Sure!
Any object with a linear edge can be used as a "visual ruler." The putter shaft is one such convenient straight edge. A business card or credit card or driver's license is another. Simply hold up the shaft in front of your face so that the shaft appears tp split the ball near you in half vertically, with the left half of the ball protruding off the left edge of the shaft (or to the right, as you like). Then maintain this while cocking the upper part of the shaft sidewise until it splits the target (the hole, a target ball for practice, or a spot on the green) in half with the left half of the target image protruding off the left side of the putter shaft. This visual arrangement of both ball and target on the edge of the shaft "shows you" the line on the ground between the two. Each grass blade that is exactly on the line from center of ball to center of target fits snug against the edge of the shaft, so you can scan up and down the shaft between ball and target and see each individual blade of grass. This exactly defines the REAL line between the ball and target in terms of the grass on the ground. There is only one line.
The importance of the visual ruler is that a) it is MUCH more precise than looking off in the direction of the target with two eyes taking in 180 degrees of the world left and right and 130 degrees up and down -- way too much visual information, a zillion bytes when only 23K is wanted; b) there is NO guess-work -- the geometric relationship in space is a line, only one, and this "ruler" shows it to you exactly; c) you can look at the line over and over again at your leisure to identify landmark spots along the way to help orient your sense of space and body position for the action of the stroke; and d) the "ruler" eliminates issues of eye dominance and even eye variability -- the line is no longer something to "perceive" accurately if you are able -- now, it is something simply to "look at". It helps to close one eye to see the exact edge of the ruler more clearly, but you can use either eye, and dominance doesn't matter. Either way, you see the same line.
I hold the putter handle in my right hand and stick the putter head up and out at perhaps a 30-degree or 45-degree angle away from my face. I first set the splitting of the ball, and then "wave" the putter head end of the putter left or right until it splits the target. Then I just get familiar with the grass blades, looking near the ball for a discolored blade about 3-6 inches in front of the ball that is either exactly on the line or slightly (just so far) off to the left of the line. (I can't see to the right of the line for the thickness of the shaft.)
What You See:
Some people (very very few) hold the top of the handle above their face and suspend the shaft in front of their face as in plub bobbing, but then actually use the shaft as a visual ruler. I'm not crazy about this positioning of the putter -- it's awkward and a bit too "dainty" if you know what I mean (pinching the top of the handle with thumb and forefinger while little finger wags out to the side). I hold my putter more like a sword or a bull-fighting spear (a la Seve Ballesteros in his thru-stroke flourishing finish).
Seeing the discolored spot 3-6 inches in front of the ball establishes an "aiming T" to use when I walk up to the ball to position the putter face down the same line. The "aiming T" works like this:
The spot in front of the ball is the bottom end of the "stem" of a capital T. The "top" bar of the T is the line on the ground behind the ball that represents a squared-up putter face. So, using the spot, I can imagine the T clearly, and this lets me aim the putter face behind the ball straight down the "stem" of the T. The sweetspot of the putter then sits on the line centered behind the ball and the putter face is perpendicular to the aim line, which passes right over the spot and thus matches the stem of the T.
Then, I can setup to this aimed putter face. Then I can look down at the putter face AND the spot on the end of the stem of the T and see exactly where the ball must go when I stroke the putt: the ball must roll exactly down the stem over the spot at the end of the stem. I can also see how to move the putter head thru the impact zone to accomplish this: send the squarely-aiming putter head straight down the stem of the T slightly rising and keep it headed straight at least as far as the end of the stem, so that the sweetspot of the putter tracks down the stem and crosses directly above the spot at the end of the stem.
Got that?
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced putting instruction -- you're either in the PuttingZone, or not.
