Something interesting happened to me recently that I think it’s worth noting. I caught on to this putting concept and trend of drawing a straight line on your ball to assist in your putting. It helps me line up the putts to the line and keeps me “focused” on that line during my putting stroke. In fact, I focus on it so badly, I don’t even care if it goes in the hole, I just try to make a perfect stroke…staying on the line and keeping everything solid. The idea was that if I mechanically lined up correctly and swung the putter like a robot, it would go exactly where I aimed it to go which will be at the bottom of the cup. Sounds good right? But, that wasn’t good enough…I took it a step further. Get this, when you are massively manufacturing golf balls, do you think every ball comes out of the assembly line is perfectly balanced? Meaning, the center gravity of the golf ball is exactly the same on every ball? Answer is no. That means when you roll the ball and the center gravity of the ball is a bit off, your ball might not roll along the exact line you hit it at. Meaning, the off-balanced ball will veer off the straight line. Of course, this is in a microscopic and miniscule perspective. But…hey, this is a game of millimeters, it could cause you a stroke here and there. 

This is a real thing. At the elite level of golfers, as they practice on the putting pad, they are understanding the validity of finding the balance point of the ball. You can check this yourself, when you take a ball in a solution of salt water (add just enough salt to get the ball to float), spin the ball in the water and mark the point which ends up on top when it comes to rest. So, what you are doing is that you are identifying a point on the ball surface in line with and connecting the geometric center and the mass center…if you place this spot on top when putting the ball…it should roll on a true path. Don’t want to mess with the salt water? No worries, this is where I went crazy, I bought this spinner which does the similar thing by spinning the ball at 10,000 RPM and LED light indicates when the ball is balanced and ready to mark, and it comes with a built-in alignment cup to create your own line on the ball. Brilliant? Crazy? Stupid? Whatever…I did this.

So, why am I telling you this story?

Because we are talking about focus. And, in order to take focus to a whole new level, here’s a good example of how you can take it too far. Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back I know I did. And I am not going to discount the science behind it and the alignment helping someone to make more putts. But for me, after awhile, it stopped working. And I knew why. I stopped playing “golf”, and started playing “golf swing”. Does that make sense? I was so caught up on the mechanics, the science and the robotic focus and application of putting that I forgot to play golf.

So, as I said before, while I was doing the research on FOCUS, they were all pretty much saying the same thing…and it’s pretty insightful. But, I ran across this amazing article that really hit home for me. The headline read “LACK OF FOCUS IS THE SECRET TO PLAYING GOLF” And here are some points on why I think this is brilliant. Let me preface this though. Focus is good. It’s always been good…for any sport, any activity, for anything that you do. But, focus can hurt you if you are not focusing on the right thing. So, here are some ideas we can or should focus on.