Simple Exercise Helps Win US Open

Paul Gagne is a brilliant posturologist and exercise kinesiologist with the David Leadbetter Golf Academy. His work with 2005 US Open champion Michal Campbell helped him win the
championship. Campbell won that Open at Pinehurst with a dazzling back-nine putting display on Sunday. Five times during the final round he dashed into the various portable toilets that dotted the course, in part to use them for their intended purpose but also to perform a peculiar eye exercise prescribed by Gagne that makes the eyes function better together. After emerging from the Port-O-Lets on the 12th and 17th holes, Campbell drained key putts--on No. 17, a 25-footer that clinched the victory. He took only 27 putts that day.

"After doing the exercises, I felt focused and relaxed," says Campbell. "I could really focus on the line of the putts, which was critical on the Pinehurst greens. Doing the exercises took me away from the occasion, the stress, the pressure and put me in the present time."

He suffered from poor eye convergence, his eyes not working in concert when he looked down and formed a line to the hole. The phenomenon of poor eye convergence afflicts nine out of 10 people, according to Gagne, and comes into play primarily in putting and chipping because your eyes look straight down at the ball. "When you line up a putt from behind the ball, your eyes level to the horizon, you're fine," he says. "The problem arises when you look down at address and your eyes try to join, in forming a line to the hole. In almost all cases, one eye performs well, but the other eye does not follow the good one."

Because the exercises can immediately benefit the everyday golfer, there is hope that Gagne's program could lead to a widespread performance breakthrough in putting.

How does the poor eye convergence lead to poor posture and alignment? "Naturally, the tendency is to help your weaker eye," says Gagne. "You do that by adjusting your head to bring it more into play. Because Michael's right eye is his weaker eye, his head would turn slightly to the left, and his right hip and shoulder would move out toward the ball, shifting his alignment open." (If your left eye is weaker, you'll tend to set up closed.) As Gagne predicted, Campbell said most of his missed putts went to the left.

Now for the exercise Campbell performed inside the Port-O-Lets, which Gagne says will improve your eye convergence immediately. Take a pen (in Campbell's case it was a golf pencil) and position the tip 10 to 12 inches in front of your eyes, opposite the bridge of your nose. Imagine a figure 8 lying on its side, like a pair of big glasses, its length just wider than your face, and draw a figure 8 in the air with the pen. Trace the figure 8 between 20 and 30 times, moving the pen fast enough so you can complete the full set of movements in two to three minutes, never losing sight of the tip of the pen. You don't need to be perfect, says Gagne, but it's important to keep your head still as you do it. If you perform this exercise a few times every day, the convergence condition will improve dramatically.

A painless exercise with no heavy lifting, the promise of more putts holed and better control over your emotions. Now that's the kind of workout routine golfers have been looking for.