Reading Greens

Fader

Fader

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Feb 14, 2012
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After today my eyes are literally opened.

Played in midweek medal and that went well everything clicked, but this afternoon after golf I went to the opticians to get my eyes tested. Something I've been planning on doing for ages as been getting headaches and squinting a lot more.

Anyway after going through the whole colour, read this line and that one etc. Got given the news, apparently my eyes are not like a lot of other peoples. It was explained to me that where most peoples eyes are shaped like footballs mine are shaped like rugby balls! As a result one eye has a dominance for looking up and the other down, meaning to get true focus I have to squint. He then went onto say I have a stigma which basically means I should be wearing glasses for general everyday use.

I asked how this affects the sports I do, the Martial Arts is no issue. But and heres the big BUT, he said it would improve my ability to read greens on the course because my focus would now be true allowing me to properly dictate the lie of the land. Hopefully this is true and accurate, as I have noticed I tend to read greens totally differently to everyone else and according to Mr Optician this is down to my left eye being my downward looking eye seeing the picture differently to my right.

So hopefully now I'll be super good with the readig and hole everything (yeah right)... But I have to admit even though we use our site to read the greens I never really until now realised the importance of the eyes actual function in doing so and how it can fool us into seeing contours totally different to others.

Now just to collect my snazzy Red or Dead frames on Saturday to become dead eye on the greens, belly putter behaving of course.

So from now on if you start missing putts blame it on your eyesight!:rolleyes:
 
I'm waiting o see if I can get some toric contacts given my prescription as I have a similar proble to you. I don't need glasses all of the time but distance is my issue and embarrassingly struggling to watch the small ball landing over 200 yards+ away
 
I was also needing glasses and kept putting it off- while wondering why I kept missing putts.


I now wear glasses and all my misses are now crystal clear!:whistle:
 
kev_off_the_tee said:
I'm waiting o see if I can get some toric contacts given my prescription as I have a similar proble to you. I don't need glasses all of the time but distance is my issue and embarrassingly struggling to watch the small ball landing over 200 yards+ away
Click to expand...

The thing I couldn't or can't work out is I have no issue seeing the ball go out and land but then doing thatI squint to. The thing that really shocked me was that my eyes see the same contours differently. Going to go the same route as you once I get used to glasses, I'll what contacts can do for me is possible
 
I have stigmatism aswell, already wear contacts to play golf and am still brutal at reading greens :)!

Hope you have more success than me!
 
For those of us that can't rely on wonky eyes to perfect our green reading then I can recommend Aimpoint Technologies and their seminar. It teaches you how to read greens and to be honest it was a revelation. Not cheap at £95 but it was a 2 hour interactive course solely on the putting green and not in a classroom. I can also go to the beginner level course any number of time without any further charge if I need a refresher.

You also get a chart which gives you the breaks on 5, 10, 15 and 20 foot putts depending on the speed and slope of thr putt. It takes less than 15 seconds to read your putt and check the break and I've threatening the hole on the high side all the time. Many of you will say its all hoopla and I would have agreed and I thought I was a decent putter and reader of greens but this really changed my look on how to read them.

We were taught by a guy called Jamie Donaldson their Senior European instructor who works with a lot of the tour pros and if you do want to give it a go I'd suggest checking him out on twitter at @golfdonaldson and finding out where he is holding a course
 
Fader said:
:ears: and the abuse begins. haha
Click to expand...
it comes with the territory specky!!!! i ditched my specs after a golfing holiday in spain,got fed up with the sweat pooling in the lens and constantly having to push the bloody things up my nose when i bent over,are you investing in a larry grayson piece of string round the neck,shut that door!
 
6inchcup said:
it comes with the territory specky!!!! i ditched my specs after a golfing holiday in spain,got fed up with the sweat pooling in the lens and constantly having to push the bloody things up my nose when i bent over,are you investing in a larry grayson piece of string round the neck,shut that door!
Click to expand...

No chance of pulling a larry grayson. They've offered a free paired of prescription sunglass with the light sensitive lenses so ordered a pair of those to go with it.
 
I took putting advice from midnight... I admit it!

AND IT WORKED!!

Turns out I had a tendency to over read putts and hit them soft, with my good technique I was better off taking less break and using the strong roll and quality of strike to keep the putt on line.

Blow me if as soon as I started doing that the putts started dropping!
 
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