Dear Jeremy,
Sure! You "feel" aimed left ( as a right-hander, which is "inside") because your "feel" is used to aiming to the outside. That is, what is really aimed straight and what is really the feeling of setting up square to a straight-aimed putter is not usual for you. What is usual is first setting up your body to what you think is square, then hunting for the target
with a flawed physical procedure that makes you sense incorrectly that the target is to the outside of where it really is, then aiming the putter face to the outside of where the target really is, then in the course of time "learning" by experience without knowing it or noticing it that you need a pull stroke in this aim and setup to make the ball go to the REAL hole. The end result is that what "feels" usual and "correct" is setting up aimed outside and aiming the putter face outside to an illusory sense of target location and pulling the putt inside at the real hole.
When you FIRST reliably and accurately aim the putter face (based on accurately aiming the ball) and only then setup square TO THE PUTTERFACE and then finally "hunt" for the target to make sure the putter face and setup are aimed at the target, your "feel" lies to you.
The "feel" will cease lying to you one day, so long as you make the correct aiming and setting up your normal habit. It takes a while, though, before aiming straight and setting up square to the real target "feel" right. But if you don't work to get past the lying "feel", you will never get to where you need to be.
The reason the old pattern of aiming and setting up makes you "feel" the target is to the outside is the way in which you "hunt" for the target from beside the ball. It's a flawed physical procedure that generates a misperception of the target location.
If you simply walk up to beside the ball and stand there any old way and look around for the target in different manners of aiming the head and eyes, you will almost always get an incorrect perception of where the target is really located. This comes about because the manner of "looking" for the hole from beside the ball is not a good manner, and almost always makes the base of the neck bend "open" in turning the head and eyes to hunt for the target from beside the ball. This base of neck shift to the outside makes the body "sense" the target to the outside, even though the eyes eventually "find" the target and "look at it."
The shift in the base of the neck out of square re-aims the shoulders and the whole upper torso to the outside of the target's true location. This sets up a conflict of perceptions between the eyes and the body itself. The eyes are a little flighty and dumb and quite gayly report that they are "on it," but the body is more serious and quiet and avoids conflict and will not openly contradict the "important" eyes even if the body is not really "on it" too. But when it comes time to make the stroke, the flighty eyes are not truly capable of running the show, but more or less step aside and "grant permission" to the body to make the stroke where the eyes have aimed it -- to the outside, even though the eyes have deluded themselves and the whole audience into thinking they were "on it" and that they had correctly aimed the dumb, stupid body. When the ball actually rolls outside the target, the embarrassment in front of the audience becomes unavoidable, but the eyes immediately blame the body for not doing what the eyes told it to do! The quiet body quickly learns this is a no-win deal, so it just obeys the eyes, aims outside, and secretly pulls the putts inside. The eyes never know what's going on, UNTIL someone other than the eyes accurately aims the putter face and setup to begin with. Then the body's little deception of the self-important eyes shows up, and the eyes are standing in the spotlight exposed as frauds who can't "get it" right at all.
At the deepest level, the manner of moving the head and eyes to sense the target location generates a sense that the eyes "get it" when they don't really while the body is getting a false signal of target location to the outside and the body needs the eyes to tell it the sense is incorrect, but the eyes are too stupid and happy "looking at" the target to worry about the body's problem. When it comes time to putt, the body putts the ball the way the body is aimed, because no one ever clued the body in on the fact that it was aimed to the outside. THEN the eyes "get it" and watch as the ball goes to the outside. They "get it" but the eyes won't "admit it." The "eyes" then start blaming the body and make the body start pulling putts, while the eyes keep maintaining that they "get it" right.
This all relates to the WAY you turn the head and eyes to look for the target. The eyes have to be made subservient to the body, and not the masters of the body. Accurate targeting is all about teaching the BODY that a square setup is truly aimed at the target so that the body can get on with making the usual straight stroke that rolls the ball straight out of the square setup at and to the real target location. Putt a quarter in the golfer at the top of his back and get a great stroke out!
The way to get an accurate perception of where the target is really located is not straightforward at all. Sure, you can really locate the target accurately a lot of times without getting tested on it, but in putting, you have to locate the target in the same way and FOR a specific purpose, not just at a given moment, AND you get tested on it when you make the stroke. The "same way" means from beside the ball while turning the head and body in the same way that accurately uses the senses to teach the body where the target is in relation to your setup posture FOR the purpose of making a straight stroke out of a square setup to roll the bal straight along the ground at and to the target.
You can use aiming the ball (if you know how to do that correctly and accurately) and THEN aim the putter face and THEN setup to the putter face and THEN learn how to hunt for the target accurately from beside the ball, and this will eventually override the lying "feel". OR you can learn how to accurately hunt for where the putter face is aimed. I prefer the latter, as this is really superior to aiming the ball AND to hunting for the target from beside the ball, and is the more basic and simpler skill for accurate aiming. You build outward from the accurate to the unknown -- from the putter face to the location the putter face is pointing -- instead of starting with the aimed putter face and ignoring it while you search again for the target location and then re-do the aiming of the putter face based upn whatever location for the target you can sense. (So why did you sight the target from behind the ball at all, if you're going to do it all over and supplant the behind-the-ball targeting with something else done beside the ball?)
In my approach, you don't really hunt for the target from beside the ball at all -- you aim the putter face based on sighting the line from ball to target from behind the ball, and then setup square to the putter face as aimed, and then CHECK from beside the ball to see accurately where in fact the putter face is aiming. If this check of the putter face aim indicates that the putter face is aimed at the target, then this check confirms that you did a good job aiming the putter face based on sighting the line from behind the ball, and you now have great certainty about being aimed straight and setup square and being in the optimal position and attitude to just putt straight with the usual stroke. If the check indicates that the aim is off, you have to recycle from the beginning and identify what part of your routine for aiming went awry (probaly the placement of the putter face and not the sighting of the line from behind the ball or the checking from beside the ball). But the recycling is using again accurate physical procedures to build up a true sense of target location, not indifferent, sometimes-accurate, sometimes-not physical procedures. These procedures invite the eyes to lie to you.
Here's how to move the body accurately to check the putter face aim: First, once the putter face is aimed, setup beside the ball so that the line across the eyes inside the skull matches the aim of the putter face. Second, work down from the head and eyes thru the neck and shoulders to square the top of the body to the aimed putter face and continue working down until you settle into square, happy feet. Third, make sure that your gaze is aimed straight out of your face, so your line of sight leaves the plane of the face perpendicularly (it may or may not relate to the ground in a perpendicular manner -- doesn't have to so long as the line of sight is perpendicular to the face and head). Fourth, rotate the head on the axis of the neck so that the axis (from base of neck thru top of head where the button on the cap is located) simply rotates in place and the top of the axis does not wander backwards as the head turn progresses. And fourth, using the field of vision of only one eye (dominant eye is probably the better one to use), stay aware of the one spot in the field of vision where the line of sight passes into the world -- about one inch horizontally in from the bridge of your nose -- and wait until the end of the head turn down the line towards the target to see what in fact shows up in this spot. Don't send the eyeballs roving around hunting for the target -- keep the gaze straight and unmoving and simply wait to see what shows up in your aim spot. Whatever shows up here is where your putter face is really aimed. If the target shows up in the aim spot, fine, your aim is true and your setup is also square, and you're ready and able to putt straight out of your setup.
A way to get used to this process is to setup over a line on your floor or a string line and stand more or less square beside the line and rest the last knuckle of your index finger of your left hand on the bridge of your nose, with the tip of this finger sticking sideways into your right eye's field of vision so that the very tip of this finger "touches" your line of sifght as it exits your eye's pupil aimed perpendicularly out of the head and face. (This is for right-handers who are right-eye dominant.) The line of sight will have to look straight across the tip of the finger to be perpendicular. Looking down at the line on the floor, make the line of the finger tip match the line on the floor. This sets the skull line to the aim line. This lokking across the tip also sets the gaze straight out of the face. Now turn the head so that the tip of the finger stays on the line the whole time the head is turning. This keeps the axis of the head turn rotating in place without wandering. After some distance when you declare the head turn complete, whatever is seen off the tip of the finger is where the putter face and the body are actually aimed. The tip should still be on the line on the floor.
Then step away from the line on the floor and set a tee peg upside down 10-20 feet away and aim something rectangular on the floor at the tee peg (a cigarette pack, a playing card, a small book, a ruler, anything with a long dimension and a shorter cross dimension so the long domension aligns to the tee peg). This rectangular item is a substitute for the aimed putter face. Now repeat the use of the tip of the left index finger with the rectangle on the ground and without the line to help get from the putter face to the target. This time, the skull is square and the aim straight out of the head and the issue is whether you can rotate the head correctly so that the top of the head stays in the same space. If so, the target will show up off the tip of the finger. If the head wanders with the top of the head sliding backwards, the tip of the finger will end up aiming to the outside of the tee peg (bad).
Then repeat the same process with the rectangle on the ground aimed correctly at a target tee peg, and this time try to setup the skull line to the rectangle without using the finger across the bridge of the nose, and try sensing the straight gaze and the aim spot in the right eye's field of vision, and try rotating the head correctly with the gaze held steady just waiting to see what shows up in the aim spot. If you do these skills correctly, the tee peg will show up in the aim spot -- every time, no question about it. Then use a putter face instead of a rectangle.
Practcing this accurate physical proceudre for targeting from beside the ball and UNDERSTANDING the problem that generates misperceptions and lying "feel" is what will wash out the old "feel" and replace it with a true, accurate "feel" for what is aimed straight and setup square to the real target location. Then when you setup square to the aimed putter face and check the aim of the putter face and CONFIRM the aim of the putter face with an accurate physical procedure, you will "feel" dead on and have great confidence that the target location is straight off the putter face and can ONLY be reached with the same-every-time straight stroke -- put a quarter in, get a great stroke as usual.
Put a quarter in and see what happens!
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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