Dear Gimme,
It frequently occurs to me that the eyes are the enemy in putting. By that I mean that optimal putting is all about paring down perceptions and movements to the bare minimum required for accuracy and consistency. Just like the many "degrees of freedom" in the fine-motor muscles and movement repetoire of the hands, the eyes are far too rich in movement possibilities and attention-grabbing information to serve well in the monastic quietude of the putting routine. "Quiet" eyes? I prefer "Dead" eyes.
Using the gaze for beside-the-ball targeting and then shutting down the visual processes to favor the movement processes basically entails very little attention to "what" is in the line of sight of the gaze, and the bulk of the attention ought to be on connecting the head with the target along a line from ball to target, and then connecting the head and body to a base of stillness preparatory to and during the stroke movement. Below, I'll talk separately about the eyes in targeting and the eyes during the stroke.
I particularly do not like the vague phrases "hard focus" and "soft focus." They are meaningless to me and are not ever used in neuroscience. They are just variable-meaning jargon used in a half-baked sort of way to gesture at meaning rather than to explain.
What I am talking about is relaxing with vision by keeping the gaze from changing. This makes vision much more indicative of head and body position and orientation to the target than does using variable eyeball movements shifting the gaze direction in an unorganized "looking" from ball to target or wherever. This sort of use of the eyes is accompanied by inconsistent movements of the head and trunk during targeting, and basically targeting is best done to teach the body where the target is located in relation to the body position and posture BY THE TARGETING MOVEMENTS THEMSELVES. It is not so much seeing the target as it is the way you look from ball to target with body movements that is key to effective, accurate, consistent perception-building of the target location in relation to the body and the forth-coming stroke. The eyes in this process are SERVANTS of the body, not masters.
As the brain is using the eyes in this manner to teach the body where the target is for purposes of making the (straight) stroke called for, it helps tremendously to keep the eyes gazing in the one useful direction of straight out of the face as the head turns from ball to target. This is necessary to deliver the eyes' line of sight in a straight line along the ground, and also to keep visual "noise" (irrelevant, jamming signals) to a minimum. So the eyesight is just parked in a straight gaze straight out with the foveal vision registering the ball at the start, the head then turning to deliver the eyesight straight along the ground with the field of vision registering the straightness of the journey, and then the head turn delivering the eyesight at the end of its linear trip to the target with foveal vision stopping precisely on the target and not just looking towards it but looking at it.
The "hardness" or "softness" is not so much the issue as the attention to the building sense that you are aimed square at the target. When I am looking down at the ball and putter before I turn towards the target, I am assessing the squareness of the putter face behind the ball, making sure my gaze is straight out of my face, making sure that the skull line across my eyes matches the direction the putter face is aimed, and preparing to turn my head correctly so my skull line runs straight away from the putter face without any skewing off line.
This process is all about squaring the body to the putter face and then checking to see in an accurate manner where exactly the putter face is really aimed. If my visual routine (straight gaze, regular head turn without top of head wandering) actually delivers my steady line of sight to the target, so that the target appears precisely in my foveal vision at the end of the head turn, then 1) the face is aimed square at the target, and 2) my body is square to the putter face and the line of the putt in the best position to execute the plain-vanilla same-every-time stroke that sends the ball straight away from the putter face and out of my stance and visual field right on line at the target. So foveal vision is important at the start and the end of the head turn, but it's not a matter of hard or soft, and is sort of a "just do it" and "take care of business" use of foveal vision. It's not casual, but it's not a strain either -- very relaxed and smooth.
During the head turn, as the fixed gaze results in the line of sight skimming along the grass in a straight line, you can't use foveal vision to pay attention to details along the way without stopping the head turn or changing the gaze. If you are searching for a spot to putt over, for example, then your head turn will not be smooth from ball to target, as the eyes will have to fixate on details on the surface of the green. The targeting head turn is therefore a skimming of the end of the line of sight, without foveal fixation, somewhat like gazing into space so that "foveal vision" stops in the air just off the surface. Once the head turn reaches the end, however, the eyes are allowed to focus on the surface detail to determine whether the face of the putter is really aimed at the target.
At this point, the head is still and the gaze remains steadily fixed in direction as always, but the lenses change shape to refocus for the new distance of the farther detail. The lenses take about one second to reshape themselves (pulled flatter by a ring of muscles around the edge of the lens) and bring the surface detail into sharp foveal focus, so you have to be patient before assessing whether the head turn actually ended up delivering foveal vision of the fixed gaze to the target, as was hoped. Once the vision clarifies and the target is focused, mentally checking to see that the target is centered without having to change the gaze takes a second or two more, then you start the turn back to the ball along the same line.
When the gaze of the dominant eye is directed straight out of the face, the field of vision of that eye is shaped like an egg with the narrow top of the egg slanted up to fit into the inside corner of the eye socket at the bridge of the nose, and the line of sight is directed thru this top portion of the visual egg about 1 inch into the field of vision from the bridge of the nose. This one specific spot is where foveal vision is aimed by the gaze.
I call this spot in the field of vision the "aim spot" but that can get confusing with the target aim spot on the ground. I am indicating a specific location in the field of vision. The shape and orientation of the field of vision follows the head / skull, and does not change with changing gaze direction by eyeball shifts. So eyeball shifts basically send the line of sight out different spots in the steady field of vision of a non-moving skull. Among these possible locations in the field of vision, only ONE corresponds to a gaze directed straight out of the face. The spot I use like a gun sight or the reticle on a sharpshooting scope.
Whatever appears in this spot in the field of vision is being seen by a straight gaze. So at the beginning of the head turn, the spot in the egg is occupied by the sweetspot of the putter (or ball) and the skull line matches the aim of the putter face. At the end of the head turn, the target detail or target spot ought to arrive in this same egg spot. So if you have to shift the gaze to actually put the target into foveal focus at the end of the head turn, the target will not remain in this one egg spot. Your assessent of whether the head turn plus fixed straight gaze resulted in looking right at the target in foveal vision is nothing more than checking to see that the target spot occupies the right spot in the egg-shaped field of vision. Knowing this one spot in the dominant eye's field of vision takes a little getting used to, but standing with good posture in front of a mirror with the other eye closed looking directly into your own dominant eye pupil shows you clearly enough where it is. For most people, if you hold the index finger up to the lips in a "shush" gesture so the tip is as high as the bridge of the nose and move the finger to the corner of your mouth on the side of the dominant eye, the fingertip will be pretty close to this "aim spot" in the field of vision, since most mouths are about as wide as the pupils are apart.
So holding the gaze steady and monitoring the LOCATION of foveal vision in the egg-shaped field of vision is more important than seeing the details on the ground, be it ball or grass. The eyes are servants to the body.
That's all for targeting. Once the head turn redelivers the gaze to the feet and the ball before pulling the trigger, it is necessary again to make sure the head movement has not disturbed the orientation of the body to the putter face. This means just casually making sure the skull line is still square to the putter face and that both still aim down the grass line just scanned by the head turn. If so, then park vision on a spot on the ground or somewhere else on the line and forget vision. Just keep the point of foveal vision steady and go to your body feelings for the stroke.
The role of vision is essentially over at this point, except to the extent keeping the gaze steady makes the stroke more accurate. You COULD close your eyes before initiating the stroke and putt VERY VERY well. Keeping the eyes in play at this point, even if fixed, is sort of a mixed bag, a trade-off of possibly peeking and too much irrelevant visual information adding "noise" to the purity of the stroke movement processes of the brain versus helping keep the head, eyes, and pivot still during the stroke. The way the eyes actually help at this point is not exactly straight-forward.
Fixing the eyes on the ground to putt is not a guarantee that the head won't move, and is also not a guarantee that the eyes will tell you even if the head moves. This is because the brain and eyes have evolved over the millenia a way to use the eyes so they stay focused on an object even if the head is moving or even if the head is still but the object is moving. So the brain doesn't really want you to know if the head is moving, and looking at a spot on the ground will pretty much look and feel as if everything is not moving even if the head is moving. This is done by the brain secretly shifting the gaze to compensate for the head's motion. So, the "harder" you stare at a spot at your feet (ball or grass), the LESS likely you are to notice head motion during the stroke. What you want to learn and pay attention to is whether the spot on the ground is STAYING steadily in the same egg spot in the field of vision. Now that would be helpful.
If the head moves in the putt, the spot on the ground will shift off the egg spot just a bit. It is probably useful to note that the outside perimeter of the field of vision, especially along the direction of head motion, will get dragged across still surface detail like the outer edges of a spotlight. Between what happens to the spot on the ground in foveal vision and what happens to the side boundaries at the periphery of the field of vision, the motion at the boundaries is probably a louder signal of head motion. That's because the rod receptor handle peripheral vision and they are much better suited to detection of motion than the foveal cone recptor, which are best suited to detect the detail of a still object. Even so, you can train yourself to benefit from both foveal vision and peripheral vision in the task of monitoring the field of vision for unwanted head motion in the putt.
All that said, it is perfectly possible to make a stroke very accurately and consistently with the right kind of head motion going on. the key to keeping the stroke accurate is to keep the pivot at the base of the neck still, not the head. The reason for keeping the head still is to help keep the pivot still, and also to keep the field of vision still and the inner ear undisturbed. Moving the field of vision during the stroke or sloshing the inner ear receptors with head motion can disturb the sense of balance and the sense of where body parts are located and moving. So, while keeping the head still is not absolutely necessay to keeping the pivot still, it is helpful in terms of balance and body sense and hand-eye coordination.
But if keeping the head still is distracting or uncomfortable, then you might want to free up the head during the stroke, although keeping the pivot still. Allowing some head motion while maintaining accuracy in the stroke motion basically means letting the head "roll" with the shoulder action so that the axis of rotation thru the head turns but does not wander. That is, the skull line of the face somewhat follows the putter head into the follow-thru. This keeps the base of the neck from altering, and so keeps the shoulders from altering out of square -- so the putt stroke goes off without penalty from the head motion. I would say this head action is not for beginners, but is not really all that tough to get used to, do correctly, and like.
In conclusion, vision is all about how the body relates and moves to the target in setting up, checking the putter face aim and body squareness, and making the stroke accurately and consistently. people who talk about the "quiet" eye don't really get this basic point about just how servile vision needs to be to the superior processes of aiming the body and stroke.
I hope this helps you see what I'm getting at a little better.
Some drills would be setting up over a line on the floor, making a tube with your fist, sighting straight down to the line as a putt line, and turning the head to send the line of sight straight along the line. Notice how the foveal focus skims between start and stop of the scan.
Another drill would be to suspend a piece of string from your teeth with a small weight of some sort tied at the far end and then make a putt stroke -- if the head moves, the plumb bob string will sway in your field of vision.
Another drill is to take a pair of cheap glasses or goggle and draw a circle about 1/2 inch in diameter around the egg spot of a straight-out gaze -- then when making the stroke, the perimeter of this circle will amplify head motion and make it more noticeable.
With the same pair of glasses or goggles, you can make a dot with a transparent color magic marker right on the egg spot and center the putter sweetspot or ball in this colored area of the field of vision at the start of a head turn and then check the spot at the end of the head turn to see whther the target shows up there (you can do this on a line on the floor by placing a ball at the end for a target).
Another drill is to sit in a chair and examine the fingerprint on your index finger, and then suddenly look up to a small detail on the wall across the room (small photo, light switch) and observe the timing of your lenses refocusing on the new distance -- learning this teaches patience with vision.
A drill to show you the importance of the body in the stroke over open and fixed eyes is to setup on a level green and put a tee in the green beyond the ball just to mark its location in the setup -- then keeping the feet the same, putt a series of ball from this same location, all with eyes closed, just making straight strokes. If you are indeed making straight strokes with the same aim every putt, all balls will bump each other in a line like railroad cars. This will teach you to focus on the action and feel of a straight stroke, which is far more important than anything you might be seeing when you make a stroke, even if it is helping keep the pivot and head still. Later, when you putt with the eyes open, you'll know better about what it is the eyes can do to help -- and also what they tend to promote that is not good.
The bottom line is let your body "master your eyes" by mastering your gaze.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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