Written by: Fritz Johnson
Fritz Johnson is the Director of Golf at Par 5 Resort in Mishicot, Wisconsin. Johnson has spent the entirety of his career training golfers of all ages. Most notably, coaching one of his athletes to the German National Team.

Let’s talk a little bit about the mental side of the game of golf. There are a lot of different aspects when it comes to the Mental Game. A lot of it is being prepared. To me, being prepared is knowing what you’re going to do with your swing. If you know enough about the swing plane and know to pass through certain positions with the club face square then the ball’s going to go pretty much to your intended target.

Let’s discuss the pre-shot routine. In preparation for your shot, your pre-shot routine gets you to a standard position every time to hopefully line up square and hit straight down your target line.

Before we get started, I’d like to make this quick dedication to a gentleman by the name of Willy Hoffman. He passed away about a year and a half ago. Willy was Bernhard Langer’s instructor, a great guy, and I want to give him credit for this. It greatly helped me with my game.

Pre-shot Routine

1. Walk behind the ball 

2. Pick an intermediate target between your ball and your target

You’ll see here I’ve actually got a white ball lined up here and a yellow ball out in front of me. Now with that, the yellow ball is my intermediate target and I can actually draw, pull my club up here to draw a straight line to my target.

In an on-course scenario, I can pick out any piece of grass or divot (instead of the yellow ball), there’s so much out there that can be chosen for an intermediate target that is a straight line to my target line. 

3. Plant your foot at the back of the ball

Now, what I’m going do is walk kind of a semi-circle around the face of the white ball and I’m going plant my right foot 90 degrees at the back of the ball. I plant at the back of the ball because that is where impact is.

Now, you’ll notice that my left foot is open, my shoulders are open and as I place the club down, well, my hands are right over my toe line, which is how I like to address the golf ball. When I reach across and take my grip, my shoulders will become square to this foot. You’ll notice I’m going in with my body open to this stance. If I go left foot forward first, I’m closed. That would make it difficult to get lined up correctly every time.

What a lot of people don’t realize is feet, knees, hips, shoulders should be parallel to your target line. But also when I take this address and equal distance down below my elbows should also be parallel to those lines, also.

Do these steps in preparation for your golf shot and it will help you hit straighter shots and hit them more on target. And by the way, not only does this work in the full swing, that’ll help you very much in getting the correct direction for putting.

See more great tips about the mental game in the Drills section of the V1 GOLF app!