A Bit About Eyes and Perception
I didn’t come up with that. It’s an old saying regarding the golf swing and nothing could be more true. Anyone who has ever played the game has “this” in common. We all think we are doing one thing while in actuality: we are doing something completely different.

I’ve wrestled with this fact my entire life. Every person I know who plays the game has the same problem. They “feel” like they are doing something correct but the results aren’t what they expect. I’m pretty sure the main reason is we play golf sideways and not head on. We are designed with binocular vision and our eyes are in the front of our head. The world and everything in it looks normal to us because we are used to seeing it this way.

Birds have their eyes, for the most part, on the side of their head. They see the world in such a way as we can’t imagine. Some birds actually see 360 degrees or everything around them. We don’t.We function normally in the “head on” direction.

And, that brings us to golf, doesn’t it?  Standing sideways to play a sport is out of the norm but we can adapt and we can do it. Another factor we have to consider is “perception” or how things look to each one of us. Most humans have a dominant eye. Both of our eyes function in such a way as to fuse two separate images.

We can hold our thumb in front of our face and sight in on an object in the distance with both eyes. Then, without moving our thumb, we can close one eye and then the other and we will see the object moves with one of those eyes. The eye where the object doesn’t move is our dominant eye.

So, why all this talk about eyes and perception?  The answer is simple…it is everything. It is the way we relate to our world in our specific way and that includes golf. The way YOU see may not be the way EVERYONE ELSE sees. We are all different. All of us have to figure out how we see the world and then figure out if a “workaround” is necessary.

My best friend Ralph has always been a great putter. I’ve watched him sink 25 putts in a row from 20 feet in his den. He sees the ball and the line of the putt and his perception is smack on target. Most people cannot do that. I’m one of those people. To Ralph, when he lines up a putt, everything jives in his brain. To me, when I line up a putt, I’m actually lined up right of the target. How about you?  Do you know everything you need to know about your perception?

Take the time to try to find out as once you know, it will help your golf game.

The Golf Swing
To hit a perfect golf shot certain rules have to be fulfilled. The clubface has to be pointing straight at the target the moment the club hits the ball. Also, the path of the swing has to be correct at this same moment. If the face or path varies even one degree, a straight shot will not happen.

In the case of the driver, the club with the least amount of loft, the margin for error is very small. There is no other club with less loft, other than a putter, so if everything isn’t correct at the moment of impact, the ball will not go straight at your target. You can stand weird or funny, point your shoulders in the wrong direction, have your feet in the opposite direction and everything else about your body can be technically wrong but if that darn club is in the exact correct position at the exact moment it needs to be in that position, the ball will go straight. In fact, you could FEEL like everything was totally wrong but the shot could be perfect.

What else does that tell us?  Suppose you FELT like everything was perfect but the shot went way off to the right. What then?  Imagine you just made what felt like the best swing of your life and the ball went 50 yards to the right…or the left!  Suppose you were practicing at the driving range and you made what you thought was one perfect swing after another and all the balls went 50 yards to the right. That would mean, “what you feel, isn’t real."

The only way the ball could be going 50 yards to the right would be if the swing path and/or the clubface were pointing right at the moment of impact. It’s physics. It’s fact. It’s an undeniable truth. You also won’t be alone. Many, many golfers have this same or similar problem. They make a swing and the ball doesn’t do “perfect.” But, the ball does do exactly what your swing made it do. So, how do we fix this problem?

The Golf Swing Fix
Let’s think for a minute or two. What do we know. We know the ball will go straight if the requirements for a straight shot are met…it has to. The ball has no choice. If the clubface and the swing path are correct at the moment of impact, a straight shot has to happen. It’s physics. It’s fact!  

We also know we are operating the golf club and we are responsible for the clubface and swing path to be correct. Even though, to us, it feels correct we know it isn’t. Then, why are those drives going 50 yards right?  Somehow we’ve gotten into a bad habit and now that habit feels “correct.”

Get the golf club moving on the correct track so the clubface is square at impact and the swing path is pointing to our target at the moment of impact. There are an unlimited number of ways we can try to fix this but try this one first.“Fix” the swing using the simplest method we can.

In the case of the drives going 50 yards to the right, don’t change anything in your setup at all. Address the ball exactly the same way you were when you were hitting all those drives DEAD RIGHT. I’m now going to give you the first thing to try and I’m betting this helps a lot.

As you prepare to swing and expect the shot to go dead right again, find a new target with your eyes. Look to the left of your current target and find something “out there in the distance” like a tree, a pole, a bush, a building, a car or whatever that is at least 50-100 yards LEFT OF YOUR CURRENT TARGET. Focus in on the new target that is way to the left. Don’t change a thing. Simply look at the new target and try to hit the ball at THAT NEW TARGET TO THE LEFT.

Try five balls and if you find your drives are now not going to the right or not going to the right as much. If so, you’re almost there. Keep experimenting. Pick a new target more or less to the left of the original until you can get the ball flying toward that target. When THAT SHOT HAPPENS, you have just made A CORRECT SWING and even though it will feel wrong, it can’t be. Why?

If the ball flies straight at your original target and you felt like you swung the club to the left, you didn’t. You swung the club exactly correct. The swing path was exactly correct for your ORIGINAL TARGET even though to you, IT FELT LEFT. The clubface was exactly correct for your ORIGINAL TARGET even though to you, IT FELT LEFT. It had to be correct, didn’t it?  Think about what just happened. You made a swing that was different than the one you were making but the ball went where you wanted it to go. That new swing wasn’t wrong, you simply felt it was wrong. If you make this new swing over and over, your muscle memory will soon take hold and before you know it, this new “wrong” swing will feel “correct.”

If That Didn’t Work
In the example above, one way to fix a drive that goes 50 yards directly to the right. However, and honestly, golf is not a simple game for many people. We may find the previous method didn’t work. That certainly doesn’t mean you’ll never hit straight drives. All it means is we’ve tried the obvious but there are “more arrows in the quiver.” In fact, there are lots of arrows. Figuring out your problem is one of the fun parts of the game.

Nobody has ever mastered this game and my guess is nobody ever will. What you can do is learn as much as you can so when you’re on the golf course and things aren’t going well, you can figure out how to fix the problem. Almost everyone has had one of those days where everything went great. It was a day when it was hard to miss a shot, even if you wanted to. All the stars lined up for you. It was your greatest day ever. Then, you went out the next day and scraped it around like a hacker. That’s golf!  That’s the fun of golf. It looks so easy, but it isn’t. Welcome to the party!