IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR GAME

Opposites attract for better putting

One thing you hear all the time is, “Don’t move your head when you putt.” The same advice applied to the full swing has been pretty well banished from the credibility bin by actual measurements, but not so with putting ― until now.

First a distinction and a definition. The definition of head movement is any motion of the head in any direction ― up/down, back/forth and around. The distinction is between body-head-together movement (the clubhead and the head move in the same direction) and body-head-opposite movement (head moves opposite of the clubhead).

According to research published in the Journal of Motor Behavior and headed by Timothy D. Lee at Canada’s McMaster University, expert putters, even though they may say they don’t move their head, actually do move it in the opposite direction to their clubhead. Poor putters and novices move their head in the same direction. Both movements document the brain’s urge toward simplicity by using a streamlined control strategy that creates a single, easily controlled pattern that applies to each putting stroke.

Why would this be so? First, the human body is always in motion, even if the micro-movements can’t be seen. If you’re alive, you move. So to try to not move while you putt is going against the very nature of your movement profile.

Second, a coupled motion away from the target then toward the target is a sway ― not good for your impact geometry. But when the arms move away from the target while the head moves toward it, this movement cancels out excess dislocation.

Also, in order to stabilize images on the retina during small head movements, your eyes move in the opposite direction to your head. In the case of the expert putter, whose head and club move in opposite directions, this would mean his eyes move in the same direction as his clubhead.

T.J. Tomasi writes for Universal UClick.