3 things you should think about right before you hit your shot—pros explain why

What's a normal number of things to be thinking over the ball?

It's a good question.

You're standing over the ball, and your head is full of stuff. Where you want to hit the ball. Where you don't want to hit your ball. The various swing feels you're working with. Whether you're sure you've got the right club in your hands. Some lingering thoughts about what happened during the previous holes, and what may happen next.

It's hard to imagine you're about to hit a good shot with all that stuff rattling around in your head, yet thinking about nothing seems like an impossible task. How can you think about nothing? You have to think about something.

Enter a couple of the best players on the planet, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa, who it turns out, have the same problem.

"I've been a little bit stagnant over the ball, coming back and sitting there, you can tell I'm thinking one, two, three, four things," Schauffele said at the Memorial Tournament last week. "Trust me, you don't want to get in my head."

"Sometimes you don't know what you're searching for. Right now I'm looking for something small, but something to give me full freedom and 100 percent confidence in the shot I'm trying to hit. Right now I feel a little constrained," adds Morikawa.

So anyway, what's the thinking-about-stuff sweet spot? It's probably player-dependent, but based on what these and other players said, generally speaking the goal should be thinking about two or three specific things.

Let's run through them.

1. A clear picture of the target

This is the most obvious one, but yes, you should ideally be thinking a lot about the target when you're standing over the ball. So much that you can see it clearly in your mind's eye even though you're not looking at it.

"The best players, when they're playing their best, they're thinking very little," Bill Harke, Max Homa's caddie, said. "It's point and shoot; smash it."

Reacting to the target well is one of the reasons why looking at the hole while you putt has proven so effective. Yet, Morikawa says while reacting to the target is the goal, you can overdo it.

"It sounds simple to just say, Hey, when you're over the ball, think about your target. Yet sometimes we all have swing thoughts that could match that," he says. "Sometimes I'm too far target-oriented, which sounds crazy, but it's a blend that you have to be to hit your best shots, and feel comfortable."

2. One thing in your setup to check

Again, generally speaking, it's a good idea to pick something in your setup to focus on doing well as you're getting ready to hit the ball.

Lots of pros pick a spot on the ground between their ball and the target to check their aim. Ludvig Aberg has a quick takeaway check. Some use a posture check. Either way, it's not something you can think about when you swing, but something to orient yourself before you swing.

"Whether it's posture at setup; stopping my right hand from getting too strong; stacking at address," Schauffele said, running through some of his pre-swing thoughts. "If I can get that down to one or two, that would be ideal."

3. A swing feel

So you're picturing the target clearly in your head, and you've checked something in your setup to make sure you're all ready to go. That's great! You're two-thirds of the way there.

The last, essential step is something in your swing. Not so much a swing thought, but a swing feel (it's an important difference!)

"For me, it always goes back to smooth tempo," Morikawa says.

"I want to feel like I'm turning and burning," Koepka said in our episode of The Grid.

Often pros seem to focus on a thought that has to do with their backswing, like making a big turn, because those are a little easier to actually do. Think about something around impact, and your brain may not literally have enough time to actually do it.

Either way, it's simple. And combined with the other two, you're giving your brain some productive things to focus on that actually increase your chances of hitting a good shot—rather than swamping it with the wrong kind of information.