balance.”

Me: “What part of the swing did you feel like you lost it.”

Gary: “I felt balance until I got to the top of the back swing, and then I lost it.”

Me: “Gary that’s great! You couldn’t possibly know those details if your attention somewhere other than balance.”

Gary: “I see where you are going with this.”



Our discussion carried on like this until Gary became completely aware of what it was like to swing the golf club with his attention on his sense of balance from address all the way to holding a balanced finish position. The results were predictable. Gary’s balance improved dramatically, he started to hit the center of the clubface more consistently, and his shot pattern started to become much more consistent.

Fast forward a couple of months:

Gary came to our recent morning session with some feedback about a round that he had played a few days earlier in Australia. He said that he was hitting the ball all over the place, especially with his driver, he felt like he had no idea where it was going to go, and was trying a bunch of different things to fix it.

After a warm up Gary wanted to address his driver issue and after watching a few driver swings it was clear to me that he was back to the old, way off balance and completely unaware of it swing. Our conversation went something like this.



Gary hits a shot:

Me: “Gary where was your attention during that swing?”

Gary: “I’m trying to make sure that my club face is square at impact.”

Me: “Did you know that your balance has completely left you again?”

Gary: “I had no idea.”

Me: “I want to see what happens when you put your attention back to your sense of balance and try to keep your attention there from address to a balanced finish. You’re going to hit the shot and then tell me about where you think your attention was.”



Gary hits a shot:

Gary: “Another slice, I just don’t know if it is going to slice, or hook or what.”

Me: “Gary that bit of feedback had to do with the result of the shot, and the kind of feedback that I am looking for from you has more to do with the process that you went through before and during the shot.

Gary: “Not sure what you mean by that.”

Me: “After your next shot I want you to give me feedback on two things in a very specific order. First I want you to rank you attention to balance on a scale of 1-10. Then I want you to tell me weather you were actually balanced or if you lost your balance, and if you did lose your balance, when do you think you lost it. Once you have given me your feedback on those specific things in that specific order, then we can discuss what happened to the ball.”

Gary: “Got it”



Gary Hits a shot:

Me: “Gary on a scale of 1-10, what would you rank your attention to balance during that swing?”

Gary: “5”

Me: “And how was your actual balance?”

Gary: “Not so good, I lost it.”

Me: “When did you loose your balance?”

Gary: “Not sure.”

Me: “No problem, now that we have discussed the details of the process, we can discuss what happened to the ball.

Gary continued to hit driver shots while I kept him on track with the idea that his intention with every shot should be to follow these steps in this order:

1. Maintain a high level of attention to balance during the shot.

2. Give a post shot assessment of attention to balance.

3. Give a post shot assessment of his actual balance.

4. Assess of the flight of the golf ball.



It took some practice before Gary was able to consistently flow through the steps of the routine because his natural instinct was to assess what was wrong or right with the ball flight, stop there, and forgot all about assessing his attention and his balance.

When Gary finally did flow through step 1, 2, 3, 4 in that very specific order, some really cool things started to happen to his swing and his ball flight. His balance improved tremendously and he started hitting consistent high drawing driver shots. The other cool thing that happened was that Gary started to see a trend. When his attention and balance were good, he hit the ball great, and when his attention or balance left him, he hit the ball all over the place.

When we wrapped up the session Gary said he was ready to take it to the golf course and said that he was going to remember the steps and follow them on every shot no matter what. He was excited and feeling confident that he would now go out and hit solid shots as long as his attention was in the right place.

It worked.

Gary was a very happy man after his next round and continues to believe it when I say to him, “focus on the process, not the outcome.”

nice post!

its important to swing while in balance. I use to try to hit really hard with the driver, often it would result in a slice. Nowadays I try and swing with good balance and tempo, i get more consistent with my driver in both dispersion and distance.

This is definitively helpful advice as I experienced it yesterday during my chipping & pitching lesson with Brad. On a super off day with backpain and mind full of work & deadline, Brad explained the true meaning and I was able to focus on the process and improve and not thinking about the ball after that!

Thanks dude.