Eye dominance/versa

[jomatty]

I would be curious to know if the guys finding great success with the versa putters are largely cross dominant.  I’m cross dominant and generally use the putter face to aim rather than an alignment line.  I recently painted the flange on my link.1 to create a distinct line between the face and top line and the flange and so far the results have been great.  Just makes me wonder.  Looking at Rickie’s swing I bet he is cross dominant.  Keegan is supposedly cross dominant.

Any thoughts?

Edited July 28, 2023 by jomatty

[J_Tizzle]

Should just switch to side saddle where eye dominance plays no roll :).

 

[goalie]

I was fit into a Versa 3T an it's been an amazing putter all year.  I am VERY left eye dominant but putt right handed, and the fitting process at ECPC showed that I was not lined up where I thought I was with a "normal" putter, but I was aiming where I thought I was aiming with the Versa 3T.  

 

I don't know if that applies to the Versa alignment style of the 12 though, as I wasn't fitted on that at all.  

 

All season I've been putting with the 3T much better in league than I've ever putted in the past, so it wasn't a fluke

[bluedot]

I think testing shows that most professional athletes in all sports tend to have superior vision, including a very low degree of eye dominance, regardless of which eye is dominant or handedness. That may be one of the keys to great putting, but it’s very hard to study.  It’s referred to as “center ocular”.

 

I used to think that the reason golfers tend to putt worse as they age had to do with nerves, but I’ve changed my opinion about that as I age.  I think ALL aspects of our vision change and/or deteriorate as we age; acuity, night vision, presbyopia, depth perception, peripheral vision, all of them.  And I think there are studies showing that eye dominance can shift in one direction or the other past the age of 45.

[dmeeksDC]

1 hour ago, bluedot said:

I think testing shows that most professional athletes in all sports tend to have superior vision, including a very low degree of eye dominance, regardless of which eye is dominant or handedness.

What testing is this? I’ve not heard of a “low degree of eye dominance.” My eye doc says every person in the world has a dominant eye. It’s a very simple test to identify whether it is left or right. 

[seeshawn]

I too am very right handed but left eye dominant. I have always thought I was a terrible putter, but once I got some help with eye dominance, ball position, etc. it started to improve.  My dad was getting rid of his Versa 7. I immediately noticed a difference in my aiming, start line, etc. It's the best I have ever putted. I believe the Versa plays a big part of it for me.

[goalie]

21 minutes ago, seeshawn said:

I too am very right handed but left eye dominant. I have always thought I was a terrible putter, but once I got some help with eye dominance, ball position, etc. it started to improve.  My dad was getting rid of his Versa 7. I immediately noticed a difference in my aiming, start line, etc. It's the best I have ever putted. I believe the Versa plays a big part of it for me.

Alignment is HUGE.  If you're starting your putt on your line, but your line is always wrong.........

[bluedot]

11 hours ago, dmeeksDC said:

What testing is this? I’ve not heard of a “low degree of eye dominance.” My eye doc says every person in the world has a dominant eye. It’s a very simple test to identify whether it is left or right. 

First of all, if you’ll reread my quote, I said “low degree”, and NOT no dominant eye.  And I’m very familiar with the test.

 

Google “S2 Cognition” and read all you can about the testing they’re doing on athletes, and if you can find an article from The Athletic about their testing on Justin Jefferson, I think it’ll answer a lot.  Jefferson is the only guy they’ve ever tested that can actually change his eye dominance while a football is coming toward him.

 

You might also want to read “See To Play: The Eyes of Elite Athletes” by Dr. Michael Peters.  His testing shows, among other things, that most NFL QBs have more than 180 degrees of peripheral vision.

 

I was put onto all of this by a sports vision specialist at Duke after I had undergone eight procedures on my right eye, rendering it essentially useless.  I was looking for a way forward as a competitive golfer; there wasn’t much, but I DID learn a lot.  Among other things, I was told that, all other things equal, I would have at least a slight tendency to miss putts to the side of my dominant eye, and so I do. I was left eye dominant anyway, and I’ve learned to add a little bit to my read on putts that break right to left.  
 

I don’t think any of this should be especially surprising; ALL characteristics of vision are on a continuum from one person to the next. If we have differing degrees of acuity, peripheral vision, etc, why would the DEGREE of eye dominance be any different?  And if elite athletes have superior vision, finding out that they have a low degree of eye dominance (not none!) shouldn’t be hard to accept.  Even the athletes that ophthalmologists refer to as “center ocular” have some degree of dominance; just not very much compared to the general population.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited December 13, 2023 by bluedot

[jomatty]

It’s funny.  I just came across this post and had the thought “that makes sense to me that the versa alignment would help with cross dominant eyes”.  It took me a minute but then I realized that I was the original poster so that made sense.  In other news, at only 45 years of age, my memory is complete toast…

[goalie]

I  messed around with a different putter, and have come to the conclusion that, as left eye dominant as I am, I should just stick with that or a blade without an alignment mark on it (same concept, you're "lining up" the blade the same way as the versa alignment) and not mess around with other stuff.  

 

Hitting where you are aiming when you're aiming is off sucks.  

[GolfinDave]

I’m right eye dominant and left handed. I’m finding success by lining my ball up like looking down rifle sights, then lining up the putter and my body square to that. Then commit to my line and roll it. Not sure if it’s optimal but having a repeatable process where I actually aim mostly correct is great. I use to probably aim probably 5 degrees right of target and fan open the blade. 

[dmeeksDC]

On 12/12/2023 at 5:42 PM, bluedot said:

First of all, if you’ll reread my quote, I said “low degree”, and NOT no dominant eye.  And I’m very familiar with the test.

 

Google “S2 Cognition” and read all you can about the testing they’re doing on athletes, and if you can find an article from The Athletic about their testing on Justin Jefferson, I think it’ll answer a lot.  Jefferson is the only guy they’ve ever tested that can actually change his eye dominance while a football is coming toward him.

 

You might also want to read “See To Play: The Eyes of Elite Athletes” by Dr. Michael Peters.  His testing shows, among other things, that most NFL QBs have more than 180 degrees of peripheral vision.

 

I was put onto all of this by a sports vision specialist at Duke after I had undergone eight procedures on my right eye, rendering it essentially useless.  I was looking for a way forward as a competitive golfer; there wasn’t much, but I DID learn a lot.  Among other things, I was told that, all other things equal, I would have at least a slight tendency to miss putts to the side of my dominant eye, and so I do. I was left eye dominant anyway, and I’ve learned to add a little bit to my read on putts that break right to left.  
 

I don’t think any of this should be especially surprising; ALL characteristics of vision are on a continuum from one person to the next. If we have differing degrees of acuity, peripheral vision, etc, why would the DEGREE of eye dominance be any different?  And if elite athletes have superior vision, finding out that they have a low degree of eye dominance (not none!) shouldn’t be hard to accept.  Even the athletes that ophthalmologists refer to as “center ocular” have some degree of dominance; just not very much compared to the general population.

 

Hope that helps.

Well, I finally got to talk to a very respected eye surgeon about this and he said pro athletes do not in general have lower eye dominance than anyone else. He said the Jefferson example may be true about him but it is anecdotal and would not be true of pro athletes in general. Pro athletes having superior vision also is not even a generally true statement. Some have great vision. But a lot of pro athletes have sub-par vision and need glasses or contacts to play. No argument that there is a continuum but the generalizations about pro athletes and low eye dominance and superior vision are not true.