One of the first things that I can identify when I see someone’s that’s less experienced at putting setup is the fact that they get their eyes in the wrong position in relation to the golf ball when they are making a stroke. And this comes generally from the fact during you full swing your eyes are in a very different position. When we are making a full swing, the eyes see quite a long way inside the line of the golf ball. You can see my eyes are nowhere near the golf ball when I’m making a full stroke. Or even when I’m chipping or pitching my eyes are still inside the ball. However when I’m putting, ideally we have the eyes directly over the top of the golf ball. And that’s really for two reasons, the first reason is it’s much easier to line up with the hole and see the line the ball is going to roll on, if my eyes are on top of the ball. So when I look down here my eyes are directly over the ball, I look left and I can see my target line really clearly. Imagine you are trying to shot a gun, but you are trying to shot a gun from over here, your eyes aren’t lined up with the direction of travel for the bullet or the golf ball and I can no longer line up so professionally to my target.
So here I want to have my eyes directly over the top of the golf ball so when I look left I can see down the target line. The second reason why it’s nice to have your eyes over the top of the golf ball is that it would general position the shoulders directly above the hands. So now when I make a rocking stroke with my shoulders, my hands sit underneath my shoulders. If my eyes were inside the ball that would mean my hands are outside my shoulders. My rocking action now creates a big curving what we call a gated stroke like a gate swinging backwards and forwards, the club is not running on a straight line is going around a big cycle. So by having my eyes over the top of the golf ball, I line up better and I make a better stroke. So here is the best way that you can check that your eyes are over the top of the golf ball. Before you go out and play, line yourself up to a reasonable length putt, one golf ball on the floor but a spare ball in your left pocket, or your pocket that is nearest to the target if you are left handed it would be your right pocket. When I set up here I get myself in a good position, I take the spare ball, I have to haven’t moved my head and I drop it down.
And if I hit the golf ball on the floor like that and I was an absolute, dead sent to balls I hit, my eye was completely on top of the ball on the ground, If I was to make my set and this is a general position we see a lot of club golfers and their eye is inside the line of the ball, you can see I have about six inches short, so I would need to tilt forwards more, bend the hips more, take my chest forwards more, careful not too far, not so often, but occasionally we see a golfer that’s too much on their tip toes, too far bent over, their eyes are outside the line of the golf ball and that’s equally a bit of a problem. So if you can check your putting setup that the eyes are over the top of the golf ball, it’s easy for you to line up, it’s easy for you to make a better stroke and that should definitely improve your putting.