thoffen said:
You will find yourself looking at the OB last and rarely at the CB (only to verify your cueing). If your stroke is good and straight with good timing, you won't need to focus on the CB.
I disagree somewhat. I think it's important to look back and forth from the CB to OB quite a bit when preparing to shoot, and the reason is to make sure your alignment is correct. Here's something I catch myself doing when I'm lazy about alignment: I get into my stance looking at my point of aim (the OB), I take a practice stroke or two looking at the CB to get my tip placement right, and then I take a practice stroke or two looking at the OB to fine-tune my aim. All of this is good and it's my regular routine, but then I look back at the cue ball and discover that while looking at the OB, my tip drifted from center ball to right english. The culprit is that I placed my bridge hand too far to the right, and so stroking along the correct line means hitting the right side of the CB. I think a lot of people end up with poor tip placement because they look at the OB and don't realize they're stroking toward a different tip placement than they were when they were looking at the CB.
So Ohplayer, look back and forth frequently while aligning and taking your practice strokes. Only shoot when you're putting your tip in the right spot on the CB AND stroking along the correct line of aim. When you shoot, I find it easiest to look at the OB, but I've had quite a bit of success lately closing my eyes altogether, which goes to show you it's stroke and not eye contact that puts the ball in the hole
As for the "ghost ball" if you use it, visualize the ball, and visualize the cue ball rolling through the center of the ghost ball. If you've visualized it in the right spot, then this will cause the edge of the CB to hit the correct spot on the OB. Eventually though, you won't picture a ghost ball anymore. That's really just a tool to learn where to aim. Soon your experience will build up enough that you'll look at the shot and just know where to aim.
-Andrew