Indoor Golf: Can Seeing Less Help You Play Better?

Forget Everything You Know

During lessons and clinics, I’ll often have my students make swings with their eyes closed... sometimes golfers will actually hit the ball better that way than with eyes open (especially the new golfers), but why?

Historically, golfers have been instructed “keep your head down”. This type of instruction, whether formal or informal, has caused golfers to modify their swing and body mechanics, resulting in poor swing mechanics, poor club-ball contact, and risk of injury. It is understandable to think hand-eye coordination is important in golf, so it seems logical that hand-eye coordination would be the reason for success or failure during the golf swing. However, the human eye cannot see the golf club strike the ball nor its location upon the face. Impact happens too fast!

I knew that the "head down" mantra was a fallacy, but didn’t know all the why’s, so I quit my job and went back to school for a Master’s Degree in Exercise Science and Ph.D. in Neuromechanics. (I’ll leave out what my wife originally said about this decision, no turning back now!)

Thinking vs. Doing

Learning how to swing a golf club by watching elite players do it and trying to model their alignments is really almost useless. There are some good things that your brain will capture while watching, so please feel free to keep watching the good golf swings (and not the bad ones!), but ultimately, honing the golf swing is about motor control and learning through experience, not kinematic or positional analysis.

One way we learn is through explicit and implicit learning strategies. What does this mean? Simply put, explicit learning is something you can explain how you have learned the movement, while with implicit learning it is very difficult to describe how you learned the movement.

Let’s take riding a bike for an example. When you first took off the training wheels and began pedaling, how did you keep your balance and learn how to balance? I felt balance go side to side but really didn’t think about what I had to do.

In Golf Terms

Let’s take a look at some golf instruction that provides explicit details on how to position the golf club throughout all the 8 – 15 positions or steps during the swing... DETAILED INFORMATION. So when you go to make your swing, your brain is trying to process all that information in 1.5 seconds... wow, difficult! Now compare to how much thinking goes on when you jump on a bike and go riding when it may have been years since you last rode a bike. Not much at all after that first initial wobble.

The Vision Occlusion Study

This is what led us to the idea of using the Nike SPARQ glasses as a training tool for the golf swing. The glasses have been proven to work in other sports, why not golf? Nike SPARQ glasses are based on stroboscopic training - lights turning on and off really fast. They are liquid crystal lenses that flash transparent and opaque (grayed-out) that can be set at different rates of transparency. The longer they are opaque, the less you see.

Test Conditions

24 golfers
Two practice sessions per week for six weeks
Golfers divided into two groups: Group One practiced with Nike SPARQ glasses, Group Two practiced with normal vision
As weeks progressed, the level of occlusion was increased in Group One (increased duration by which glasses were grayed-out)

Test Results

The golfers that practiced with the Nike SPARQ glasses increased their driving distances compared to the group that just practiced... it worked! In fact, the total occlusion group improved by an average of 14.65 yards.

Digging even deeper into the numbers, within Group One, golfers that initially had shorter initial driving distances of 185 yards or less showed significant yards gained with their tee shots. Testers gained between 10 and 40 yards with an average gain of 25 yards.

Check out the graphs below:

How does this help your golf game?

By reducing your reliance on vision, you can begin to develop a better sense of where your body is during the golf swing. In scientific terms, it’s called proprioception - we are aware of what our limbs and fingers are doing without seeing them. Better golfers have better proprioception or “feel”, not more information. Actually, if you want to become the best golfer you can be, you need to stop thinking about the swing mechanics and become of aware of what you are doing to create your good shots. By practicing without vision (vision occlusion), you develop a better sense of feel.

Try It Yourself

It’s difficult to find the Nike SPARQ training glasses anymore (Nike discontinued them), so I recommend using electrical tape on a pair of safety glasses (that’s what we do in a pinch).

Here's what to do:

With your glasses in hand, go out to the range, tee up the balls, put the blackout glasses on.
You can peek below the lenses to find the ball and get aligned properly.
Start swinging at 50% intensity with a mid-iron, 6 or 7 (you can peek at the ball to set up properly, of course).

Pay attention to what you are feeling, it will take some time for your brain to stop thinking and become aware of the swing.

Hit 15 balls while wearing the blacked out glasses. What do you sense with your missed struck shots compared to your well struck shots? By gaining a feel or awareness of what the differences are, you can begin to change your swing. As you gain confidence, you may increase the intensity of your swings. Now with the glasses off, try to replicate the same good quality motion you felt with your best swings.

Now pull out your driver, put on the blacked out glasses and repeat the 15 ball practice set. Do this practice set once or twice per week for a couple weeks and let me know how it goes!