Before every shot, your brain makes one critical call: how far is it? Rangefinders and GPS help from afar, but inside scoring range, distance control depends almost entirely on your eyes. This drill exposes why your feel may be off—and shows you how to recalibrate it using two simple tests used by the Titleist Performance Institute.

According to Greg Rose, you don’t need a lab or fancy gear to understand how vision affects performance. You just need a ball, some space, and honesty.

Purpose: Check how accurately you estimate distance.

Setup:
Place a ball on the ground between 15 and 30 feet away, ideally on a flat surface where you can clearly see the floor leading up to it.

Execution:
From your position, estimate the distance to the ball in feet and inches—just like you would on a long putt. Write it down. Then measure the actual distance.

Score It:
Note the difference between your estimate and reality. Short by two feet? Long by three? That gap is your baseline error.

Purpose: Check how your brain feels distance without visual confirmation.

Setup:
Leave the first ball where it is. Hold a second ball in your dominant hand with your arm extended.

Execution:
Look at the first ball to lock in the image. Then close your eyes and pace off the distance you believe the ball is from you. When you think you’ve reached the spot, drop the second ball.

Score It:
Measure the distance between where the dropped ball lands and the original ball. This reveals whether you tend to perceive distances as shorter or longer than they really are.

These tests uncover tendencies like esophoria (objects appear closer) or exophoria (objects appear farther). When Joel Dahmen went through this assessment, it explained why certain distances consistently fooled him.

Practice with known yardages. Use a launch monitor, rangefinder, or marked distances during practice to remove guesswork. Matching feel to verified distance retrains your perception—and that carries straight onto the course.

Run this drill monthly. Better vision equals better distance control.

When you watch tour pros on the range, it’s easy to focus on speed sticks or high-tech gadgets. But one of the most consistent habits you’ll see is far simpler: how they set their grip to square the clubface.

According to John Scott Rattan, many elite players use a quick checkpoint called the stand-up grip to confirm that the clubface is square before every shot.

“You watch Scottie Scheffler every day on the range doing something like this to check his grip so the face is square,” Rattan explains.

Start with your normal address position. Without changing your hands, stand up and raise the club so your arms extend comfortably in front of you. From there, softly unhinge your wrists and let the club’s weight settle naturally.

If done correctly:

This position makes it immediately obvious if you’re manipulating the face at address.

Rattan simplifies diagnosis with a visual cue:

This quick reference helps you recognize problems before they show up as ball-flight misses.

Many amateurs unknowingly start with a closed clubface. That tells the brain loft has already been removed, which triggers compensations later in the swing—like flipping the hands or swinging excessively right.

“The face is king,” Rattan says. “If it’s bad at the start, you have to fix it somewhere else.”

Starting square creates the right incentive: you naturally take loft off in the downswing instead of trying to add it back late.

There’s a second method you’ll see on tour. Set the clubface at a 90-degree angle, then grip it. Rattan notes that Xander Schauffele uses this approach to achieve the same result—a reliably square face at address.

Both methods train your eyes to recognize square and eliminate silent setup errors before they wreck a swing.

A Laser Rangefinder (with Slope Toggle)

If distance perception is off, the fastest fix isn’t more reps—it’s better feedback. A laser rangefinder gives you truth, not guesses, and pairs perfectly with the vision-based drill you just introduced.

Why it fits this issue

How to use it (practice-specific)

What to look for