Player sees 1/2 tip of right as dead center ball?

CreeDo

CreeDo

Fargo Rating 597
Silver Member
Never saw anything like this. I'm playing with someone who swears she throws right hand spin on everything. I thought maybe it was just the super common issue of putting a little outside or inside on everything, or she had a slight steer at the end of her right-handed stroke, or something.

Instead it's the weirdest thing I've seen, when she is lined up on the CB, and she thinks she is hitting absolute dead center, she is (to me) clearly favoring the right side of the ball a bit. I asked someone else to have a look and they agreed. It appears this way whether you stand in front or in back.

I have never heard of a perception issue like this. It seems like a miracle she can shoot as well as she does with this problem. The stroke looks great in motion.

She has contacts with a prescription strength of -2.25. Not sure if it matters or not.

Anyone heard of this and know the solution? I hope she doesn't have to go through life aiming a little left to get center ball.
 
Proper head position over the cue is such that the shooter sees a straight line down the cue. Without actually seeing her shoot, it sounds like if she consistently is right of center, her head is positioned slightly to the left. A minor adjustment might be all that is needed.

That's where I would start, anyway.

Steve
 
Joe Tucker's "Third Eye Stroke Trainer" will fix her pretty quickly. Thats exactly what its made for.
 
I have run into this problem before when giving lessons. It usually happens because they have their dominant eye too far off to one side or the other. Help her figure out which eye is the dominant one and try lining that up over the cue. That seems to help out quite a lot.
 
I have never heard of a perception issue like this.
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It's pretty common. The head position advice is good. Also, she can probably just re-train herself to see things correctly by simply aiming a little "left of center" until it looks right. Doing the "up and down" drill with a striped ball (stripe oriented vertically) is good for this - if the stripe wobbles she knows she hit offcenter.

By the way, what does "1/2 tip" mean?

pj
chgo
 
There is another possibility. I had a severe reaction six years ago to a bee sting. I "stroked out". I ended out with dead spots in my brain. While it happened and for some days later I had double vision. My normal vision returned. After four years and an always beat up right shin and some other issues, I found that my vision had almost returned. My world is a little high and to the right. My brain compensates enough for me to live. Unless you experience it it is difficult to conceive. When I line up a shot, I line it up then I "adjust". The problem is that when I line up since I can't quite believe my eyes I question myself," Did I adjust yet or not?" So I have seen the type of thing you write about. It has really hampered my game. But things are coming around. I read about developing a set routine here. a I work on it, and having a set routine helps.
 
I had a similar problem. I didn't discover it until Gary Pinkowski brought it to my attention during the $20 lesson he gave me, which I've mentioned elsewhere. Right handed, I was hitting the cue ball to the left of center somehow. This was after lessons from both Ray Martin and Jim Rempe, neither of whom mentioned it. For me, being aware of it and admitting it was a problem was the key for me. I had to consciously check tip position every time I addressed the cue ball, for quite a while. Learning the CTE aiming system may have affected this for me, again. Sometimes, I forget to double check and pay the price.
I suggest using the striped object ball in place of the cue ball thing. That will show the problem clearly, maybe a measles ball would work.
I am considering Joe Tucker's Third Eye Stroke Trainer, still ironing out the finances:(
 
roberthans said:
There is another possibility. I had a severe reaction six years ago to a bee sting. I "stroked out". I ended out with dead spots in my brain. While it happened and for some days later I had double vision. My normal vision returned. After four years and an always beat up right shin and some other issues, I found that my vision had almost returned. My world is a little high and to the right. My brain compensates enough for me to live. Unless you experience it it is difficult to conceive. When I line up a shot, I line it up then I "adjust". The problem is that when I line up since I can't quite believe my eyes I question myself," Did I adjust yet or not?" So I have seen the type of thing you write about. It has really hampered my game. But things are coming around. I read about developing a set routine here. a I work on it, and having a set routine helps.
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Wow. That's pretty interesting; thanks for sharing. So I imagine this means somebody could simply be wired this way from birth...

pj
chgo
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

Patrick - 1/2 tip means she's 6-7 mm off of the center of the ball. It's quite noticeable. She doesn't put big spin on every shot but it's definitely there, especially when she's hitting hard. I'll try the striped ball thing.

Johnny and Pooltchr - she thinks or was told she's right eye dominant (I think she said right, I better ask again). She says when she focuses with that eye her ballmaking goes up. Not sure how one focuses with just one eye? She doesn't close or squint the other. I'm thinking she might be 'focusing' with it by moving her head position.
Her head appears to be aligned dead center over the stick. I guess it needs to move left as pooltchr said.

Chino - well she was cockeyed before she met me but I may have made the issue worse :D

Robert - I'll ask if there's anything she's ever been through that could have caused it. That's pretty rough. I know she has a touch of asthma, but I dunno if she's ever had a really severe attack.
 
Did you check to see if she has any cross-over in her stroke. That can often put unwanted english/sidespin on the cueball.
 
A question for our instructors/knowledgeable players.

So if it appears that I am hitting the right side of the cue ball based on my perception even though its center ball I could move my head position to the left to fix my perception issue?

Thanks
 
devindra said:
A question for our instructors/knowledgeable players.

So if it appears that I am hitting the right side of the cue ball based on my perception even though its center ball I could move my head position to the left to fix my perception issue?

Thanks
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If it's a parallax problem you'll need to move your head to the right, not the left. But parallax is more likely to be a problem for CB/OB alignment (aiming) where there's more distance between the two things you're trying to align.

For stick/CB alignment I think eye dominance is the more likely culprit, because that can affect where you think your stick is with or without a second object to align it with. You probably have to move your head to solve an eye dominance problem too, but I don't think anybody can tell you which way - you just have to experiment.

pj
chgo
 
After a little explanation and experimenting, I found out that

A. yeah she once had a pretty bad asthma attack that left her unconscious. Not sure if that could be an issue

B. She thinks she's slowly going crosseyed, when she looked straight at me it looked like one eye (her left) was going in a bit. She says she's had headaches and trouble focusing for about the past 3 months and has lost some consistency. Bad contacts prescription?

C. She is prolly dominant in one eye but even moving her head to the side didn't seem to make the perception issue change.
 
CreeDo said:
Thanks for the replies so far.

Patrick - 1/2 tip means she's 6-7 mm off of the center of the ball. It's quite noticeable. She doesn't put big spin on every shot but it's definitely there, especially when she's hitting hard. I'll try the striped ball thing.

Johnny and Pooltchr - she thinks or was told she's right eye dominant (I think she said right, I better ask again). She says when she focuses with that eye her ballmaking goes up. Not sure how one focuses with just one eye? She doesn't close or squint the other. I'm thinking she might be 'focusing' with it by moving her head position.
Her head appears to be aligned dead center over the stick. I guess it needs to move left as pooltchr said.

Chino - well she was cockeyed before she met me but I may have made the issue worse :D

Robert - I'll ask if there's anything she's ever been through that could have caused it. That's pretty rough. I know she has a touch of asthma, but I dunno if she's ever had a really severe attack.
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I figured you had something to do with it, just smack her eye straight lol
 
I used to have this same problem. I had a few people work with me on it. Eventually, my ex had me hit the ball on the "left" which was actually center ball. I got over it, but it took me a LONG time.
 
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