Dear sammy,
If any golfer knows how to use simple geometry, there is no visual bias to contend with. The technique I teach bypasses and renders meaningless for every golfer any visual bias, such as eye dominance.
Setting the gaze straight out of the plane of the face is the same for all golfers. Setting the throat line to match the leading edge of the putter face is the same for all golfers. Turning the head and face like an apple on a stick to send the line of vision straight away from the putter face sideways along the same line the putter face aims down is the same for all golfers. Using the structure of the skull in the rear eye's socket as it circumscribes the field of vision to pinpoint how the spot on the ground across the green along the straight line sideways away from the putter face "shows up" in the field of vision of the rear eye on the skull line as the spot where the putter face actually aims is the same for all golfers.
The question is whether the golfer can "know" whether he is performing these postures of gaze and head-neck to putter face and turning movement of head-on-neck from putter face along the line sideways, and also "know" how to detect the spot on the ground at the end of the head rotation in his field of vision. There are a number of physical and visual cues to "learn" so the golfer can "monitor" whether he is performing these aspects of the beside-the-ball aiming process correctly.
For instance, the golfer uses good posture (inner ear balance, equal weight distribution, alignment in gravity of joints, level eyes to horizon, etc.) to establish the line of the neck perpendicular out of the shoulder frame. He uses similar body cues when setting the gaze direction of the eyes straight and level out of the face perpendicularly to the plane of the face, plus the cues of establishing a line of sight that would align sight with the far horizon line as happens when looking at the sea's horizon from the shore as well as the sense of each eye having a field of vision bounded by structural features of the skull and face so that the line of sight transits the entire field of possible directions solely in the one direction out of the face that is straight and level out. Setting the throat to match the leading edge of the putter face uses the cues of equally bending each shoulder at the same time evenly downward so that the line of the throat remains in the central plane that divides the body into left and right as the eyes equally lower to set the "eyeline" of the skull left-right to the same line of aim of the putter while the throat line lowers to match the leading edge of the putter, like a cross of the head being set to match the cross of the putter's leading edge and aim line. The left eye and its field of vision is equally disposed in relation to the left shoulder as is the right eye and its field of vision to the right shoulder. The throat line after this setting remains perpendicular to the line of the shoulder frame. The line of sight arrives at the sweetspot of the putter face solely because of the bending of the body (back and neck) with the straight-out gaze remaining unchanged, so the eyes continue to aim straight out of the face when looking at the putter face.
The head turn "like an apple on a stick" has the curious property of sending the lead-side eye and its field of vision straight away from the putter face on a straight line along the ground, and the rear-side eye's field of vision follows exactly where the lead-side eye has already been and seen. This is like two dogs in harness one behind the other on a dogsled team, or like two gondolas on a Ferris Wheel (for a vertical plane of the head turn, which is not strictly required, as a Tilt-a-Whirl turn works as well with a straight-out gaze). In the case of a Ferris Wheel sort of head turn, the lead eye is followed exactly by the rear eye the same way a forward gondola is followed by the gondola immediately behind it. There is no "skewing" of the following eye out of the line traversed by the leading eye. This "linear progression" of vision against the still background of the green surface as the two fields of vision are turned along a single line on the surface has certain distinct properties of "optical flow" of the background: i.e., the channel of focused vision is bordered above and below the "sideways roving spotlight of focused vision" by blurred boundaries above and below the straight path along the ground not unlike the way a passenger in a car facing forward experiences the blur of the world to either side while gazing straight ahead. For the car passenger, the optical flow of the periphery occurs in the corners of each eye to the left and right of straight ahead, but in the golfer's head-turn sideways along the ground, the optical blur at the periphery occurs above and below the focal view. There is a sense that these upper and lower borders maintain a linearity as the head-turn progresses, with no skewing of these optical flow borders. Other visual cues that the head-turn is progressing properly include the sense that the head-turn is sending the focual point of the lead-side gaze in the same direction as the lead-side corner of the eye, so whatever spot on the ground occupies the outside corner of the lead eye in peripheral vision is the same spot that the head-turn very quickly delivers focal vision over as the head-turn continues. Additional physical cues come from the way the inner ear experiences an apple-on-a-stick head turn, the way the chin remains equidistant from the shoulder frame, the way the axis of turn in the center of the neck out the top of the head stays unwandering in space as the axis simply rotates in place, the way the base of the neck as a plate stays in the same plane as the shoulder frame despite the head rotation without any sense of the base of the neck twisting in relation to the shoulder frame, and other cues.
These visual and physical cues are all the same for all golfers, and tell the golfers that the aiming process is proceeding with unbiased geometry. Even though almost all golfers would not be able to articulate this collection of "monitoring cues", all golfers nonetheless experience these same features of a good gaze and head-turn and can at least "learn" these cues in an implicit manner, although a conscious awareness of the body's visual and physical cues is always superior.
In a word, what visual biases? It's just the same geometry for all golfers.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
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