Ping’s PLD Putting Lab showed me something I hadn’t seen before

I recently took a trip to the Ping PLD Putting Lab in Phoenix, AZ and went through an exploration of their new Scottsdale TEC putter lineup, including wearing some Tobii Eye Tracking glasses to learn more about their new Eye Q alignment features.

Along with learning about their new putters and the research into ‘Quiet Eye Theory’ that went along with them, I took away a couple of key things for my putting.

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I’ve said it before, and I will continue to say it: Ping is never anything short of impressive, and the tools they use and share for golfers always unlock new knowledge.

Here are 3 things I found while testing with Ping.

1.) You have a routine, even if you don’t

I am not a very consistent person on the golf course. I wouldn’t really say that I have any sort of routine, and if I do have one, it’s certainly not consistent across every putt that I take, or so I thought.

The Tobii eye-tracking glasses, however, would disagree.

So would the PLD Putting Lab staff I was working with. Right away, we noticed a pattern. I check the hole, the putter, my toes, and then back to the ball. I was doing it completely subconsciously. I had absolutely zero idea that I did the same thing before every putt I hit, let alone when I am standing in one position, hitting multiple putts like I was in the lab. But this knowledge is exactly why Ping started to look deeper into Quiet Eye Theory, and developed their Eye Q alignment aid.

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2.) It’s just 2 seconds

Erik made a very specific point with me during the testing that all of the study that Quiet Eye Theory does is based around the two seconds before the athlete, in our case, a golfer, begins their task. My task, of course, was to putt the golf ball, so the two seconds we are focusing on are the two seconds before I start to take away the putter.

It doesn’t seem like a ton of time, but there’s a lot that can happen, and this is where their Eye Q alignment starts to prove its benefits. With the blank putter and the putter with the full line, my eyes didn’t truly get set until right before I took the putter back.

With the Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset that has Eye Q alignment, my eyes were actually locked for over that two-second threshold, meaning I was dialed into my task. Having this level of focus helps to quiet the mind and the nervous system. That focus and that quiet then allows the athlete to begin their task “cleanly” without distraction or worry. It is actually, funny enough to me, why I have preferred blade putters with sight dots for so long. There’s little distraction, and the dot helps me to focus.

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