By Ken Martin, PGA, Director of Instruction

Spring is here and Natural Golfers are headed out to find the fairways nationwide; what a wonderful time of year! As an instructor and player, I realize the importance of task orientation when playing, so I offer this article as a way to keep you focused on what matters most to the golf ball. The golf ball reacts to only one thing and that is the clubface. 

There are a few components to the action of the clubface during impact and controlling these becomes the foundation for the swing we build. Follow the logic thread below and it may help you to have the best playing season ever! It all starts with an image of what you want the ball to do to get to the target. We term this Ball Flight even though the chosen shot may be one that rolls the whole way, as in putting. Once we’ve selected the Ball Flight we must then choose the club that will best accomplish it and then determine how that club must contact the ball to create the shot we want. Normally, what the club must do is a function of the ball’s lie, whether on a tee, on the fairway, in the rough, in the sand, in a divot, on a down-slope, etc. What the club must do to the ball we term Club Mechanics.

Once we’ve determined what the club must do, we can begin to sense the swing motion needed to move the club accordingly, this we call Swing Mechanics. Swing Mechanics are a function of the shot we have chosen and are determined by the Club Mechanics necessary for execution. Swing Mechanics happen when we focus our attention on the direction we are moving the clubface through impact to hit the ball to the target.

Our brains are ‘task managers’. In golf, the task is contained in ‘ball to target’ imagery then applying the clubface to the ball. This ‘task orientation’ is the glue that combines all the swing ‘parts’ into one fluid motion that produces desired results. What you are doing with the clubface to the ball is the primary task; the swing you produce will be an effect of the image, not a cause. That’s why sometimes people ask “what did I do right?” when they hit a great shot. Their task was usually very simple, like “just hit it in the middle”, “ball then divot” or “keep the face square” and it had nothing to do with swing mechanics.

Sometimes they aren’t even that conscious, they just had a fleeting glimpse of what they wanted to happen with the ball and automatically executed the shot without getting in their way consciously. That’s why they don’t know how they did it; they did the whole thing “ball to target” and “how” was of little concern to the task oriented mind. They weren’t intent on the swing, only on the task of “ball to target” and possibly an intuitive sense of the strike. And those shots are usually great because that’s all the ball reacts to – the strike! So, Ball Flight leads to Club Mechanics that create Swing Mechanics. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

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Now consider this scenario. You’ve been cooped up all winter, but, thank goodness Moe Norman Golf Academy was launched and you had all the great Drills videos to watch. You realized that you never really thought about ‘extending your trail arm’ through impact, so you even practiced it a few times as the snow was flying. Now its time to head to the course and you just know that ‘trail arm extension’ is the key! You anxiously get to the first tee, take that brand new ball out of the sleeve you got for Christmas, tee it up and think ‘just remember to straighten out your trail arm’ and POW...the ball slices of into the same forest you hit last year in the fall!

If you look close at our formula, where do you think ‘trail arm extension’ fits best? That’s right; it is a Swing Mechanic, singular. It is one piece of the ‘whole swing’. That thought as the task will only produce an extended trail arm and may not have the desired affect on the clubface to the ball at impact and therefore the direction the ball travels. So does that mean that ‘trail arm extension’ doesn’t work? No, it is a valid piece of every full swing; it simply is not the task when playing golf shots on the course.

The task is “ball to target” (Ball Flight) and is accomplished by applying the clubface to the ball appropriate to the desired shot (Club Mechanics). What you sense as you make this happen is your swing (Swing Mechanics).

Keep the formula straight when you play – Ball Flight leads to Club Mechanics that create Swing Mechanics. Imagery is you strongest tool when playing. Clear intent for where you want the ball to go and a great picture of its arrival prior to making your swing will serve you well!

By the way, the quote above is one of my favorites from a renowned golf professional Moe used to visit twice a year on his journey to and from Florida.