Very Single Eye Dominant and the Golf Swing?

[saevel25]

This is out of curiosity. Would someone being very right eye dominant be an issue for the golf swing? I was thinking, if they were very right eye dominant, that if they made a turn that causes their head to be turned in the backswing they could lose site of the ball because the left eye does not actually focus enough to pick up the ball. This curiosity is because I am very right eye dominant.

I found the significance of this in college during a terrain analysis class. We would look at stereoscopic imagery, which uses both eyes independently to produce a 3D image. I found that I could not get the stereoscopic imagery to work for me because I was to right eye dominant. I had to cross my eyes and let them relax to get my left eye to focus in on the left half of the image. If not, my right eye would actually take in the both images not letting me see in stereoscopic vision. A few years later, I talked to my eye doctor about this, and confirmed that I do not register depth perception that well. 

If I am reading this screen, if I close my right eye, it is very hard for me to focus in on words to read. Like, if I start to read with my left eye only, the rest of the screen gets very blurry as I try to focus in on the words. It is hard to scroll. It is like I have to sit on each word to register it with my left eye. While, my right eye vision picks up the entire screen and I can scroll really fast.

[iacas]

So Matt, I finally have time to respond here, and my question is mostly just this… is it really "dominance" or is your one eye really kinda bad at seeing? (Thus making your other eye be really strong/dominant.)

Is there a prescription that would help your other eye, or is it really bad? I can still hit a golf ball (not as well, because depth perception) with a patch over my dominant eye because I can still see the ball.

[Rip62]

Because of complications from cataract surgery I have one eye that sees short and the other see distance. Wearing glasses is disorienting so I rarely use them. I find it doesn’t affect my swing just following the ball sometimes.

[saevel25]

On 5/20/2022 at 8:50 PM, iacas said:

So Matt, I finally have time to respond here, and my question is mostly just this… is it really "dominance" or is your one eye really kinda bad at seeing? (Thus making your other eye be really strong/dominant.)

Probably a mixture of both. I am right eye dominant in general, but also have a weak left eye to add onto to it. I wouldn't say weak in terms of vision strength, but just in actually using my left eye to focus on objects or text. 

I know I had surgery on my left eye when I was really young because there was an issue with it not moving correctly. 

On 5/20/2022 at 8:50 PM, iacas said:

Is there a prescription that would help your other eye, or is it really bad? I can still hit a golf ball (not as well, because depth perception) with a patch over my dominant eye because I can still see the ball.

My last prescription has my right eye at -1.25 and my left at -1.5. So, it is stronger, for me it is the issue of which eye focuses on objects. Isolating my eyes for glasses show they are not far off from each other. 

 

[Big Lex]

Eye dominance exists, like hand dominance, foot dominance, etc. 

Like alot of these brain things, we have pretty remarkable plasticity. Anyone who can hit a golf ball like you do has overcome any issues that might arise if the dominant eye loses sight of the ball in the swing; our brains adapt to the tasks at hand. Note how quickly we learn to use the non dominant hand for typing. 

As for being "really" dominant in the right eye, it's true that cerebral dominance is variably expressed (some people are ambidextrous, some really lateralized, and alot of people are in between, etc.), but I would agree that what you describe with your vision in your left eye sounds like some kind of issue unrelated to dominance. If you haven't told an eye doctor about it, you should, so they can get a really good look at your retina and macula, etc. You may have some ocular issue involving that eye.

With hand dominance, we use the dominant hand so much from such a young age, that we notice big differences in fine motor control in the dominant hand. With eye dominance, I think the brain preference/lateralization of function is expressed mainly in the eye we choose for sighting/reckoning of objects; I don't think we actually develop better visual acuity or quicker focus or anything with the non-dominant eye. I will ask my neuro-ophalmologist friend next time I see her 🤓

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Big Lex said:

Eye dominance exists

I wasn't asking if it was dominance, I was asking if his vision was really bad in the one eye (leading to the other becoming dominant and other things).

His description sounded like more than just dominance. People can have a dominant eye but still have depth perception, etc.

But a -1.5 prescription is really not too bad.

But like you said, maybe there's something else there with that eye. Maybe it's slow to move and thus track the ball when you turn your head a bit during a golf swing, etc.

2 hours ago, Big Lex said:

Anyone who can hit a golf ball like you do has overcome any issues that might arise if the dominant eye loses sight of the ball in the swing;

Two nits to pick there:

• Who says he's "overcome" it? If you could wave a wand and grant him better vision, he might instantly get better at golf. And other things.
• I don't recommend letting people lose sight of the ball with their dominant eye in the golf swing.

[Zippo]

I am in no sense an ophthalmologist but checking the InterWebs I found several articles like this one. Would something like this help you?

How to overcome 'wrong' eye dominance

---

Left-eye dominant but right-handed, Lucy O’Sullivan has spent a fair amount of time working to overcome the problems that presents. Here, she shares some of the tips and tricks she’s learned

 

[saevel25]

Yea, I think for me, its that my left eye isn't quick enough to focus when my head turns enough in the backswing that I lose sight of the ball with the right eye. 

 

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Yea, I think for me, its that my left eye isn't quick enough to focus when my head turns enough in the backswing that I lose sight of the ball with the right eye. 

Then as I said above… stop losing sight of the golf ball with your right eye.

Yet another reason to shorten it up. Like you needed more. 😄

[Indy-Archer]

As a decades long archery coach and avid shooting sports enthusiast (see my avatar and user-name), I can definitely state that eye dominance can be a very real hindrance for aligning sites for both firearms and arrows if one has cross dominance and hasn't addressed it. I've honestly never noticed any impact in a golf game, though. I am very right eye dominant which is great for my shooting sports participation (especially archery!) as I am also extremely right hand dominant. I could see eye dominance issues as a factor for aligning puts, especially using a putter shaft or fingers, or maybe even aligning shorter iron hits. If you putt right handed and align with your left eye, I could see it potentially impacting how you see the line differently while standing behind the ball or above it. From a long-hitting perspective, I would think that there's enough distance to not really throw off the perception. Plus, throughout one's life the body has become accustomed to make adjustments with basic eye/hand coordination, and I would see coordination being a much bigger issue as I've never had a problem with my extreme eye dominance. 

I'd be curious to see what an ophthalmologist says, but I just don't see a big impact to the overall golf game.

[saevel25]

57 minutes ago, Indy-Archer said:

I could see eye dominance issues as a factor for aligning puts, especially using a putter shaft or fingers, or maybe even aligning shorter iron hits.

I am not sure how eye dominance effects lining up. It isn't like we are aiming through a site for the purpose of hitting the target. I think most see a line from the ball to the where ever they are aiming, then try to line up parallel to that, or how ever their body aligns to that mental target line. 

1 hour ago, Indy-Archer said:

If you putt right handed and align with your left eye, I could see it potentially impacting how you see the line differently while standing behind the ball or above it.

In general, where you view to line the ball up matters. You can read a break, have the line set up in your head, then get over the ball and feel like you are aiming incorrectly. I do not think eye dominance matters much on this. I just think it is due to a change in information from a different perspective. 

Throw in things like, club head shape, alignment lines, you can align your putter in a multitude of ways. I have seen someone aim like 15 degrees right with a putter, then have a few alignment lines added, and they aim straight. Not sure if there is a correlation with all that in eye dominance compared to hand dominance. 

[Big Lex]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

Two nits to pick there:

• Who says he's "overcome" it? If you could wave a wand and grant him better vision, he might instantly get better at golf. And other things.
• I don't recommend letting people lose sight of the ball with their dominant eye in the golf swing.

Nerd alert: I love stuff like this, it's stuff I studied at various points in my education, and stuff I still use from time to time in my daily work, so I love talking about it. Read at your own peril 🤓

Regarding those nits:

You're correct...he could still have a visual problem with his game, and yes improving his vision might improve his game.

As a golf instructor and generally smart guy, I would not dispute you on the second point, either. 

But both nits raise interesting (to me) points.

First, I didn't mean he couldn't have any visual problem affecting his golf. I meant that if there is in fact any inherent challenge or impediment to golf imposed by eye dominance per se, I believe he has likely overcome that...and that we all overcome this in various activities we do.

If you just take your address position and direct your attention to two separate things, say, the end of the grip of your club, and the ball, then close one eye, you will find that the image stays the same if your dominant eye remains open, but that the image changes if you close your dominant eye. So obviously, if you lose sight of the ball with your dominant eye mid-swing, the image your brain has of the ball has just changed.

This could wreak havoc! But I think if it's something you do habitually, say, a few million swings, and you're not whiffing it, it's likely your brain has adapted to the challenge. It's learned, basically, to ignore the false input that the ball just moved, and just proceed with the original aiming program. But what should happen and what actually does happen aren't always the same, so again I wouldn't dispute your teaching point that you need to keep your dominant eye on the ball. 

But there is more of an issue if we are talking not about an aim/reckoning issue, but an image quality issue. 

If suddenly in his swing, his image of the ball becomes out of focus or much less clear, I think that would be a much more significant issue. 

I'm curious....@saevel25, you described the problem as "not focusing as quickly." How old are you? Has this problem been something recent, or has it been as long as you can remember? Slow focusing could be an early sign of loss of lens accomodation. (The way we all suddenly need "readers" at some point between age 40-50...). The process continues for years until we have very little close focusing capability anymore, and I am pretty sure it doesn't necessarily begin simultaneously in both eyes or progress at the same rate. 

So maybe that's what's happening, although if it was, you'd probably have noticed difficulty reading as well, as accomodation is more important for seeing something 12 inches away than something 4 feet away. 

I am at the point where I want to use light-strength readers for golf, as the ball is not in sharp focus anymore for me (age 57). 

[Double Mocha Man]

13 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

As a golf instructor and generally smart guy...

I love this.  I always suspected these went hand in hand.

[saevel25]

18 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

This could wreak havoc! But I think if it's something you do habitually, say, a few million swings, and you're not whiffing it, it's likely your brain has adapted to the challenge. It's learned, basically, to ignore the false input that the ball just moved, and just proceed with the original aiming program. But what should happen and what actually does happen aren't always the same, so again I wouldn't dispute your teaching point that you need to keep your dominant eye on the ball. 

I think it matters when it happens. Top of the swing, yes could be a big issue. Right before impact, for Annika Sorenstam, whose head turned up forward the target before the ball is impacted, not so much of an issue. 

20 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

I'm curious....@saevel25, you described the problem as "not focusing as quickly." How old are you? Has this problem been something recent, or has it been as long as you can remember? Slow focusing could be an early sign of loss of lens accomodation. (The way we all suddenly need "readers" at some point between age 40-50...). The process continues for years until we have very little close focusing capability anymore, and I am pretty sure it doesn't necessarily begin simultaneously in both eyes or progress at the same rate. 

Not focused as quickly being in the time from let’s say it takes the swing to travel from A4 to A5. So a fraction of the time in the downswing. This primarily is only my left eye.
 

With my over swing, it’s enough turn to cause the ball to go out of the periphery of my right eye, and by the time I get into transition of the golf swing, I lose sight of the ball, but can get sight again with the right eye as my head and body turn through. 

 

[Big Lex]

9 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

With my over swing, it’s enough turn to cause the ball to go out of the periphery of my right eye, and by the time I get into transition of the golf swing, I lose sight of the ball, but can get sight again with the right eye as my head and body turn through. 

Maybe you already said this and I missed it, but does it (losing sight of the ball) happen to you on every swing, or only some swings (over swings)?

Is the focusing issue new, or is it something you've noticed your entire life? 

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, Big Lex said:

Maybe you already said this and I missed it, but does it (losing sight of the ball) happen to you on every swing, or only some swings (over swings)?

Is the focusing issue new, or is it something you've noticed your entire life? 

Never paid attention to it to validate it. Definitely not on shots like chips, putting, pitches, distance wedges. 

[saevel25]

So, did a bit of a test today at the range. Made a few swings where I closed my left eye, and made sure the ball stayed with in my eye sight of my right eye. Basically, nearly every shot was flush in the center of the clubface. So, for me, ball in primary eyesight for backswing into impact = center strike. Now, path and face control is something completely different. 😉

 

[iacas]

43 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

So, did a bit of a test today at the range. Made a few swings where I closed my left eye, and made sure the ball stayed with in my eye sight of my right eye. Basically, nearly every shot was flush in the center of the clubface. So, for me, ball in primary eyesight for backswing into impact = center strike. Now, path and face control is something completely different. 😉

BIG news.