Sink More Putts With The Quiet Eye By Jack Moorehouse What's the difference between you and a great putter? It just might be the Quiet Eye. In putting as well as in other hand-eye-target skills, the Quiet Eye is emerging as a key indicator of optimal focus and concentration. It's this focus and concentration, research shows, that sets the good putter apart from the poor one. Fortunately, achieving this focus and concentration is a skill that can be taught in golf lessons or learned on one's own and can help drive down a player's golf handicap. Usually, we attribute the difference between a good putter and a poor putter to mechanics. Good mechanics produces good putting. Bad mechanics produces bad putting. Good mechanics are what most golf lessons and golf tips emphasize. And that's fine. You can't be a superior putter if your mechanics are wrong. But mechanics aside, what else makes one golfer a better putter than another? Research shows that focus and concentration is the difference, underscoring the importance of the Quiet Eye.
The Quiet Eye Why is the Quiet Eye so critical when you putt? Your hands are controlled by your brain, which gets valuable information from your eyes. As you putt, your brain must organize 100 billion neurons. Your gaze keeps these neural networks informed. They in turn control both your hands and body when putting. But these networks stay organized for only a short period, creating a window of opportunity that must be used when it's at its most optimal: This is the Quiet Eye period. Unfortunately, the Quiet Eye is the first thing to go when under stress. It moves with the stroke. When you choke, the billion cells in your brain lose their effectiveness in solving the putt's slope, curvature, distance, and location problems. Even hours of golf instruction sessions and practice focused on mechanics may not be able to save you when the pressure is on. On the other hand, developing proper mechanics builds confidence—another key element in putting. But confidence may not be as critical to putting accuracy as the Quiet Eye. Developing the Quiet Eye RoutineResearch shows that an average golfer using a pre-shot routine based on the Quiet Eye sinks more putts than when not using the routine—whether the routine is learned in golf lessons or self-taught. Visualization is a key element of this routine. Focus on the hole “See” the ball go in Scan from the hole to the ball Eye on the ball Stay steady The Quiet Eye may be an objective measure of "being in the Zone," according to some experts. This idea of being in the Zone, or in the “flow,” as some athletes say, has been around for a long time. But until now, there has been little scientific evidence that the Zone exists—let alone can be measured. Developing the Quite Eye technique might not only help you access the zone when putting, it might also help you achieve better putting accuracy, knocking strokes off your golf handicap. For more about the Quiet Eye, see the Quiet Eye Web site (http://quieteyesolutions.com) or the Web site of Dr. Joan Vickers (http://www.kin.ucalgary.ca/nml) , a leading researcher in this area. Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book "How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros." He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction. |
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