The quiet eye: it's the difference between a good putter and a poor one. Here's proof

Golf Digest, Jan, 2004 by Joan N. Vickers

Why is putting so difficult for so many golfers? The problem isn't the mechanics of the stroke. Almost anyone can take hold of a putter and hit the ball in an acceptable manner. The difficulty lies in using your eyes to detect the right information about distance and direction at the right time, then using your mind to relay that information so you can consistently make the ball go in the hole.

By recording under laboratory conditions precisely what golfers see while they putt, my team of researchers in the Neuro-Motor Psychology Laboratory at the University of Calgary are beginning to figure out the mystery--what separates really good putters from the rest. We call it The Quiet Eye.

Here's what it is, and how you can develop it.

The Quiet Eye occurs when your gaze remains absolutely still on the ball just before and as the stroke is performed. There are two important aspects to this basic yet essential skill: location and duration. Our research has shown that golfers who putt well focus their gaze on either the back of the ball or the top of the ball. Which is better? Both locations are effective in improving accuracy, but a weight of evidence is beginning to favor the back of the ball.

We've also studied Quiet Eye duration. The expert putters had a Quiet Eye duration of two to three seconds on average, while the less-skilled players held their gaze steady for one to two seconds.

The same result has been found in a number of other sport skills such as rifle shooting, darts, billiards and the basketball free throw. In putting as well as in other hand-eye-target skills, The Quiet Eye is emerging as an indicator of optimal focus and concentration.

Why is it essential that you develop a Quiet Eye when you putt? It's simple--your hands are controlled by your brain, which gets valuable information about what to do from your eyes. As you putt, your brain needs to organize more than 100 billion neurons. These neural networks are informed by your gaze, and control your hands, arms and body as the stroke is performed. These networks will stay organized for only a short period of time; a window of opportunity opens that must be used when it is at its most optimal. This is The Quiet Eye period.

Take two skilled golfers, one being a poor putter (above left) and the other a good putter (above right). In the illustrations, both are faced with a short putt on a flat surface. Using the sophisticated eye-movement tracker technology detailed below, we're able to monitor precisely what the eyes focus on, and for how long.

This good putter fixates on the back of the ball where the putterhead will contact it. There is little uncertainty in the mind of this golfer about where the target is. A good putter picks out a specific location on the hole, such as a blade of grass on the lip. The target is not the hole itself, and certainly not around it. Instead, the gaze focuses on a target only a few millimeters wide.

Good putters use rapid shifts of gaze (head and eye movements combined) in which no conscious information is processed to link the specific spot on the hole with the specific location on the back of the ball. They fixate on the spot on the hole for one to two seconds and then use rapid shifts of the gaze between the spot and the back of the ball for 300 to 500 milliseconds. (There are 1,000 milliseconds in a second; you become aware of something when your gaze is stable on one location for at least 100ms. It takes about 180ms to see something and make or correct a movement.)

Our research has shown that The Quiet Eye is equally important on breaking putts. On a breaking putt, a good putter determines the break point and transposes the target from the hole to that location. A poor putter is much more indiscriminate with targeting and scan path, often relying on an inaccurate form of triangulation to locate a vague break point.

By recording movements of the center of the pupil and corneal reflex, we can also record the gaze throughout the putting stroke. The good putter maintains fixation on the same location at the back of the ball through the backswing, forward swing, contact and for almost half a second after the ball is struck. The gaze stays in exactly the same location relative to the position of the feet, indicating the gaze does not move. This is very difficult for most of us to achieve: Most often, the gaze moves when the club contacts the ball. When golfers stabilize this part of their routine they are more accurate.

Golfers who have trouble putting do not select a single spot on the target but let their gaze roam all over the hole and surrounding green. They have a shorter duration of fixation on the hole, and they use rapid shifts of the gaze that are either too fast or too slow between the hole and the ball. The poor putter's gaze is unstable at impact--in our testing we often see that the poor putter's gaze moves toward the front foot at impact. This erratic scan path and fixation clouds his focus and concentration. It's evident that his brain is getting a jumble of signals about where the hole is and what he wants the ball to do. (As the article at right shows, researcher Dr. Debbie Crews of Arizona State University is also able to determine the brain-activation patterns among golfers during The Quiet Eye; the good putter achieves a "harmonic" state in the brain whereas the poor putter shows chaotic activity, particularly in the area of the brain that controls vision.)