Protip with Ed Hanczaryk

The Quiet Eye

As a regional coach for the RCGA, I have been invited to some cutting-edge seminars on teaching, coaching, and understanding how people can learn to play the best golf possible.

This spring, I attended one such groundbreaking presentation, given by Dr. Joan Vickers, of the University of Calgary. Dr. Vickers (Faculty of Kinesiology) has become well known as the scientist who came up with the quiet eye research, presented in a recent Golf Digest cover story. The magazine gave a good overview of her work, but there is a deeper impact, that can help you become a much better putter. I’m a believer, having seen it happen over and over with my students.

Following is her talk, taken directly from my notes at the Spring conference at Glen Abbey.

Essentially, Dr. Vickers and her associates hooked up a large number of golfers of all ability levels, to a device (very expensive), that monitors eye movement. It actually shows on a screen for all to see, where the subject is looking. In essence, the gaze of a poor putter never settles. Their eyes flit from place to place, with no sense of resting anywhere. They don’t really ever look at the target or the ball, and in fact 70% of the time at impact the eyes are still darting around.

Compare this with an excellent putter: typically the great putters she studied gaze at the back of the ball for a few seconds, then to the target (specific target, very finite, ie. one blade of grass) for a few seconds, then back to the ball, resting there for at least a half-second to a second, and still quiet for a time after the putt has left the blade. It seems the duration of focus is the important criteria.

When I first heard this, I questioned the importance of the resting eyes, after all, a putt can be hit with the eyes closed. But it turns out, A SHIFT OF GAZE MEANS A SHIFT OF ATTENTION! It’s like driving a car while talking on the phone, eating a cheeseburger, and changing the radio station all at the same time.

Dr. Vickers went on to the two parts of the human brain; one specializes in slow movement, one in fast movement. The quiet eye occurs in the slow brain. The fast brain developed to protect us from saber- tooth tigers and other things that want to eat us. It is peripheral vision, constantly flitting around to detect trouble. As we evolved, the fear of being eaten changed to the fear of missing a putt: it’s the same neurological response, and it leads to real bad putting.

So, the quiet eye does a lot of positive things. In Dr. Vickers words, it `provides the information for the motor system to organize the billions of neurons in the brain in order for us to perform optimally’. It `orients the athlete in space within the task environment’.

For the yipper, who has worn out a neurological part of the brain, it puts them to a fresh place in the brain, where they have a chance to have beginners mind again.

Hold out your thumb an arms length in front of you; the quiet eye stays within the width of the thumb. Anything outside of that is the fast brain. The term for that is acuity.

Back to the poor putter: when the eyes dart off the ball at impact, the command to move the eyes had to come somewhere in the backswing (that’s the amount of time it takes to get the information from the intention to move, to the eyes). If you are telling yourself to move your eyes while the putter is still swinging back, you are in for some missed birdies.

Dr. Vickers suggested those in attendance look up the research of Gabriele Wulf, on external vs internal focus. Essentially, thinking about the result (target) leads to better results than thinking about the technique. The eyes, in this case, direct the stroke, by feeding the information into the system. In Dr. Vickers words, `the motor system self-organizes itself, unencumbered’.

Wow, do you mean all I have to do is look at where I want to go, give my brain a few seconds to process the information, then let it happen? Sounds too easy. Maybe that’s why golf is so hard, because less is better.

Good Luck and Great Putting!

Ed