Golf Tip: 10 Steps to Avoid Disaster on the Tee Box
Get a visual image of your intended line of flight and your landing point.
My mind is the most powerful part of my body, and make no mistake, whether I’m driving or chipping or putting, the mental must be in sync with the physical if I’m going to experience any success in the game of golf.
As I stand up I step behind my teed up ball and look forward. Â My eye traces a line that begins with my ball, flows forward to the edge of the tee box, rises over the rough, and locates the area on the fairway where I realistically believe I can land my ball.
The key for me in this process is to stay realistic.  I can’t carry the ball 200 yards.  Maybe on a perfect day, with warm air and low humidity and a wind at my back and a dry fairway with lots of roll I can advance the ball 200 yards, but I don’t often experience that combination of conditions.  So I need to stay realistic.
When I’ve found my landing spot I bring the line back toward my teed up ball, and I pause about a yard in front of the ball.  There’s something special in that spot — a blade of grass, some kind of small irregularity that’s going to serve me well.  I mark it as surely as if I’d stuck a tee in the ground.
My visualization exercise generally takes less than 10 seconds.
Next: #6: Lining It All Up