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The Evolution of Golf Instruction...

Target Oriented Golf is of most benefit to Professional and low/mid handicap golfers but if you are a beginner the sooner you become aware of these skills, the faster you will develop your skills. It is important to understand where you are heading before you set off on your golfing journey or you will, like myself, wander down many country roads looking for the 'perfect' swing for what you thought was the answer to your poor golf performance and you will never arrive at your planned destination.

Let me introduce you to a coaching model which describes 3 distinct PSYCHOLOGICAL phases you need to pass through. Determine where you are on your golf journey:

Phase 1. Internal Focus (TRAINING mode)
– this is institutionalized golf swing theory where your Attentional Focus is on the conscious control of your physical movement. Unfortunately, this is where the vast majority of golfers worldwide begin and end their golfing lives due to the lack of understanding of the significance of Attentional Focus by both the coach and player (Examples: The Golf Machine, Stack and Tilt, Plane Truth etc. ANY instruction promoting CONSCIOUS control your body/swing flies in the face of how humans naturally learn and perform motor skills and yet here lies traditional golf coaching.
Phase 2. Proximal Focus (TRAINING mode)
– where your Attentional Focus is unwittingly shifted away from body on to club, ball and/or ball flight. The golfers who discover this phase recognise how it enables a freedom in their swing better than an internal focus. (Examples: Inner Game of Golf, Extraordinary Golf etc). Freedom from conscious control is the primary benefit.
Phase 3. External Focus (TRUSTING mode)
– Attentional Focus instruction where your attention is moved AWAY from your swing in practice and play and to a Target focus. This is where performance lives with ALL life skills, external focus. From riding bicycles to driving cars, playing musical instruments and typing on keyboards. This is NOT being coached systematically in practice by PGA coaches and yet this lad intuitively understands the benefits of Target Oriented Golf.




We often transition to the TRUSTING phase NATURALLY leading to many life skills we master. This does NOT happen in golf due to the way it is being taught. What do you think happens to the boy's ATTENTIONAL FOCUS when a swing coach gets involved? Goodbye Tiger. Understand that you are not being taught HOW to develop external focus in golf and sadly for all concerned that is exactly where golf performance lives.

The most significant element of understanding the above coaching model is this. You can develop the ability to practice on the range in 2 distinctive modes: TRAINING (internal/proximal) when improving technical skills and TRUSTING (external) when practicing how to PLAY golf. Ultimately, trusting mode needs to become your dominant behavior in practice in order for you to trust and perform in competition.

If you think it sounds difficult, go and throw a ball at a Target and simply notice where your focus is and anxiety level. You are physically free of swing thoughts, in the present, visually operating with a quiet pre-frontal cortex. THAT is how to play golf. Notice how the Target provides a COMMITMENT. Take it away, physically or mentally, by focusing on something else and notice what happens. Self talk and self doubt. The lack of target orientation when executing a golf shot results in poor commitment from your physical actions when driving, chipping and putting. Familiar?




IF you have ever wondered why you can trust your non-conscious brain to control a car where your life is at risk but struggle to trust it to putt a golf ball, TOG reveals why.

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