To Days Golfer a New Way to Putt

8/9/2019 To Days Golfer a New Way to Putt

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I SSUE 305 TODAYS GOLFE R.C O.U K

W O R D S K I T A L E X A N D E R P I C T U R E S H O W A R D B O Y L A N

TODAYS GOLFE R.C O.U K I SSUE 31 0

PUTTING SPECIAL

ave you ever watchedtelevision coverage of thePGA Tour and seen thatblue line pop up betweenthe ball and the hole to show

exactly how the putt is going to break? Doyou find yourself thinking I wish it wasreally that easy? If youre one of the majorityof golfers nodding their head to that question

you could be about to experience an epiphanybecause the same technology that draws thatperfect line has been converted into a greenreading technique that will help you holemore putts.

AimPoint is the brainchild of IT-basedinventor Mark Sweeney and hes teamed upwith British coach Jamie Donaldson to createa system that takes all the guesswork out ofthe dark art of green reading and replaces itwith cold, hard science that anyone can applyto make more accurate reads and improveyour putting whether youre Tiger Woodsor a 28-handicapper.

About four years ago it struck me thatthere was nothing in any manuals or passedon by golf coaches on how to read greens,Donaldson told TG. But its a part of thegame that determines who wins and loses

tournaments and can save amateur golferscountless shots a round.

I did a little digging and I discovered

AimPoint, and its creator Mark Sweeney.Mark shared his knowledge and findings withme and together we converted the AimPointtechnology into a technique which allows youto determine the amount of break to any pinlocation in around 20 seconds or less. Its asystem thats been widely used on all Toursover the last four years it has amassedmultiple wins and propelled Stacy Lewis tothe top of the womens world rankings.

Every golfer on the planet has to read atleast 18 putts per round and theres absolutelynothing to stop you becoming a brilliantgreen reader. But the sad truth is that most

golfers make the wrong read 100% of thetime because they base their decisions onnothing more than guesswork and

H

Thenew

way to puttAimPoint is revolutionising the way many Tour prosread greens and it will help you hole more putts, too

Perfect line:TheAimPointtechnologyhasbeen

usedtoshowbreakonlivePGATourcoverage.

AimPoint helped me to get to No.1 in the world Stacy Lewis

Ladies European Tour player Stacey

Keating has risen 408 places to 70th in

the world rankings since she started

using AimPoint in 2011:AimPoint has

changed my game; the stats dont lie.

Working with my caddy and practising the

techniques regularly we have found the

results astonishing. My awareness of

the undulations on the greens and

locating the direction of the slope

has guaranteed that I aim at the

correct side of the hole every time.

Ive never been this excited to

get on the greens!

misconceptions. Just imagine how much yourscores would improve if you got a couple ofreads right in a round and rolled the putts in.What about five correct reads, or even nine?That would still only be half the holes in around but I dont know any golfer whoseperformance wouldnt improve beyondrecognition if they saved nine shots.

If your green reading improves, so will

your overall putting performance. Bad readscan be the root cause of errors in the set-upand putting stroke, says Donaldson. If youchoose the wrong amount of break you haveto aim incorrectly, vary ball speed and pushor pull putts in order to make the putt; all ofwhich we are all desperately trying to stopdoing. They are also the factors we usuallyblame for our missed putts.

So good putting all starts with the rightread, and the key to a good read is determiningthe three key elements that affect how muchthe ball will break; distance, slope and angle.Combining these three pieces of informationwill enable you to calculate exactly how muchthe ball will break with a little help from theAimChart. We have an exclusive reader offerfor you to purchase the chart at special knock-down price at the end of the feature, but you

can still learn a lot from AimPoint without it.Turn over now to become a better green readerand hole more putts.

The sad truth isthat most golfersmake the wrongread 100% ofthe time becausethey base theirdecisions onnothing more

than guesswork

Began AimPoint

2 00 9 2 01 0 2 01 1 2 01 2 2 01 3 Y TD

Wins 0 0 1 4 2

Rolex Ranking 47th 34th 10th 2nd 1st

Money 47th 21st 4th 3rd 2nd

Putts/GIR 88th 20th 9th 3rd 2nd

Scoring Avg 43rd 14th 7th 4th 1st

Birdies 43rd 10th 2nd 1st 1st

Stacy Lewis

rankings

Jamie Donaldson

Oneofonlytwolevel3

AimPointinstructors,

Cambridge-basedPGA

memberJamieoffers

tuitionacrosstheUK

andEurope.Follow

@golfdonaldsonon

Twitter;emailjamie@

aimpointgolf.co.uk


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I SSUE 31 0 TODAYS GOLFE R.C O.U K

PUTTING SPECIAL


Green reading perfection begins with the disproving of some long-held misconceptions... Determining how far you are from the hole may seem easy, but many golfers get it so wrong

Get your facts right How to gauge the right distance

A common mistake that golfers make isto vastly under-read putts. When I askmy pupils, including Tour pros, to reada putt before Ive demonstrated theAimPoint method, around 90% of theputts will be under-read. If you makethis error when reading, the only wayyou can hole the putt is to hit it hardenough to roll well past the hole or,even worse, manipulate your puttingstroke and push or pull intentionally tostart the ball on the correct line. Thechances of holing are very slim,resulting in a long return putt or aninconsistent stroke.

You need to stand halfway between yourball and the hole and 15 to 20 feet awayfrom the line on the low side of the putt toaccurately judge the distance. As you cansee from the picture, the markers nowlook like they are at regular five-footintervals and you can accurately judge thedistance. Standing on the low side givesyou the best perspective of the putt and isvital for the next stage of the process whenyou walk to the midpoint between yourball and the hole to assess the gradient ofthe slope and angle you will be puttingacross it. Approaching from the low sideensures you wont tread on your line.

Under-reading and speed issues Gauge distance from side on

This image is a great visualrepresentation of how much breakincreases from five, 10, 15 and 20 feetfrom the hole on a typical green with 3%slope. Using a putt that breaks fourinches (measured from the edge of thehole to the first tee peg) from five feet, wecan see how the break changes as we getfurther from the hole. Notice how theamount of break increases at leastthreefold from five to 10 feet and then inmore uniform differences from there onout. It would break roughly 12 inchesfrom 10 feet, 20 inches from 15 feet and28 inches from 20 feet.

If you struggle to accurately gauge thedistance by just looking at the putt fromside-on, you can pace it out. Two averagesteps will equal five feet for a fully-grownman, but its well worth taking the timeto measure exactly how far each of yourstrides is so you can accurately determinethe distance of your putt by simplywalking along it. You would never hit aniron shot without an accurate yardage and the same must be true of yourputting. Walking the length of your puttcan also help to give you a feel for theslopes and undulations your ball willtravel across en route to the hole.

How fast the ball is travelling when it reachesthe hole impacts how big it is in real terms and how accurate the putt has to be for theball to drop. Its important to have aconsistency of distance beyond the hole on allputts so you can accurately judge the amount

of break and maximise the chance of holing it.The magic number is nine inches past thehole; any shorter and the ball is knocked off-line by green inconsistencies and farther thanthis and the target size shrinks rapidly and youincrease the risk of lip-outs.

Traditionally, we read putts from end to end,squatting down behind the ball and trying toevaluate how we think the ball will travelacross the green to the hole. In fact, this is oneof the worst places to look from to get an ideaof distance. The markers in the image above

are at five-foot intervals, but as you can see,squatting down behind the ball gives you askewed vision on the true length. If you do nothave a true picture of the distance then youcant possibly hope to make the correct reador hit the ball at the right pace.

How much it really breaks Pace it out to make sure

The real hole size The wrong perspective

DIRECTION

O

F

PUTT

F U L L H O L ED I A M E T E R4 . 2 5 I N C H E S

36 INCHESPAS T THE HOLE

1.4 INCHES

HOLE DIAMETER

2 4 INCHES

PAS T THE HOLE1.9 INCHES

HOLE DIAMETER

12 INCHES

PAS T THE HOLE2 .6 INCHES

HOLE DIAMETER

9 INCHESPAS T THE HOLE

3.2 INCHESHOLE DIAMETER

If the ball is travelling

fast enough to stop three

feet past, the hole

becomes a third of the size

- meaning your putt has

to be incredibly accurate.

Two feet past the hole

and its just less than half

the size.

One foot past and the

hole is nearly two-thirds

its actual diameter.

By hitting putts nine

inches past you ensure

the ball will hold its line

and the hole is three-

quarters the size.


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I SSUE 31 0 TODAYS GOLFE R.C O.U K

PUTTING SPECIAL


Use your innate balance and senses to judge the gradient and how much the ball will break

Get a feel for the slope

Facing uphill, you will be able to feelwhen one of your feet is lower than theother. Rotate on the spot until you findwhere your feet are completely level. Youmay have to rotate past the level point andwork back to it to be completely sure.

Now you can identify where the pressureof your weight is in your feet to judge thegradient of the slope. Weight in the toes is1% gradient, balls of feet is 2%, arches is3% and heels is 4%.

The greater the gradient, the more theball will break. 2% is a very commongradient as this is the slope required for agreen to drain. Anything steeper than4% is pretty much unplayable. As anillustration of how much gradient affectsbreak, a 10-foot putt at 90 across theslope (from 3 or 9 oclock on the clockfaceopposite) will break three inches from theedge of the hole at 1%, eight inches at2%, 14 inches at 3% and 21 inches at 4%.

The angle that the ball rolls across the slopewill affect the amount of break and determineits direction. Straight up or down the slopewill have no break and across the slope at 90angle will be roughly the greatest break forthat slope amount. If you imagine a clockfacearound the hole with 12 oclock straight in

front of you as you stand facing straight uphill

in the MidPoint position, you can easily judgethe angle of the putt, with reference to a timeon the clock. This shows how much a 10-footputt will break on a typical British green witha Stimpmeter reading of nine and 2% slope.If the ball is on your left it will break left-to-right and if the ball is on your right it will

break right-to-left. A downhill putt can break

up to twice as much as an uphill putt on thesame angle on a steep gradient.Remember, all break amounts are for a ballrolling at the optimum speed, which is nineinches past. The break amounts will increasefor a longer putt, faster green or steeper slopeand decrease for a shorter putt, slower green

or gentler slope.

Use your feet to gauge gradient

Use a clockface to judge the angles

To accurately judge the amount of slope andangle at which the ball crosses the slope we needto stand halfway between the ball and the holeand use a technique called MidPoint. Alwaysapproach the MidPoint from the low side of thehole. Face uphill and stand completely upright,

facing dead ahead with shoulders back and chinup. Close your eyes so youre not influenced bythe terrain and completely focus on your feet.You will use the feedback between your feet andthe ground to judge the slope and ascertain theangle youre putting across it.

MidPoint technique

Exclusive AimPoint TG reader offerWeve teamed up with AimPoint

to offer Todays Golfer readers the

chance to attend a green reading

class at Brocket Hall on July 24 or

25 or August 6 for the special

price of 50 a fantastic saving

of 49 (10am and 1pm sessions

available). Also included in this

price is the AimPoint booklet,

which gives you an accurate break

amount for any putt when you

know green speed, distance, slope

and angle. Attending the course

will enable you to take all the

techniques youve learnt in this

feature to the next level and use

the booklet so you never have to

guess a read again. Every student

also receives a special code that

allows them access to extra

material and videos at www.

aimpoint.com.

Please email editorial@

todaysgolfer.co.uk with the

subject header

AimPoint and

quoting the code

TG25 and the

day you would

like to attend to

secure your

place.

1 % G R A D I E N T 2 % G R A D IE N T

3 % G R A D I E N T 4 % G R A D I E N T

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To Days Golfer a New Way to Putt