Putting - Do your eyes deceive you?

Research tells us that 90% of golfers do not manage to aim their putter face correctly when putting. This certainly has to be a handicap! For a quick check, take a business card and draw a line horizontally through the middle of the card at right angles to the side edges. Take your normal address position with your putter aiming at a hole or a target 3 metres away. When you are ready to hit keep the putter face in place and put the business card against the face with the line pointing at the target. Now you can step back and see where your putter face was actually pointing. Most people point to the right. (for right handers) The experts tell us our eyes are designed to work on a horizontal plane. When you tilt your head, your eyes send a confused message to your brain, which, in putting, makes your brain think the hole is further to the right. Check yourself but also stand behind your friends when they putt and see where they point the putter. This is the main reason most of the top players now have long lies drawn on the ball as part of their ‘ball identification’. They then use that line as an aiming aid when putting, pointing it at their aiming point. They then line up the line on their putter with the line on the ball. Hardly seems fair don’t you think? Nick Faldo was the first one I was aware of to make a big thing of it. He had his caddy squat behind him while he was getting ready to putt to verify he had the putter face aimed correctly. She then stepped away before he putted. His putting certainly improved through that period. Your eyes are your only means of telling your brain how hard you need to hit the ball with the putter. If you are having difficulty judging distance, try looking at the hole while having your practice swings. The exercise works like this, look at the hole from beside your ball then have some practices swing while looking at the hole. Let your eyes comment on the speed of the practice swing to your brain i.e. ‘too hard’, ‘too soft’ or ‘just right‘. When you get to ‘just right’ repeat that action a few times to re-enforce the feeling you want to use then use that feeling to play the shot. It works for your chip shots as well. When you think about it having a practice swing while looking down at the ground does not tell you much about distance at all.