Loss of depth perception and eye-hand coordination and what I did about it

[chipandcharge]

Prior to 2011, I had very good depth perception and eye-hand coordination.  I had a history of doing quite well in racquet sports. I started playing golf in 2007, and my index was progressing downward at a reasonable rate.

Then I developed double vision due to scar tissue developing behind the retina in my left eye.  In 2011, my index went up six points in less than a month.  My number of bad contacts in a round of 18 went from 2 to 3 to 15 to 20.

One day while waiting on the tee box for my turn to hit, I tried to nudge the ball on the grass with the handle of the club, and I missed it by one inch. On an optometrist's test with the concentric cylinders that protrude from the paper, I scored zero out of max, whereas I used to almost max out the test.

I received some advice from a teaching pro that I should try to learn to play golf like a blind person so that I wouldn't have to depend on depth perception.

It was a very difficult process that took three years to see some signs that I might be able to make it work. After trying instruction after instruction on how to improve contact, I finally tried one that worked, but it was counter to my natural inclinations.  I had to convert to a swing where the right arm is almost totally de-energized to prevent it from moving the club in an unwanted direction, whereas in prior years, I was very right-arm dominant from playing racquet sports for so many years (from 1950 through 2007).  This was the most recent part of my recovery process.  Before that, I had to put in a lot of work on developing a reliable set up that was highly repeatable, and I had to work hard on "keeping my head in the box."  My theory is that I got away with a bit of sloppiness due to very good eye-had coordination, which I lost.

So far, my index has dropped three points, but if I don't warm up on the driving range before playing, it takes me several holes before I swing the swing that I want, mainly because it is very different from the swing I used to use prior to 2011.

I have learned a lot about the golf swing in this recovery process, things that I should have been working on but didn't.

[boogielicious]

Thanks for posting @chipandcharge

Does the double vision still persist? My mother has it due to shingles affecting her right eye. They gave her corrective prisms to help, but it occasionally flares us.

Have you tried shortening your swing to help contact? A 3/4 swing may help because you eliminate excess body movement that can happen at the top of the swing. You will lose a bit of distance, but contact may improve.

[chipandcharge]

Thanks for posting @chipandcharge

Does the double vision still persist? My mother has it due to shingles affecting her right eye. They gave her corrective prisms to help, but it occasionally flares us.

Have you tried shortening your swing to help contact? A 3/4 swing may help because you eliminate excess body movement that can happen at the top of the swing. You will lose a bit of distance, but contact may improve.

boogielicious--thank you for reading my post.  It was so long,even after I edited.  I have glasses with prisms, but they correct the double vision by only 80% or so for me.  A problem with the prism gasses is that they shift objects in space, as I discovered about six months after getting them.  If I look at a tennis ball on a table from a distance of six feet, the ball is located approximately four inches lower than it really is in space.  If I were to try to hit it by throwing a gof ball at it and threw it perfectly, the golf ball would pass four inches below the actual ball. That's because my throwing arm would be outside the field of vision of the glasses.  If I were to try to touch the ball with a six foot pole, I would touch it perfectly because the pole is in the same field of vision as the tennis ball.  So, when I start swinging down, my hands and club are outside the field of vision of the glasses.  I think that until my hands enter the field of vision of the glasses, I am swinging to the wrong location and must make a mid-swing correction.  I also think that the pro's instruction to learn to swing like a sightless person still applies.  Through trial and error, I need to learn to use body sensations (what some call "feel" to develop the right memory map that brings the club head to the ball, like a sightless pianist who is able to find the right keys.  This is already too long;  If I can figure out how to send a private message, I'll write more.  P.S.  I do indeed use a 3/4 swing.  Thanks.

[chipandcharge]

I continued to struggle with my loss of depth perception (caused by double vision) from August 2015 until early March 2017.  I went to several teaching pros, and none had any experience in teaching someone with my problem.  I continued to watch online videos, trying to pick up something here and something there.  Then the strangest thing happened in early March.  Out of frustration, I decided to swing as fast as I could, not the usual 80-85% of max that I kept hearing about.  My thinking was that if I was going to continue hitting fat and thin shots, I may as well get as much distance out of it as I could.  All of a sudden, the fat and thin shots all but disappeared, from a high of 15 to 25 in a round of 18 down to around 4 to 6 a round.  The best I can figure is that swing at maximum effort did two things.  First, I think he made me shift my hips forward more aggressively, and second, it made me stay in my stance longer, and maybe even lower my center of gravity in an effort to put more effort into the swing.  My enthusiasm for golf has returned after years of frustration.

[dennyjones]

So sorry about your eye situation.  

One of the guys I play with lost one eye in an accident.   A snowblower plastic wheel exploded while he was inflating the tires.    He was / is an avid golfer.   He has learned to adapt on the golf course and his game is about the same as before the accident.   

2 hours ago, chipandcharge said:

My enthusiasm for golf has returned after years of frustration.

So glad you're enjoying golf again.   Congratulations.  

[chipandcharge]

Dennyjones--thank you for the comment and the encouragement I got from it.  I college as a grad student, I played tennis against another grad student who lost an eye playing 8th grade football and was still able to play small college varsity tennis.  Here's an interesting concept with no proof--a sports scientist watched me play my three favorite sports, golf, tennis and table tennis, and he said it looked like I had very good eye-hand coordination before my left eye went bad (good news), but the bad news was that I depended on it too much and didn't learn mechanics properly.  He said that I need to improve my mechanics and fix my problem with my head doing things that it shouldn't.  Ironic if true, that having very good eye-hand coordination can hurt you you lose it.

[chipandcharge]

If anyone has been reading my posts on trying to improve bad ball contact, which I attributed to eye damage that reduced my eye-hand coordination and depth perception to almost a bare minimum, I thought I would share recent improvements.  I was given advice by and online pro that I should add more structure to my golf swing, but he didn't explain.  I knew from reading up on blind golfers that they have to understand their position in 3D space, and they have to have a repeatable swing.  I just didn't know what I needed to do to accomplish this since my mind is not very disciplined.  But, here's what I stumbled on--I worked on matching up my left hand grip to my hip rotation and shift to the left so that at impact, the club face is square to the intended flight path of the ball.  I did this by taking slow motion swings, stopping the club at the ball to see where the club face is facing, looking for a combination of left hand grip, hip rotation, and left ship that resulted in the club face being square to the target line and all feeling natural (from among many combinations that felt natural).  The surprising thing is that I cut down on my number of fat and thin shots, I think due to getting regularity in my left shift.  A nice fall-out of all this is that my confidence has gone up and I expect to make good contact.  I'll report again after I see if this is long-lasting.

[dennyjones]

7 hours ago, chipandcharge said:

If anyone has been reading my posts on trying to improve bad ball contact, which I attributed to eye damage that reduced my eye-hand coordination and depth perception to almost a bare minimum, I thought I would share recent improvements.  I was given advice by and online pro that I should add more structure to my golf swing, but he didn't explain.  I knew from reading up on blind golfers that they have to understand their position in 3D space, and they have to have a repeatable swing.  I just didn't know what I needed to do to accomplish this since my mind is not very disciplined.  But, here's what I stumbled on--I worked on matching up my left hand grip to my hip rotation and shift to the left so that at impact, the club face is square to the intended flight path of the ball.  I did this by taking slow motion swings, stopping the club at the ball to see where the club face is facing, looking for a combination of left hand grip, hip rotation, and left ship that resulted in the club face being square to the target line and all feeling natural (from among many combinations that felt natural).  The surprising thing is that I cut down on my number of fat and thin shots, I think due to getting regularity in my left shift.  A nice fall-out of all this is that my confidence has gone up and I expect to make good contact.  I'll report again after I see if this is long-lasting.

Congratulations on your "eureka" moment.   It's encouraging to hear your progress.

[chipandcharge]

dennyjones--thank you for hanging in there with me and for encouraging words.  I was getting discouraged, especially since my handicap went from 20 to 29 in a less than four months.  I went out to play a round today, and the revised swing mechanics held up ok, but I got careless on the back nine and didn't match my front nine score.  The back nine is said to be tougher, but I know my game slipped.  Some day, I may have to write a post about how I discovered than my dominant eye somehow rotated in my eye socket a few degrees, making horizontal surfaces look like a sloped surface, meaning that putts that look straight in break, and putts that look like they should break go straight.  I wonder if other golfers might not have a similar vision problem.  Thanks again.

[Nthuzst1]

This is very interesting.  I have no depth perception as well, although I’ve been that way all my life.  I’ve tried playing golf before and I just cannot consistently hit the ball.  I have the exact same issues you do. You’re post is very encouraging.  I’d love to hear an update.