I'm fairly new to Geoff's teachings.

I was practicing putts indoors on the carpet this evening.

I point the ball by using marked lines on the balls, or the logos / arrows on the ball.

I align my putter markings with the line on the ball.

I noticed, tonight, that my natural "straight out gaze" was not along the line formed by the putter + ball markings. I wear glasses and part of my impression of my "gaze" is the alignment of the bridge of my glasses (which appears to coincide with Mt. Fuji). My "natural" gaze appears to be about 15 degrees clockwise of the putter + ball markings.

When I noticed this effect, I tilted my head towards my left shoulder a bit, until my "straight out gaze" was parallel to the putter and ball markings. Then, I rotated by head on my neck to view the target, etc. The breaks in my carpet are so strange that I don't know if I putted better or not with this adjustment.

So, my question is: have I found another way to define "straight out gaze"? (E.G. align both eyes with the already-aligned golf ball and putter) or am I doing damage to my putting by thinking like this?

When I try the line on the ball sometimes I have the same result. My head turns for the dominate eye.
It takes me much practice to relax and overcome this stress aspect of teh put.

Dear Paul,

You sound like you have "ballstriker's neck", which is a chronic tilt of the head and neck to the right from hitting lots of range balls in a modified K setup posture. That would twist the glasses 15 degrees or so clockwise.

Setting the glasses back to the target line IS what I teach. First square up to a line on the floor or string line. Set your right hand like a salute just BELOW your two pupils and make the line across the back of the hand match the target line thru putter head and ball (same as line on floor). Set the right eye's gaze straight over top of your big knuckles and keep the gaze aimed there. Then swivel the head so that the back / top line of the hand hews to the target line all the way to the end of the line, without part of the hand skewing off the line. Once turned as far as the target, and still looking over the knuckles, whatever shows up just above he big knuckle is where the putter actually aims.

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

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