Putting Lines

Everybody agrees that golf putting is the most important part of the golf game. At first sight, however, improving the putting performance doesn’t seem so rewarding as working with the driver or any other of the golf clubs inside the player’s bag. No wonder that the great majority of average golf players don’t devote any serious attention to golf putting. And when it comes to breaking putts, even fair and good players are usually, and understandably, moving in the desert. Believe me, the great majority of what you can read about this subject are laughable pieces of absolutely worthless text.

We have to deal with two main problems.

First: To read the green, that is, to evaluate the shape of that area between our golf ball and the hole.

Second: To know what to do, supposing the green was correctly read in the previous step.

There are some gadgets and procedures available to assist golfers in the first step that will be analysed in this article. Some of them are not allowed in the golf course because of golf rules and others are just useless. Only two are useful and permitted by golf rules and one of those two, as far as I can figure, has never been revealed before. But if any of my readers can prove that someone else has disclosed it before, please let me know because, in that case, I owe the author an apology.

Let’s start our comprehensive review. If you are not interested in “solutions” that aren’t useful or violate golf rules, skip to c).

a) Plumb bobbing. A procedure that is allowed but useless.

I won’t give too many details about this technique. Those interested can "google" plumb bobbing in golf and get countless results.

Briefly, stand behind the ball and look straight to the hole, hold the top of the grip between your thumb and forefinger, extend your arm slightly and let the putter hang freely in your grip. Block the view of the ball with the lower end of the shaft of the putter. Only keep your dominant eye open. If the hole looks like it is on the left of the shaft, then you should expect the break to be from the right to the left and vice-versa.

All this is pure fantasy. It’s always possible to position the shaft, the ball and the hole in the same alignment. If they are not aligned it’s because the players have done what they needed to do in order to see what they wanted to see. It’s a kind of confidence booster to reinforce what they probably already saw by careful visual examination of the putting surface.

If you are not convinced imagine the pin is in the cup standing vertically. Imagine also that you have a big door that turns around the pin. Rotate it, in your mind, till it is over the ball and stop. The door is a vertical plane that, if you were plumb bobbing, would contain the pin, the hole, the ball, the putter’s shaft and your dominant eye. How can you measure any break in this situation? The answer is: you can’t, unless you cheat and move your head a bit to get it “out of the door”.

b) Devices to measure break and provide the direction of the fall-line. Very useful gadgets but not allowed.

We are now referring to objects, either electronic or air bubble based, which display the most important piece of advice needed for the management of breaking putts: the direction of the fall-line, an information that is critical to establish the shape of the curve the ball will follow after the putter stroke.

Fortunately, in my opinion, they are not allowed. However, due to its usefulness, they are currently used by golf professionals to map the greens before tournaments.

Here you have the names of some of them, not as an endorsement but with pure informative purposes:

“eez-read”, an air bubble based break meter
“exelys break master”, an electronic break meter

A quick reference also to “the green reader”, a disguised sophisticated plumb bobbing device, not allowed by golf rules.

And now, let’s see the solutions that are available to assist in green reading and that are useful in golf putting and in full accordance with golf rules.

c) Guessing the direction of the water flow. Very useful and allowed.

This is a very effective procedure I highly recommend. Observe carefully the ground close to the hole and imagine someone poured a fair amount of water in the cup till it overflowed. The direction the water would take is the fall-line or line of maximum slope. How to make full use of it is out of the scope of this article but it is carefully explained in my ebook Golf Putting Lines.

d) Marcel White’s technique for green reading. Very useful and in total accordance with the rules. This is the one that has never been revealed before.

Let’s start with the easiest feature this technique can provide.  You are on a sloping green but you are not sure about your next putt being uphill or downhill because, as you move from one point to another, your perspective changes giving you misleading perceptions. Consequences can be devastating if you consider downhill a putt that actually is uphill, or vice-versa. Use this approach to solve the problem. Look for a spot that is roughly at the same distance from the hole and the ball and not very close to the ball-hole line. Standing on that point, you, the ball and the hole are forming a triangle, an isosceles triangle because two sides of it are equal.

Align yourself in order to let your shoulders parallel to the ball-hole line. Use both your forefingers to handle your putter and raise your arms, keeping them straight, till the putter’s shaft is horizontal in front of you and parallel to your shoulders. Now, your eyes and the club shaft define a plane in which any straight line parallel to the club shaft is horizontal. So, just move slowly both arms, keeping the putter horizontal, till you see it touching the hole. Now, the image of the club shaft you see on the ground will tell you if the ball is above or bellow the hole and how much.

(See image 1)

I agree this is not as accurate as an electronic meter but the choice is between this technique and nothing allowed by golf rules. Besides we can take some steps to improve it.

First, do it while the pin is in the cup. It’s vertical and will help to see if the shaft is horizontal because both lines are perpendicular.

Second, you can train your eyes as much as you want because horizontal lines are everywhere to help you confirm your guesses. For instance, any house or building has horizontals on the top of doors, windows, walls, etc. Put yourself with your shoulders parallel to the wall and calibrate your horizontals.

And now, an interesting question is perhaps crossing your minds: if you line up with the ball and the hole, will this technique work to reveal the lateral break? Yes, it will!

So, get down, in line with the ball and the hole, and find two spots you can remember, on the grass, at each side of the ball and at similar distances from it. The two spots must define a second line that is perpendicular to the ball-hole line. You and those two points are now forming the isosceles triangle needed to use this technique. As before, the next step will be to raise the horizontal putter to discover which one of the spots is at a lower or higher level and how much. That is the lateral break. If you suspect of a double break repeat the entire process close to the hole. Just take care to avoid slowing the game.

(See image 2)

As far as I know, this is the best and most reliable technique to improve your green reading without breaking the golf rules. With it you get a clearer picture of your putting zone in every situation. But don’t forget that your objective is to sink the next putt, not to get a topographic image of the green. Provided you know how to use all the information you gathered, a nice putt is on the way. Otherwise, it will have been a waste of time. So, if the results don’t show, I’m sure it’s time to read Golf Putting Lines Ebook and discover the pleasure of making good breaking putts. It was one of my objectives when I wrote it.

Marcel White  (23/11/2009)
http://www.puttinglines.com

Now you are on the green, holding your putter, facing the pin and trying to evaluate the shape of that area between your golf ball and the hole. Forget about the strokes needed to reach the green. That's past, that's history. And because it's not the right time to put pressure on yourself, forget also

a) that the last few yards on the green can take more strokes than the 3 or 4 hundred yards between the tee and the green

b) there's no such thing as a recovery for a missed putt

Let's assume that you are aware of all that and take golf putting seriously. So, the most important thing you desperately need now is to know the slope of your putting area, that is the green's zone your ball will cross on its way to the hole. You observe carefully from the ball's side and there's no doubt it will break slightly say, from north to south (n/s). Now, let's have a look from the other side to get a clearer picture. And . . . oops! It breaks slightly from south to north (s/n).

Now you have a big problem that all of us (who look from both sides) faced several times. If your group is alone on the golf course and your buddies aren't pushing too much, you can repeat the entire process but the results won't change. Perhaps it's because the shadows are distorting the image or, perhaps, some objects in front of you (trees, fences, etc) are giving you a wrong perception. Still more likely, perhaps you are a biased observer. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! But the truth is that the data your eyes sent to your CPU doesn’t match, so your brain gets confused with that and any commands coming to your muscles will reflect that dilemma. It's easy to predict there's trouble ahead.

Some of us, in this situation, decide to forget what they saw from the hole's side. It's a wise decision. At least you’ll act according to what you see when you take your stance to putt. But you can almost safely bet that you won't make that putt. Why? Because if the break is there it won't disappear just because you decided to ignore it.

Another solution is to try to emulate King Solomon's method, when he ruled that a baby was to be cut in two pieces, one for each of two women who wanted the child (fortunately the case was settled before the King's command was executed!). Using this method you just aim straight to the hole. The rationale is that if you see one thing from one side and the opposite from the other side, chances are that the solution is just in the middle. If you are a lucky guy, it might work. But don't expect too much.

 (See the image)

My conclusion, after lots of missed putts and careful observations and experiments, is this: When you see something it's better to believe it's true and not a product of your imagination. If you see a n/s break, it's probably there. If, from the other side, you see a s/n break, it’s probably also there. You have a putt with double break and your observations just privileged the green's area closer to you in both cases. You shouldn't be surprised to get a better and more detailed view of what is closer to you, should you? And don't forget we are talking about slight breaks, not clear double breaks where we can use the method explained in Golf Putting Lines Ebook.

The double break theory explains why some of us only use the information gathered from the ball's side and don't report a major cognitive dissonance. On one hand, our brain is a bit more confident because it's acting according to what our eyes see when we putt. On the other hand, we witness that the ball starts breaking as it's supposed to. There's only one disturbing factor: it rarely enters in the hole, because we didn't consider in our "putting equation" the second break that was there waiting for the ball. Next time try to make a small adjustment and reduce the anticipated break a little bit. It has worked with me and perhaps it will work for you too. Good luck!

Marcel White  (11/8/2009)
http://www.puttinglines.com

> A Black Hole in Golf Putting

An article for golf players where the author writes about Golf Putting and the specifics of breaking putts. It's also analysed why this subject, till recently, has never been deeply studied.

No, I'm not referring to that hole on the green where the pin rests waiting to be removed to let the golf ball go in. Instead, I'm talking about Black Holes, those regions of cosmic space with a gravitational field so intense that not even light can escape from it. That is, we don't know anything about what's inside.

In golf putting there's also a kind of Black Hole for the great majority of players. Inside, is carefully kept the background needed to confidently face breaking putts. As a consequence, millions of golf players feel like zombies, lost in the middle of sloping greens, having their eyes blindfolded.

Too much drama? I won't dispute that. I just want to emphasise that there are lots of easy putts missed everyday, everywhere, by golfers that never had the chance to learn how to deal with this subject of breaking putts. And it can be taught and made easy to use for common players of all levels.

Remember your first attempts with breaking putts. Perhaps you are a self made putter that found your way by trial and error; or maybe you went to the golf course with some kind of golf guru that, for every breaking putt, told you to aim x inches, or y feet, or z yards above the hole. And, regardless of the outcome, you were astonished and wondering where did those magic distances come from and desiring to get the talent to decide it on your own. But you found it impossible to discover anything written specifically about it or a serious way to be taught about that.

This is a very important subject because breaking putts are something every golfer has to face several times during a round of golf and, no matter how good his putting technique is, success won’t come unless he chooses a good line. This fact is related with another one. When a golf player has a breaking putt to do he must aim some point that isn't the cup's centre and if he or she doesn’t know what kind of ball track the ball will follow all happens as if he, or she, is putting blindfolded. Even for non-golfers it's easy to feel the drama. And if we consider that during a round of golf almost half of total strokes are putts and more than half of them can be breaking putts, the drama turns to tragedy.

The reason that made this problem remain for so long without some light being shed on it, is the fact that some basic concepts of physics and geometry are needed to deal with it. And those 2 words are scary and intimidate common people, even before you enter the subject. This means we are facing a kind of vicious circle: the problem is important and needs to be addressed, the solution is based on some basic concepts that scare people, no one dares, so, the problem remains unsolved.

The first serious attempt I know to break this stalemate is an ebook called Golf Putting Lines that is now selling online (http://www.puttinglines.com). As far as I know, there are no other books, articles, videos, whatever, thoroughly treating this subject. It assumes that correctly identifying lines is a matter that requires some background in physics and geometry that the great majority of golf players don’t have, or don’t remember, or don’t even want to hear about for its reputation of being difficult and inappropriate for a golfing environment. As a consequence, objective number one was to make it simple at any cost. I believe it is and I also believe it's accessible for anyone with a normal background.

This is what is inside:

>Insights about ball tracks. The concept; the different kinds.

>Break definition and the right point where it must be measured.

>Introduction to the concepts of “aim point” and “break point”.

>Explanations about break and clues to evaluate how much a putt will break.

>Analysis of the different factors that affect ball trajectory.

>Suggestions of some drills and experiments that will help golfers to become more sensitive to the several green factors that influence putting lines and, as a consequence, make them more confident with those putts that used to make people sweat even in cold winter days.

For those interested in a deeper insight, it´s also revealed why and how things happen and no more than that. This is a separate chapter everybody can skip without major consequences.

There is also room for surprise, for instance, when it's explained why putts in the range 1 to 4 yards (roughly) are more reliable if there is a clear break to consider than if they look flat and level.

Interesting, as well, is the fact that the ebook is as succinct as possible because the author believes readers are looking for solutions, not for literature.

The result is an ebook that tries to fill the gap between the solutions every golfer needs to become a better player and the theory behind those solutions, something no one is remotely interested in. In other words, it is a successful attempt to provide some gain without pain.

Marcel White  (14/6/2009)
http://www.puttinglines.com