Little Known Putting Tip - Quiet Eye Golf

[@DerekBraid]

This has been vital to making more short putts! Great advice, easy and free to implement, just have to practice keeping your eyes focussed and still. The body will follow and the putts will drop.

[@golfsciencelab]

Absolutely!

[@johnk.atchley5079]

This also works if you look at the hole while stroking a putt and not at the ball. But, and this is critical, you must focus on a very small thing at the hole, maybe a chip in the white paint on the inside right, or a blade of grass at the front inside left. If your eyes just look at the hole in general, it will not work. Your eyes will actually be moving, changing focus, from one side of the hole to the other or front to back, and that defeats the process. This is the same thing as focusing on one dimple on the ball. I think what is happening is that this precise focus allows the brain to compute the line and force or speed needed to send the ball to exactly the target point. Moving your focus around, even around something as small as a 4 inch hole, interferes with and defeats that computing process. I think this is why those who try looking at the hole often find it works briefly, but then it fails and they give it up. I am convinced that is because they stopped looking at a specific tiny point and allowed their focus to wander at and around the hole. As for looking at the hole vs the ball, think of it this way. If I want to toss an object, a golf ball or tennis ball, to you, I just look at you and my brain automatically tells me how hard and how high to toss the ball. I don't need to look at you, then look down at a spot on the ground on a line between me and you, then look at you again, then look down as I toss the ball along the line between me and that spot. And god forbid, I don't have to waste time trying to line up a line on the ball with the line from the ball to that spot. No, I just look at you, the target, even if you are some distance away, and toss. So if you have played long enough that you swing a putter with reasonable consistency, you can strike the ball in the center of the face without having to look at it. You can just look with quiet, relaxed focus at your target, that chip or blade of grass at the the hole, and swing.

[@robsaxepga]

I remember watching Scott Simpson closing his eyes just before a putt then zoning out and hitting the ball. I think it's the same principle. The sun sparkle on the ball is what I was taught years ago

[@ScratchArkkitehti]

Ray Floyd and many others of yesteryear would line up the number of the ball at the strike point rather than a line.....bc at the time Titleist hadn't incorporated Faxons line into the manufacturing yet!

[@michaelmarchese3362]

Or maybe the Dave Stockton protocol of staring at a point a couple inches in FRONT of the ball on the intended line...

[@chetranqui]

I do this on every strike, actually... I fix my gaze on the two or three blades of grass immediately behind the ball that I want to strike with the center of my clubhead.

[@stephentrust2241]

I try to focus on a single dimple. Basically the same process

[@golfsciencelab]

Yup! Sounds like you're utilizing quiet eye!

[@briannguyen1913]

What’s the putting surface you’re using?

[@a1sauce559]

I saw your fitting videos w David Edel... Are you still using the Edel putter? If not, reasons?

[@corinakelepouris1463]

I call it 'Fix your eyes'. i've been doing this for years. When I don't do it, I know it and I don't putt as well.

[@mikecr4916]

This follows the adage (roughly): If you look up, you'll only see a bad shot. A basic matter for ALL golf club swinging.

[@CompositeAcoustic]

Vickers, J.N. (1992). Gaze control in putting. Perception, 21, 117-132. PubMed

[@golfsciencelab]

Good info there! We review that on the latest podcast.

[@rogerkirby8535]

Takes me back to my MSc dissertation. Appreciate this is perception but there is lots of great research on ‘focus of attention’, internal vs. external from Dr Gabriele Wulf that is fascinating in the vain.

[@mickeymorley]

So hit the ball quickly (within 2-3 seconds of setting up)? Not good if you take longer over the ball? Explanation wasn't clear.

[@DerekBraid]

take however long you need, but while physically stroking the putt (from takeaway => strike => follow thru) those 2-3 seconds your eyes should not move.

[@Tigersmundo]

*Sure bruh, my dad has some tools.~Jeff Spicoli*