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.

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.

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.

3.) Putting is possibly the most mental thing in golf

If I learned nothing during my time in the PLD Lab, it’s that there’s such a large side to putting that’s all mental. It’s all based on what your nervous system is doing at any moment on the greens, stepping over the ball, and controlling the stroke.

The amount of effort that Ping is putting into understanding the mental side of putting is quite profound, and it’s very fun to be included in some of the testing and to understand how they are looking at things differently. The Tobii eye-tracking glasses are really fun to play around with, but if when you watch the full video, you’ll hear Erik talk about how they have implemented the research with players, the other findings they have discovered and how they are going to continue diving into the mental and personal side of putting to relay back to the physical putters.

At this point, I’d have to say that the putter you end up choosing is more dictated by what it does to your mental state, your focus, and your ability than it is to do with actual performance. There’s a lot more to digest here, but we’ll continue to update as we learn more.