The role of vision in the science and art of the putting stroke in the sport of golf

Golf is a popular sport that requires coordination, eye-hand coordination, and complex sensory motor skills to judge distance, speed, and conditions such as slope, grass height, and subtle angles and curvatures that can impact ball flight, trajectory, and roll. Experience, acquired skill, and psychological aspects can impact performance. According to the PGA, approximately 40% of all strokes in a given golf round involve putting the ball on the golf green. The art and skill of putting requires complex sensorimotor input for successful execution. This article reviews the contribution of scientific research in vision and its impact on successful putting in the sport of golf. Putting performance is dependent upon determining the proper putter speed required to displace the ball from its resting position to the hole taking into consideration the friction between the ball and grass, the vertical displacement of the hole relative to the ball, the distance the ball must travel to reach the hole, and the direction and magnitude of the break of the green. Vision and proper visual processing by the brain are vital components to successful execution of this complex skill. Electroencephalography studies have demonstrated that expert golfers demonstrate greater stimulation of regions of their brains as compared with novice counterparts, indicating greater sensory information processing.1