Right Hand, Right Eye Dominant Golfers

[b.mattay]

I must be a huge outlier. I am right-eye, right eye dominant and: 

 

-Use an intermediate target 

-Use a neutral to weak grip

-Have significant amounts of hip and shoulder turn in the backswing (definitely well over 90 degrees, even with a wedge). 

-Don't shallow much or lean the shaft very much

-Play exclusively draws off the turf with a fair amount of forearm rotation 

-Miss is typically thin, not fat. 

-Head typically stays "down" a fair bit after impact. 

Edited July 19 by b.mattay

[Shilgy]

1 hour ago, iceman1118 said:

I am trying to offer some people who are struggling some potential advice. Maybe support group was a strong term. Simple math, majority of population if same side dominant. Hence majority of golfers are. So I assume people are and don’t even know it. People come here to learn. If this doesn’t apply to you, just move on. You said your swing issues have nothing to do with your eye dominance. If you are sure of it, then why bother getting involved if you are just looking to nit pick? And out of curiosity, how do you know your swing issues are not related to your eye dominance? 

Problem is you’re being dismissive of folks with the same tendency having different results.

I’m RH and right eye dominant.  Play with a neutral grip and a slight draw.

 

If you want to discuss this you should not just toss folks out of the club if they have different experiences.

[Hawkeye77]

I pick a couple of things on the ground ahead of the ball and aim between them ala Monte. 

[Shilgy]

25 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

I pick a couple of things on the ground ahead of the ball and aim between them ala Monte. 

I particularly do that when putting.  Tend to aim right when just taking stance .  Often feels then like I’m aimed way left but trust the spot and roll the ball over that.

[joedizzy1978]

My eye dominance changes depending on which side I’m swinging. I also don’t look at the ball when I swing.  

[iacas]

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

Being rear eye dominant poses some issues in the golf swing. I think we tend to have less than 90 degrees of shoulder turn in the backswing (otherwise we lose sight of the ball),

 

Your nose is that big and your neck range of motion is that small?

 

Now, most people aren't Rory (125° shoulder turn, only about 10° "nose turn") who is part owl, but I can turn 115° and still see the golf ball. Right eye, right hand, neither foot dominant (grew up playing soccer and think calling one foot dominant over the other is silly, which is why I played left wing).

 

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

Being rear eye dominant poses some issues in the golf swing. I think we tend to have less than 90 degrees of shoulder turn in the backswing (otherwise we lose sight of the ball), tend to be overall more open at impact or the right shoulder stalls (seems to me that a big lateral hip shift happens before the shorter backswing ends), have to play with a stronger grip and more shut face through the bag due to being more open at impact, and the big one to me is feel like we are looking at the target before impact even happens, sort of like Stenson and Sorenstam.

 

Wow, that's a whole lotta stuff… that I don't think is really as strongly tied to this stuff as you seem to want to make it.

 

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

Also, I think a really important part of this is we should favor much more of a pull cut or straight shot.

 

I'll pass.

 

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

At setup, I generally feel like I have to have my right eye directly above the ball

 

I play the ball more forward than almost anyone else I know. Sample size of one, I know, but generally… the better the player, the more forward the ball position.

 

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

I also believe using an intermediate point for alignment is difficult because a spot on the ground looks way off to me.

 

I use an intermediate spot, but I've also played soccer and hockey… and tennis, and baseball… you learn what things look like from the perspective of the ball or puck. I use an intermediate spot, and… my teaching partner and I joke that 90% of golfers aim right. The other 10% are lefties. I don't think you'll find a strong correlation let alone causation here.

 

Gonna start skipping ahead now…

 

7 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

However, I have seen info stating somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-85% of tour pros are cross dominant.

 

I have not.

 

4 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

https://richardhughesopticians.ie/a-clear-vision-for-success-survey-results-on-eye-dominance-among-elite-golfers/

 

That same article also says:

 

"It also became clear that the dominant eye is the positional or aiming eye and the non-dominant eye is the one which allows Depth Perception."

 

In which case, you'd almost surely want your non-dominant eye to be able to see the ball a bit more than your dominant one, as depth perception is quite important, no? Aiming isn't too hard - the ball isn't going anywhere.

 

Good luck with your topic.

[Shilgy]

1 hour ago, joedizzy1978 said:

My eye dominance changes depending on which side I’m swinging. I also don’t look at the ball when I swing.  

I take it you mean if you swing from the other side your perception based on front/rear eye is the dominant one changes.  Swinging right or left does not change which of your eyes is dominant.

 

Also…what do you look at when you swing?

[joedizzy1978]

22 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

I take it you mean if you swing from the other side your perception based on front/rear eye is the dominant one changes.  Swinging right or left does not change which of your eyes is dominant.

 

Also…what do you look at when you swing?

No matter which side I swing, my trail eye is dominant.  Right eye dominant when swinging right handed, left eye dominant when swinging left handed.  Some individuals dont have an eye dominance or it changes depending on the task.  I look at a spot behind the ball, similar to what players do when hitting bunker shots.  

Edited July 20 by joedizzy1978

[Shilgy]

6 minutes ago, joedizzy1978 said:

No matter which side I swing, my trail eye is dominant.  Right eye dominant when swinging right handed, left eye dominant when swinging left handed.  I look at a spot behind the ball, similar to what players do when hitting bunker shots.  

 

We’re talking actual eye dominance….not which eye you might perceive yourself to be looking with.

[joedizzy1978]

21 minutes ago, Shilgy said:

 

We’re talking actual eye dominance….not which eye you might perceive yourself to be looking with.

Oh......"actual eye dominance".....lol

 

I understand how to do the test.  You can do it from a golf set up as well.  

[Jtgavigan]

6 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

Totally fair. I don’t believe these are hard and fast traits like I said. Just some commonalities. 
 

so for example, how do you aim? Do you use and intermediate point? Look at your target?

Intermediate target most of the time. 

[virtuoso]

I guess before this thread goes further, I should explain why I’m recommending those types of mechanics for right eye right hand.

 

Firstly, those bullet points are things that I think these golfers should try. Most of them don’t do any of those things.

 

I have no data, these are my opinions.

 

My opinions are based on this: if a right eye golfer feels less comfortable turning their head to the right on the backswing, and more comfortable turning their head to the left on the downswing, they are thus more likely to have a less active pivot turning back, and a more active pivot turning through. This is because head position and rotation can put a limit on range of motion of the pivot, for obvious reasons.

 

Having come to that conclusion means you should arrange the other parts of the swing to match that pivot type. These extra parts have nothing to do with eye dominance, ie, a strong grip and low amounts of forearm rotation tend to match an active pivot coming through the ball. That would be true if you were blindfolded.

 

Furthermore, I don’t care about alignments. Pretty much everyone struggles with all types of alignment errors regardless of eye dominance. The only thing you tend to see is that as skill gets better, the static alignments tend to net out to good ball flight because good players have intuitively put all the pieces together better than the high hdcp people.

Edited July 20 by virtuoso

[Josh H]

I'm incredibly right side dominant including eye, I have to focus hard on seeing with my right eye -(as I can consciously feel which eye I am seeing from) and picking out dimples on the left side of the ball to help control my potential for a massive over rotation on backswing, I also play a push draw and am working in reducing an overly in to out path. 

 

That said, if I don't control over rotation my head turns off the ball and I completely lose sight of the ball, not helped by a neck fusion at C6/7!

 

Where I feel I really struggle is putting alignment, lining ball up with the hole from behind with my left eye closed, stand over the ball and it looks completely different, as in miles out when looking with both eyes, not helped by my current S2S Jailbird which looks weirdly closed and a force forward press etc is not suiting my eye at all - time for a change! 

[Hawkeye77]

5 hours ago, virtuoso said:

 

 

My opinions are based on this: if a right eye golfer feels less comfortable turning their head to the right on the backswing, and more comfortable turning their head to head to the left on the downswing, they are thus more likely to have a less active pivot turning back, and a more active pivot turning through. This is because head position and rotation can put a limit on range of motion of the pivot, for obvious reasons.

 

 

Appreciate the insight - figured your opinion was specific to a pretty particular issue. 

[virtuoso]

3 hours ago, Josh H said:

I'm incredibly right side dominant including eye, I have to focus hard on seeing with my right eye -(as I can consciously feel which eye I am seeing from) and picking out dimples on the left side of the ball to help control my potential for a massive over rotation on backswing, I also play a push draw and am working in reducing an overly in to out path. 

 

That said, if I don't control over rotation my head turns off the ball and I completely lose sight of the ball, not helped by a neck fusion at C6/7!

 

Where I feel I really struggle is putting alignment, lining ball up with the hole from behind with my left eye closed, stand over the ball and it looks completely different, as in miles out when looking with both eyes, not helped by my current S2S Jailbird which looks weirdly closed and a force forward press etc is not suiting my eye at all - time for a change! 

You should have someone at a local golf shop bend the lean out of the shaft on your putter. The head has 3 loft, and the shaft is leaned 3 forward, equaling 6. Bend the shaft back to zero lean. It will look and roll much better.

[virtuoso]

12 hours ago, iacas said:

 

That same article also says:

 

"It also became clear that the dominant eye is the positional or aiming eye and the non-dominant eye is the one which allows Depth Perception."

 

In which case, you'd almost surely want your non-dominant eye to be able to see the ball a bit more than your dominant one, as depth perception is quite important, no? 

This is actually an interesting counter argument. If true, then we might should encourage the right eye golfers to turn their heads more to the right on the backswing because that would center the ball more in their left eye’s  field of vision, thereby enhancing the depth perception.

 

This would also open up range of motion for the backswing shoulder rotation.

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

This is actually an interesting counter argument. If true, then we might should encourage the right eye golfers to turn their heads more to the right on the backswing because that would center the ball more in their left eye’s  field of vision, thereby enhancing the depth perception.

 

This would also open up range of motion for the backswing shoulder rotation.

 

You need to see the ball out of both eyes for depth perception, though.

[Hawkeye77]

9 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

This is actually an interesting counter argument. If true, then we might should encourage the right eye golfers to turn their heads more to the right on the backswing because that would center the ball more in their left eye’s  field of vision, thereby enhancing the depth perception.

 

This would also open up range of motion for the backswing shoulder rotation.

But . . . if it's a balance, why shift the balance?

[virtuoso]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

You need to see the ball out of both eyes for depth perception, though.

Sure, we want to keep everything as 3D as possible, but still favor the  opposite of the aiming eye to enhance depth perception.

[virtuoso]

3 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

But . . . if it's a balance, why shift the balance?

Because we want to “favor” the depth perception eye.

[Hawkeye77]

4 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Because we want to “favor” the depth perception eye.

 

Skeptical that's the reality - if the left eye sees the ball in one position, not sure how it sees it "more" or gains depth perception just because the head moves a bit (assuming you are not on the fringes of peripheral or losing sight of the ball you "see" it).  But I'm no anatomist, lol, and out of my "lane", haha. 

[virtuoso]

6 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Skeptical that's the reality - if the left eye sees the ball in one position, not sure how it sees it "more" or gains depth perception just because the head moves a bit (assuming you are not on the fringes of peripheral or losing sight of the ball you "see" it).  But I'm no anatomist, lol, and out of my "lane", haha. 

Yeah, none of us are experts. We are just trying to explore the ideas through the discussion. I’m trying to steelman the argument that: “you’d almost surely want your non-dominant eye to be able to see the ball a bit more than your dominant one…”

[Beenerpro]

21 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

I feel like a support group for the rear eye dominant golfer is needed.

Hi, my name is Jay and I’m right eye and right hand dominant.

[Beenerpro]

21 hours ago, iceman1118 said:

 

Edited July 20 by Beenerpro
Double post

[virtuoso]

25 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Skeptical that's the reality - if the left eye sees the ball in one position, not sure how it sees it "more" or gains depth perception just because the head moves a bit (assuming you are not on the fringes of peripheral or losing sight of the ball you "see" it).  But I'm no anatomist, lol, and out of my "lane", haha. 

Since you’re pushing back on that argument a bit, I’m going to assume that as a right eye dominant golfer, you’ve done better when your right eye is more “on the ball”, and when you’ve turned your head to the right, things have gone worse.

[virtuoso]

1 minute ago, Beenerpro said:

Hi, my name is Jay and I’m right eye and right hand dominant.

Thanks for coming in, Jay. There is coffee and donuts in the corner of the room.

[Hawkeye77]

9 minutes ago, virtuoso said:

Since you’re pushing back on that argument a bit, I’m going to assume that as a right eye dominant golfer, you’ve done better when your right eye is more “on the ball”, and when you’ve turned your head to the right, things have gone worse.

 

Not quite - I have an issue with head lift and turn to the right as a consequence of the way I've swung a club since I was 10-11 (blame it on starting out with cut down stiff shafts/literally ancient clubs but who knows) so right eye "on the ball" is a tough one for me and just never had it there throughout the entirety of my backswing for decades.  I think around junior high/HS/college I thought for some reason mimicking Jack's head turn as a bit of a trigger out of complete ignorance of one of the reasons he did it (left eye dominant but he explained a different reason originally) - so I'll blame Jack as well. Anyone but me, lol. 

 

Edit:  I went so far once as to try practicing with an eye patch on my left eye (aaargh!) to see if it would help with changing the motion, but it didn't really.

Edited July 20 by Hawkeye77

[virtuoso]

1 minute ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Not quite - I have an issue with head lift and turn to the right as a consequence of the way I've swung a club since I was 10-11 (blame it on starting out with cut down stiff shafts/literally ancient clubs but who knows) so right eye "on the ball" is a tough one for me and just never had it there throughout the entirety of my backswing for decades.  I think around junior high/HS/college I thought for some reason mimicking Jack's turn as a bit of a trigger out of complete ignorance of one of the reasons he did it (left eye dominant but he explained a different reason originally) - so I'll blame Jack as well.  Anyone but me, lol. 

Are you trying to keep “right eye on the ball” currently?

[golferdude54]

Does depth perception really even matter much at address and during the swing? I've hit balls with an eye patch covering my non-domimnant eye (Arrrrrrrgh!) and both eyes closed, and arc and plane consistency didn't regress at all. 

 

Edited July 20 by golferdude54

[golferdude54]

4 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Not quite - I have an issue with head lift and turn to the right as a consequence of the way I've swung a club since I was 10-11 (blame it on starting out with cut down stiff shafts/literally ancient clubs but who knows) so right eye "on the ball" is a tough one for me and just never had it there throughout the entirety of my backswing for decades.  I think around junior high/HS/college I thought for some reason mimicking Jack's head turn as a bit of a trigger out of complete ignorance of one of the reasons he did it (left eye dominant but he explained a different reason originally) - so I'll blame Jack as well. Anyone but me, lol. 

 

Edit:  I went so far once as to try practicing with an eye patch on my left eye (aaargh!) to see if it would help with changing the motion, but it didn't really.

 

Hah, we both wrote about wearing an eye patch and making a pirate joke, shiver me timbers!