CONNECTING OUR EYES, BRAIN, AND ARMS CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
The Secret To Sinking (Almost) Every Golf Putt
With a little bit of practice, you can level up your short game
Sinking a putt can be one of the most challenging shots in all of golf. You never know exactly how the ball will break, how hard to hit it, or where it will roll.
The amazing thing is that your eyes and brain know the answers!
Use your eyes the right way
Your job is to use your eyes properly and most efficiently in order to sink the putt every time.
How can we achieve this?
This can all be done by making sure you have a perfect Quiet Eye.
The Quiet Eye describes your eye movements just before, during, and immediately after your putter makes contact with the ball.
Ideally, you should keep your eyes fixed at the point of contact between the ball and the club, without moving them, until about half a second after contact is made and the ball rolls.
Keeping your eyes still allows your eyes to best guide your hands, and thus the club, to make just the right amount of contact, and angle of contact, to sink the putt.
Any movement of your eyes during the period will distract that ability, resulting in a shot that is not perfect.
The ball may still find the hole, but the chances are much better if the quiet eye technique is used.
Scientific proof
In fact, a scientific study (reference below) showed that golfers with a good quiet eye had 1.9 fewer putts per round than golfers without quiet eye training.
Additionally, the quiet eye-trained golfers holed more putts and left balls closer to the cup on missed putts, than the golfers who did not have training in this technique.
Using the quiet eye technique is easy, it simply takes discipline and practice and an understanding that there is no need to immediately see where the ball went.
Instead, take your time, keep your fixation and concentration maximized, and then after a short wait, you can watch as your ball approaches the hole and falls into the cup!
Would you like to learn more about how your eyes can help you play better in your sport? Sign up for my upcoming 5-day FREE Email course by clicking here (safe link to my website).
Reference: Vine, S, Moore, L and Wilson, M: Quiet Eye Training Facilitates Competitive Putting Performance in Elite Golfers. Frontiers in Psychology. 2011(2): 28 January 2011
