Proper aim and sharp vision are essential elements in good putting

Recreational golfers underestimate the critical importance of aim – especially when it comes to putting. If you’re wondering about your aim, have your club pro take a look at your set-up and give feedback. Very often, faulty aim is a matter of faulty vision. It’s a bit like the warning on rear view mirrors on older model cars: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Some 80 percent of off-line golf shots are due to poor aiming and alignment; disturbed vision and eye angle create an optical illusion resulting in bad alignment 99 percent of the time. The tell-tale clue is even if you have a perfect swing or a perfect putting stroke, but are still missing most of your putts; it’s because your eyes are deceiving you.

There are a number of visual skills essential for success in golf. One is depth perception, which helps you assess yardage and the conditions of the green. Another is eye-hand coordination that allows you to react to incoming visual information with accurate control and timing of body movements. Eye-tracking and eye-focusing allow you to keep your eye on the ball at all times and change focus between near and far distances. Peripheral vision helps you to see everything in your environment without turning your head. Each one of these factors may depend on corrective vision such as glasses, contacts or laser.

Everyone has a dominant eye that causes your brain to take more input from one eye than the other. Folks who spend time at the shooting or archery range know all about that. The brain favors one eye in telling you how far away something is and what the line is to the target. Over 70 percent of people are right eye dominant but it doesn’t always correlate with hand dominant. Still, most golfers are same side dominant. To determine which is your dominant eye hold your hands out at arm’s length and make a baseball size circle with your fingers. Then focus at your target, like a golf ball on the green at a short distance with both eyes open. Now, close one eye and then the other. When you close one eye the ball will remain in your hand circle; when you close the other eye it will disappear. The ball didn’t move – only your dominant eye kept it in sight. In putting, your non-dominant eye can create an alignment illusion or distortion. For the right-hand, right-eye dominant golfer, the hole usually appears slightly to the left of its actual location resulting in more missed putts. Some people are able to unconsciously compensate for this phenomenon but it is very difficult.

Golfers 40 and older frequently have an eyesight condition known as “presbyopia.” Literally translated as “old eyes,” presbyopia is inevitable for virtually all people, whether nearsighted or farsighted, and requires some type of “fix.” Many folks find regular glasses a problem, especially bifocals. Personally, I have benefitted greatly from intra-ocular lens implants in which the eye’s natural lens is removed, and a new, more appropriately powered and clearer lens is implanted. It did correct cataracts in both eyes. They changed my previously blurred and troubled vision to virtually 20-20 for distance. Reading glasses are necessary. But, on the golf course, the freedom from corrective eye wear is in most circumstances indescribable.

Lens implants helped my clarity of vision but it didn’t change my dominant right eye that caused me to miss putts. But the “spot-putting” method did. The first thing in spot-putting is to stand directly behind your ball and close your non-dominant eye and see your target. This is especially important for short game and putting, where depth perception is needed. Find a spot a few inches in front of your ball on your target line (factoring in the break) to start; it may be an off-colored blade of grass, but clearly identifiable with your dominant eye. Then identify another spot about halfway to the hole, and that’s where to align the face of your putter. That process shouldn’t distract you one bit from sensing the right speed of the putt you’re about to hit. And the eyes need to be looking straight forward out of your head, not tilted downward, as that will create distortion of the line. And having a Sharpie pen marker line on the ball along the logo spot will definitely help the alignment.