At page 174 of _The Complete Golfer_ Vardon says:
Keep your eye on the ball until you have hit it, but no longer. You cannot follow through properly with a long shot if your eye remains fastened on the ground. Hit the ball and then let your eye pick it up in its flight as quickly as possible. Of course this needs skilful timing and management, but precision will soon become habitual.
It was by the merest chance that I saw this passage after I had written my chapter on "The Function of the Eyes," although I am now incorporating it herein.
I am very glad to have Vardon's authority to back me up in discrediting the silly idea about turf-studying; but although I have him with me I cannot hold him guiltless of spreading the error, for he has been photographed _repeatedly_ illustrating it in a style which he never uses in actual play. This may be seen in the series of photographs in _Fry's Magazine_ already referred to, and also at pages 89 and 97 of _Great Golfers_, wherein this great player is shown in positions which in actual play he would not understand how to get into; but people who know no better, and have not the real power of comparative analysis and close thinking, are led away and suffer for this kind of foolishness merely because it is associated with a great name.
This plate shows the champion's tremendous finish in the drive. Ray, at the top of his stroke, gets much of his weight on his right foot, but does not advise others to do so.]
In connection with this matter of the function of the eye there is an interesting point which I have not seen mentioned in any golf book--a point which makes it, if anything, more necessary for one to insist upon the vast importance of the maxim "Keep your eye on the ball," although it is fallaciously preached both before and after impact. This point is that there is just before impact a very considerable portion of the travel of the head of the golf club during which the ball is practically never seen by the golfer. This is what I may call the golfer's "blind spot." It exists in practically all ball games where the ball is struck by a bat or other implement of that kind. Its existence, of course, is well known in cricket. I have played lawn-tennis for twenty years, and I do not believe that I have at any time during that period seen my racket hit the ball when actually playing. I have seen it do it when I have made up my mind to watch the ball and forget other matters, but in actual play one does not do this. One plays the stroke with the utmost naturalness. The ball is coming towards one and one gauges the distance and strikes. One knows that whatever happens one's stroke is made for good or ill, and there is in many strokes a blind spot of fully six to nine inches in length.