The science behind the swing: Eye tracking boosts golf performance

 
With the 2025 Ryder Cup beginning at Bethpage Black this Friday, all eyes will be on the two teams as they compete in the most prestigious team event in golf. This event is known for upsets and comebacks that defy expectations. Team Europe is renowned for its resilience against a US team usually made up of higher-ranked individual players. On this stage, and with the team play format, performing under intense pressure will determine which team comes out on top. 

Sometimes, an individual meltdown is easy to spot even for the most novice golf watcher, but other times, subtle changes in a player’s routine are more challenging to identify. This is where knowledge and understanding developed through decades of research using eye tracking can help us distinguish between a solid routine and one disrupted by pressure. 

The Quiet-Eye phenomenon

Those familiar with eye tracking probably know about the ‘Quiet-Eye’ (QE) phenomenon. For those less familiar, QE is the final fixation on a specific spot before starting a motor action. It has been widely studied in golf putting, where QE is the final gaze on the ball before the stroke begins. In key research, Vickers (1992) found that elite golfers have a longer QE duration, about 2 seconds, than near-elite golfers when making a 3m putt. Later summaries show that highly skilled golfers often have QE durations of around 2.5–3.0 seconds, compared to about 1.0–1.5 seconds in lower-skilled players. 

The finding of an extended QE duration in more skilled performers is consistent across the literature (Vickers, 1992; Vickers, 2012). However, crucial to the Ryder Cup, we also know that when anxiety is experimentally increased, QE tends to shorten and become disrupted, alongside reduced performance (Wilson, Vine, & Wood, 2009). And there are few situations more anxiety-inducing than lining up to take a putt in the Ryder Cup to win your team a point!  

By training athletes to stabilize that final fixation, we can extend QE and safeguard performance in competition and under pressure, including among elite golfers (Vine, Moore, & Wilson, 2011; Moore, Vine, Cooke, Ring, & Wilson, 2012). 

Recent research has explored the role of QE more thoroughly. Two findings are particularly relevant to what we will observe under pressure this week. 

1. Stillness matters. QE is not simply about ‘looking at the right thing’; the stability of that final fixation appears to play a functional role in execution. Disrupting fixation stillness impairs performance even when visual information is equivalent (Harris, Wilson, & Vine, 2023). 

2. Preparation, not panic. EEG studies of skilled golfers have shown that neural signatures of efficient motor preparations precede better putts. The brain’s frontal lobe also shows less of the slower theta rhythm than before a miss, and these patterns are consistent with an effective QE state (Carey et al., 2024). 

Simply put, performers who can maintain a stable QE under pressure can better complete the motor command and avoid last-minute interference — those who cannot are more likely to rush or reprogram at the last second. There is even evidence that after a small setup error, successful putts are often preceded by a re-stabilized fixation before the stroke; QE seems to support error recovery when it is needed most (Walters-Symons, Wilson, & Vine, 2017). 

Whilst we cannot see fixations on TV, we can see routine. Decades of work on pre-performance routines show that consistent, task-relevant sequences help athletes manage anxiety and execute under pressure (Cohn, Rotella, and Lloyd, 1990; Rupprecht et al., 2024; Mesagno & Mullane Grant, 2010). Putting these strands together, the on-screen tells that often accompany QE changes under pressure look like:  

• Address to stroke timing drift: The interval from placing the putter behind the ball to the start of the stroke becomes noticeably shorter (rushing) or longer (over-control) compared with a player’s norm. This reflects the pressure that reduces QE in lab and field studies (Wilson et al., 2009) and highlights the importance of routine consistency (Rupprecht et al., 2024; Jackson, 2001).  

• Backing off or resetting: Stepping away after settling in and then restarting the routine. This aligns with the need to re-establish a stable preparatory state when the initial one does not ‘feel right’ (Jackson, 2001; Rupprecht et al., 2024).  

• Extra ‘last looks’ at the hole: More head turns happen between the ball and target before settling. Research has long examined these visible elements (Boutcher & Zinsser, 1990; Cotterill, 2010), and higher anxiety levels are linked to less effective visual control (Wilson et al., 2009). 

• Post-impact head stillness: After contact, elite putters often keep the head quiet for a moment. In QE terms, successful actions are usually linked to a fixation that briefly extends into movement (QE ‘dwell’); keeping the head still after the ball has gone is a visible sign of that underlying stability (Vickers, 1992; Vickers, 2012). 

Enhancing golf precision with eye tracking

When working with golfers, I use Tobii Pro Glasses 3 during practice rounds and pressure training sessions to enable monitoring in environments that closely resemble competition. This allows me to compare what research in a lab suggests with what individual performers do with their eyes while playing. I then use the research software Tobii Pro Lab to lock the QE to the stroke’s kinematics, enabling me to develop interventions to help athletes stabilize their gaze during key moments of their performance. Training QE with Tobii Pro Glasses 3 has helped me replicate lab findings, improve competitive putting, and make performance more anxiety-resistant.  

In my current work with a leading putting coach, we compare equally steady ‘narrow’ versus ‘broad awareness’ QE instructions with Tobii Pro Glasses 3. Early player feedback suggests younger athletes prefer the narrow cue, while experienced players favour a broader sense of the green. This research may help inform the instructions when training QE to move beyond ‘hold the gaze steady’. 

So, as you watch Bethpage Black this weekend, remember you cannot see the eyes — but you can see the routine. The players who keep that routine calm and consistent are, by the numbers, the ones most likely to have got their Quiet Eye right when it matters. 

References 

Neuroscience of the Quiet Eye in Golf Putting, International Journal of Golf Science 1(1), (Vickers, 1992; Vickers, 2012) 

Anxiety, attentional control, and performance impairment in penalty kicks, (Wilson, Vine, & Wood, 2009) 
 
Quiet eye training expedites motor learning and aids performance under heightened anxiety: the roles of response programming and external attention, (Vine, Moore, & Wilson, 2011; Moore, Vine, Cooke, Ring, & Wilson, 2012)

The effect of performance pressure and error-feedback on anxiety and performance in an interceptive task, (Harris, Wilson, & Vine, 2023) 

Commit to your putting stroke: exploring the impact of quiet eye duration and neural activity on golf putting performance, (Carey et al., 2024) 

Examining the response programming function of the Quiet Eye: Do tougher shots need a quieter eye? (Walters-Symons, Wilson, & Vine, 2017) 
 
The effectiveness of pre-performance routines in sports: a meta-analysis, (Cohn, Rotella, and Lloyd, 1990; Rupprecht et al., 2024; Mesagno & MullaneGrant, 2010) 
 
Pre-performance routines in sport: current understanding and future directions, (Boutcher & Zinsser, 1990; Cotterill, 2010)