This Optical Illusion Cost Me Hundreds of Missed Putts

There's an optical illusion that's probably making you miss a lot of putts. If you pull them left or your players that play with you say you're hitting cut putts and putting slice spin on it, this is the reason why and we'll show you how to fix it. Probably 90% of the putting lessons that I give are to pretty accomplished players, but they're struggling putting three footers, six footers, ten footers. I would tell you 90% of the time they don't have their putter aimed correctly. They're aiming to the left. Most right-handed players aim too far to the left and it's because of this parallax error. Their eyes are too far inside the target line and what looks straight is actually left. We're going to try to show you how to demonstrate that, but for all you people out there watching, if you'll just learn to get your eyes over the target line, it'll really help. We'll show you a couple training aids that'll help you with that. I like this string one above the ground a lot because if my eyes are over the target line, go ahead and set up here for me, Patrick. If your eyes are over the target line, this orange line will block out the black line on the putter. It does. The line on the ball and the line on the putter are exactly, for me right now, in line with this orange line. All right, so scoot away inside three or four inches. Now is the line over the black line on the putter? No, it's probably at least an inch this way, maybe two inches. And where does the orange line look with the white line on the ground on the plate? Can you tell that it's an inch or so to the right of the... Yeah. Yes. And because now that target line is an inch to the right, it looks to you visually, you will aim your putter an inch to the left. I can tell right now with this setup, I haven't changed really anything. It feels like I'm aiming to the right. Exactly. And so for me to make this go straight, I feel like I have to toe it in a little to aim left. That's correct. So hold this for me. Let me take a look at just how that was. So when I'm correct and it's like this, does that make sense? So that to me looks pretty much dead straight on. It is. Now toe it in a little left. And so then when I get here and I aim on that line, do you see? Yeah, so now it's moving. It's so far left that it looks like you'd probably either hit left edge or maybe even miss it left. Yeah. I'm going to miss it left. Yeah. And then I'm going to leave, if I consistently started on that line with the path of my putter, I'm going to open the face. To compensate. To compensate. And I may start some on line, but where you'll really struggle, still the most important skill in putting is distance control. And it's just like a full shot. If you have a path that is outside in with an open face, you have trouble controlling distance. It doesn't go as far as it should. And the same thing happens with a putter. So if you're aiming left and then opening your face to compensate, you're going to have big trouble with distance control. For one thing, the ball is probably going to bounce right when you hit it. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, I get that sometimes too, where I get more of a bounce and then a roll. That's right. And there's always going to be a little bounce because there's loft on the putter. But still, if you're cutting your putts, it's going to bounce a lot, and then you're going to have big trouble distance control wise. Understand? I do. And so this parallax error is a big deal. Setup and putting is everything. If you can't aim your putter correctly, you cannot expect to be a good putter. And there's a lot of debate these days in whether you should put a line on your golf ball. Has Scotty Scheffler gone away from using the line? He has. But if you watch golf on television every week, you'll see that almost all the players are using a line. The only time I tell people not to use the line is if you become so line focused with the stroke that it affects your distance control. Then maybe the line's not for you. But if you look at it like this, folks, if I can line the ball up correctly. See, the guys argue with me all the time that aim left. I'll line the ball up and I'll say, you know, line your putter up with the line on the ball. They'll say it looks left. It doesn't look right. It looks like I'm aiming to the right. Yeah, yeah. And I say, well, you are compared to where you usually are. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. And so they have a very hard time getting comfortable with that. But if you're uncomfortable with the line because it doesn't look right, even though you know it's correct, that's your problem. And you have to be willing to change that and to try something new to get better. So I say that all the time. I say, well, that doesn't look right. Well, that's your problem. And so it didn't look right for me for six months when I changed this 20 years ago, or maybe even 30, when I started using a line. And if you hit balls, you should be able to see that ball, that line roll perfectly after you hit it. If your line doesn't roll perfect, it means your clubface is not squared impact. Yeah. And if you're not squared impact, how can you ever expect to hit it the right speed and hit it the right direction? Well, I'll tell you, I'll be your testimonial on this. You got me to start using a line years ago. And ever since I've really committed to doing it on every single putt, not only am I hitting it consistently straighter, but my distance control has gotten way better. And I don't even work on distance that much, as much as I probably should. But I think it's just that I line it up, and then I can just feel like I've already got that part figured out. So I just feel how hard I need to hit it. Exactly. And I've preached that to you. And that's what I preach to all my students. The line should help your distance control, because once you get good enough at lining it up, and that takes a little bit of practice, okay? But gosh, now I've done it so long, I hardly ever have to move my ball. I am so good at lining it up that it's almost perfect every time. And even if it's not perfect on a 20 or 30 foot putt, you probably can't read it that good anyway. And so it's good enough. And so once I set up to the line with my putter, the line on the ball, it should let you forget about the line and only worry about distance. And so for the guys that get too line bound, and they think the line screws them up, your focus is really wrong on what you're trying. You're still trying to hit it straight. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yes. And so you're still trying to hit it straight instead of worrying about hitting it the right distance. And so if you work on your path with the putting arc, if you work on a string like this, or a chalk line, or a mirror that we'll show here in a minute, if you line up straight and have a good path, you'll start the ball on the correct line. And I'd say when I play with people, the most common error I see is that people are too far from it. I'll see this, which also that means a lot of times they're toes up in the air. That's right. And that makes it go left too. Absolutely. So there's multiple factors. But what you've actually told me is that the even worse error is to be too far over it. And I do see this occasionally where people are really, really over it. Yep. So I agree. So your eyes should be on the target line that eliminates parallax error. It's as simple as that. Now, are there players? I'm really good friends with the eyeline people that make these mirrors and other training aids. They're great. He tells players, you know, some players visually, I guess, I'm not an optometrist. Some players, they line up better if their eyes are a half inch inside the line. And those players actually take a Sharpie and make a new eyeline on the mirror that's not on their target line. But at least they can get in the same place every time. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to me to not have your eyes on the target line. If I was shooting a rifle, I would have my eye, my dominant eye, right down through the sights on the barrel or in the scope. It's pretty hard to shoot a rifle out here somewhere. And it's pretty hard to putt. If your target line is not on your eyeline, you're in big trouble. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you from personal experience using some of the training aids we'll show you in a second. My putting has gotten a lot better as I've worked on getting my eye more directly over the line. And I think it's helped my distance control, but it's also just helped me actually hit my intended line. It's like if I aim it correctly, I'm hitting that line pretty consistently now versus almost never hitting it before. And I'll say this. I've had LASIK surgery, gosh, 25 years ago when it first came out. It was a miracle for me. So I played in glasses prior to that. The parallax error is worse if you wear glasses, okay? Interesting. All right. I don't have any data to back that up, but I can just tell you from observation that the people that wear glasses aim the putter more left than the people that don't. And I don't know if it's looking two different lenses and looking through it multiplies that error or not, but I believe it does. Okay? So if you wear glasses, in my opinion, it is imperative that you get your eyes over the target line and you learn to do it and you learn to set up this way every time. If you watch live from the range at all the major championships this year coming up, we've already seen them at Augusta. They will be on the putting green and they will show you these players. They've got a mirror every day. They putt with it. They've got a string down and they putt with it. The best players in the world every day check this eye position. And I promise you when you get in a slump putting, it's because of setup and your eyes aren't where you think they are. Get you a mirror, get you a string, and you'll learn to be a much better putter. So there's a couple of different ways to work on this. Probably my favorite is this pure truth trainer. We got this a couple of years ago and I use it all the time. And I don't really like to dig into the putting green on a public golf course if I'm practicing. And so this one's really non-destructive. You just set it down and there's the same kind of lines. And then it even has these two little teeth that you can practice hitting through as a gate. So you can really get your swing set up so that you're hitting the ball straight every single time. And this one, maybe it's hard to see on camera, but actually has two strings. And so with the line on your putter and two strings, it really makes sure your eyes are over the target line. So we're friends with these guys. We met them at the show the last couple years. It's really a great training aid because you can use it inside. It's even got a level on top of it here so you can make sure if you're on a green that you find a flat putt to practice on. That's important with any string or the mirror is you try to find the perfectly straight putt. And every hole has two straight putts. If you go in a 360 degree angle, there's a perfect uphill and a perfect downhill. You just got to find it. You just have to find it. But we're good friends with these guys and they make a great product and pretty simple. And like I said, you can use it indoors or out. And that's what I like about it. And this one also has the ability. There's a little attachment you can do for your path. So you can set up some guidelines so you can make sure that you're putting along the correct path while you're practicing this. So one thing I'll promise you, though, we didn't talk about it earlier. If you line your putter up correctly and your ball rolls straight when you hit it, your path is going to be pretty good. Yeah, that's true. So you're going to figure out everything path and face just by aiming correctly. I promise. Absolutely. And you got a mirror here. I do. And this is you can get this at Eyeline Golf. And I'm friends with these guys for years. I'm certified in their putting instruction wise. One of the few around here. Every instructor should get certified through them, in my opinion. And they make several different mirrors and all that. I like this one this size the best because not only can you see where your eyes are in relation to the target line, not only can you aim your putter correctly, but you can also see your shoulders and your forearms and make sure everything is parallel to the target line. So most of the tour players that you will see have this mirror and they will practice with it for a few minutes every day. You don't have to practice a lot once you get it right. All they're doing is hitting eight or ten, twenty putts, maybe at the most each day, just making sure their eyes are where they want to be and their shoulders and all that's where they want to be. There's holes in this where you can put tees and create your own little gate to get the ball started. I'm not a big gate guy, so I've never practiced with a gate. And so and I don't need to. After rolling my ball down these lines, I go right through it anyway. I don't need a gate. And so you won't either if you practice on a line. And so in the old days, we snapped chalk lines with a carpenter's chalk line. One of my high school kids was out here today and there's already a line snapped and he did a good job. It's straight. It is straight. Yep. And so we aimed the string down it too. So these guys from Putt Line have this string training aid, which is great. You can use it indoors or outdoors with a simple attachment with these little hockey pucks. And so I like it. And they even have a plate on the ground. There's another thing called the putting sword that Michael Breed sells and you learn to roll it down off the end. But frankly, if you can roll it down this line, you can roll it off this plate. I don't even pay attention to it. My favorite thing to do lately, actually, is I combine two of these. So I like to use the pure truth one because I keep it in my car normally and then I'll put the mirror here and then I'll. So you can see your shoulder. That way I can get right over it and then I can still see my shoulders and make sure I'm all perfectly square here while I'm working with. And then set up just there without a putter. And so that's really important. And so, you know, shoulders and forearms. If you'll watch on television, watch the great players today and you will see their forearms are all parallel to their target line. If you would put a club or alignment stick across it. Man, I see people with one arm this way and one arm that way. There's no way you can have a correct path if your shoulders and forearms aren't parallel to your target. Yeah, I would say a lot of people I watch playing, they'll set up real open with their legs, but then their shoulders are here and then they sometimes will have a path that's either in the outer out to in and their face is twisted. And it's like with so many variables, it's just it's like a miracle if the ball goes straight. It is. And especially see in a full swing, if you get a slightly misaligned, the swing is so long that you have time to for your idiosyncrasies to adjust for it. But in a putting stroke on a six foot putt where the putter's maybe moving 10 inches, if you're not lined up perfect and your path is off as a result of that on the backswing, you're screwed, right? Because the motion is so small that the alignment errors and the setup errors are magnified. Well, I would say that also the consequences of doing it wrong are more amplified because on a full swing, if you're just slightly off with your iron, you're going to be OK. You might not be perfectly out of straight, but this cup's only what, three or four inches? Yeah, four and a quarter. Yeah. So, I mean, you miss that by one inch, you've missed the putt. That's right. And so so keep that in mind. Practice like the pros and you'll learn to putt like them. That's the other thing I tell new players and beginners all the time. Most of them will never have 120 mile an hour clubhead speed where they can hit a ball 300 yards. But putting does not take great athletic ability. And so if you learn how to do it correctly and you pay attention to the setup fundamentals, you can putt as good as anybody. You can be 90 years old and be the best putter in the world, but you probably can't be a long drive champion. You probably still take some money off those young guys. You're not kidding. And so putting's important. The better you get at putting, the easier chipping becomes because you're not so nervous. You don't think you have to hit it a foot away. If you can hit it four foot away because you know you're going to make it. Puts a lot of takes a lot of pressure off of you. Takes a lot of pressure off your iron shots into the green. If you know you can chip and putt good, you're not scared to miss a green. So it should relax you and let you hit better shots and you'll have more birdie putts. So this part of the game is important to learn. And I'm those of you that follow our channel and thanks. And if you don't subscribe, I'm not big on a lot of training aids, but gosh, I've got a lot of putting training aids because I think training aids and putting is where it's at. They really work. Yeah, absolutely. And they do. They work much better than most of the training aids full swing wise. That's my opinion. Get a string. I've used this one for years. Just comes in a tube, two sticks, wrap string around it. Back when I couldn't afford to pay $25 for something like this, I just got kitchen twine and two number two pencils and made my own. It doesn't have to be expensive. Carpenter's chalk line don't cost much. I tell people if they've got a carpet, mat at home, putting mat, make sure it's straight, take you a straight edge and a sharpie and just make your own line. If you'll have a line and learn to use it, you'll make more putts and you'll shoot better scores. You won't kick the dog when you come home after you played and everybody will be a lot happier. Yeah. Yeah. So give this a try. Let us know what you think. And if it helps you out. Yep. Subscribe. Thanks. If you need some more help with your putting, check out a video that Ed and I made about his favorite method of reading greens. It's linked on your screen and in the description.