RESEARCH: Quiet Eye’s Direct Correlation to Better Putting

This installment is part two of our conversation with Gal Ziv. If you didn’t catch the first part, make sure you go back and give it a listen – there’s some really interesting stuff we talk about that’s sure to pique your curiosity. Today, we’re going to talk about gaze behavior and the quiet eye. The quiet eye as described by Gal, is “the final fixation on a specific area in your visual field before a critical movement.” In golf, this is usually your last look at the ball before you hit a shot. Gal’s research has found that the best players in the world have longer quiet eyes than amateurs. In other words, “they fixate on the golf ball for a longer duration before they putt… and they maintain it longer.” Gal has applied the principle of the quiet eye in his research of people putting. He’s found that golfers of all levels have longer quiet eyes on successful putts and shorter quiet eyes on unsuccessful putts. What makes this interesting is that the concept of the quiet eye is something that can be taught. He then goes on to describe what that training looks like. Keep in mind that in order to do this, an eye tracker is needed. To begin, a golfer starts in their address position and gazes at the ball. After the student looks at the hole and is comfortable with where they’re aimed, they fixate on the ball for two to three seconds. From there, the stroke begins, and the fixation point of the golf doesn’t change. The tendency for most golfers is to look up from the ball before they’ve made contact. Gal’s research shows that this is a sign of a “busy brain.” I asked Gal why he thought the quiet eye was so important in putting. He said there is more than one theory. First, the preprogramming hypothesis maintains that “once your eyes are fixated on the ball… you give your brain time to calculate and plan the correct movement.” The second theory is that “during the putt… if something isn’t right, you still have time to correct it.” Lastly, the inhibition hypothesis maintains that “quiet eye time gives you time to pick the option you think is optimal…” When I asked Gal if the quiet eye concept translated to other areas of the game like full shots, he said that there’s more research that needs to be done. However, theoretically speaking, there’s no reason the same idea shouldn’t apply. Gal has some interesting suggestions on how you can implement the quiet eye practice into your putting. First, he says people have to understand that it’s not easy in the beginning. However, “after 10 or 20 repetitions…” it’s not that tough. One of the best ways to do this is to “maintain a journal.” This will help you see if it helps you or not. For most people, improvement will be gradual, it doesn’t happen in a single day. Once again, Gal shared some really interesting information with us. We can’t thank him enough for his time and hope to hear more about future work he’s doing in the future. Thanks for taking time to hang out with us here on the GSL Podcast. We have more exciting content on the way so stay tuned!