Hi Geoff,

I am usually very good at see the line of my putts. I was chatting with my PGA pro and I was talking about seeing a line on the green. He started talikng about seeing a red line on the green. This realy threw me as I alway "see" a YELLOW LINE. I was wondering what other colours such as white do people see and what colour line to great golfers see.

Does it really make any differnce?

Dear IDKipper,

Obviously, the word "seeing" as used here means "imagining visually". Certainly, no sensible golf pro will tell you that you "should" or "must" use red when you imagine. There is no one specific color people use when imagining, but in general they will naturally imagine a color that contrasts with the color of the green. The color of the green changes hourly and daily and from course to course and indeed from green to green on the same course due to moisture, shadows, clouds, season, angle of sunshine, presence of hills and trees, and the like. The color of the green also changes with the state of the player's eyes, as when glare all day "bleaches" the chemical processes of the cones for color vision in the retina, or when a player wears and gets used to wearing dark sunglasses, or briefly takes them off and thus increases the relative illumination hitting the eyes.

More fundamentally, the color used to imagine visually doesn't really have to be noticed. The line in the brain is "just different" than the surface -- contrast alone need not come in color at all.

Finally, forget the idea that "great golfers" do something minor and insignificant that you must copy or else you can't be as good as them. Of course you can be as good or better than the best putter in history, unless he got to his level as a result of being a genetic freak as opposed to getting there by skill and performance improvement.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

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When I am putting well I can visualise a yellow line on the green so well that it seems real and it almost feels like I am cheating.

Perhaps others see the line in different colors and perhaps the line having a color makes it seem more real to me than imaginary.

Thanks for your reply.

Good to know who u r Thanks talk soon