DEXTRALITY AND EYE POSITION IN PUTTING PERFORMANCE

The relationship between eye and hand dominance and the relative posit ioning of the ball with respect to the subjects' eyes on putting perfo rmance was investigated. Twenty-four pure dextral (right-eyed and righ t-handed) and 24 cross-dextral (left-eyed and right-handed) novice gol fers were randomly assigned to putt at a target 3.66 m away in two con ditions, eyes focused directly over the ball and eyes positioned midwa y between their feet and the ball, i.e., eyes positioned 5 cm closer t o their feet. The analysis indicated a significant interaction for dex trality and the relative position of the eyes during putting. Pure dex tral golfers demonstrated less absolute error and less variable error in their putting performance when they focused their eyes midway betwe en the ball and their feet than when they positioned their eyes direct ly over the ball. No differences in error scores were found for cross- dextrals across the two putting conditions.