Addressing The Ball

Addressing the golf ball correctly is of supreme importance in golf. I presume that my statement that there is perhaps one golfer in a hundred who knows how to look at a ball, will cause many smiles, yet that is an exact fact.

About one golfer in ten stands perfectly still in addressing his ball and really concentrates his attention on seeing the ball clearly. Most of the time is spent in a hasty glance in the direction it is proposed to drive and back again to the ball, before focusing the eyes on that point.

The club is being waggled over the ball with the head swaying as the weight is seesawed from one leg to the other and then before the eyes have been able to focus clearly upon the ball the attempt is made to hit it.

Golfers as a rule are too superficial and complacent to come to a realizing sense of their faults. They really believe that they do not need to be told so simple a thing as to stand still and look at their ball steadily and clearly in order that they can see it properly, and yet the number who can do that is mighty small.

The instant you shift your gaze on the ball during any part of the swing, that instant you invite disaster. More golfers hit their ball in spite of, and not because of, the way they look at it than is realized.

It is purely a lack of concentration that is responsible for most golfing errors, and it is of the very greatest importance that, as the mind can concentrate upon but one thing at a time, it should be the most important thing to which you devote your entire ability. I have shown that to be keeping the head still. In that way, only can you look at the ball properly. In that way only can you see the ball clearly. The only time when you are really accomplishing that is when you can see the ball at every point in your swing, from start to finish, clearly.