(Premier Login aceputt) Forum Owner Posted Jan 10, 2009 8:05 PM
Dear Dave,
What I understand from your question is really two issues: 1) seeing which WAY the break goes on short putts, and 2) seeing HOW MUCH the putt breaks on short putts.
WHICH WAY IT BREAKS
Reading slope on short putts usually entails a very small perspective looking "down" at the surface. These two aspects of reading (too small a perspective and looking down) are not well-suited to help sort out slope. And then when you throw in a slope that is subtle, you really have trouble.
The positive help, then, involves getting a better approach to 1) perspective size, 2) perspective angle, and 3) recognizing subtle situations versus not so subtle.
PERSPECTIVE SIZE
The "wider" the perspective, the easier deciding the basic issue of "which way is higher, which way is lower" becomes. Mountains that way, pond the other way. This biggest perspective may simply be where you know the mountains are supposed to be and where the ocean is located even if you can't actually see them. In this perspective, it is helpful to know that the clubhouse is almost always on the dominant, highest location on the course, so whichever direction aims back to the clubhouse is often uphill.
A smaller perspective is: "the local scene as hemmed in by the trees and the horizon for a flat or only slightly hilly terrain". When looking only at this perspective to assess the basic issue, look to the far tree line and hills to see what reaches highest into the sky. That usually tells you which way is up hill. Then check the opposite direction to verify that there is some water down that way somewhere, like a pond or creek or at least a drainage ravine or gully. This "read" of the basic issue is usually pretty much the same as the read on uphill-downhill as the biggest perspective.
The smaller-still perspective is the fringe of the green as a whole. If you find the lowest point on the fringe and stand there and look across to the highest fringe and hold the shaft of the putter horizontal at eye level, you can read the top side fringe like a stock chart to identify the highest peak on the fringe. Then uphill for the "green as a whole" is from the peak to your feet. Check this against the bigger perspectives to make sure thibngs are still real even if the smaller-still perpsective is slightly different from the bigger perspectives.
The "at the hole only" perspective is the smallest and most important perspective. this requires fairly accurate assessment of the direction of the fall-line straight uphill thru the hole. With the three larger perspectives servinbg as helpful "ballpark" or "background" starting points for the fall-line direction, now stand lowside near the hole and look uphill and identify the "king" highest point on the cup's rim on the 6-12 clockline thru the hole, then the 9-3 line perpendicular to this where all points on the green left or right of the fall-line have equal elevation, and look again at the cup as a tank slowly filling with water to identify the first point on the low rim where the water will first overflow out of the cup and dribble straight down the fall-line. At this point, you should be fairly accurate in understanding what is uphill and downhill thru the cup and which way things will break, even if the break is subtle.
PERSPECTIVE ANGLE
If you are looking ONLY at the smallest perspective, you are also likely to be looking mostly downward and this offers the least information about the difference in elevation off to your left versus off to your right or this way versus the opposite way away from the cup, so back away from the cup at least 6-10 feet and get a slanted angle to look at the slope. Go generally downhill based on the larger perspective and look generally uphill on a slant. You can also go to the sidehill positions and back way off to decide whether uphill is to the left or right of this point of view. However, getting all the way down to ground level is NOT what I am referring to, as this perspective is for seeing whether the surface is flat or wavy, and not for telling which direction is uphill.
SUBTLE SLOPE AND BREAK
Subtlety is from two sources: putts with not much slope, and putts that are starting near the fall-line. In combination (putts on mild slope that are also near the fall-line) are the toughest to sort out. Knowing this helps you sort it out. At some point, you just have to call it: uphill is this direction. If you really can't call it, it is probably straight or straight enough. Any break that is too subtle to sort out probably does not break enough for you to have to aim outside the cup.
HOW MUCH BREAK
Once you have the basic reality of the fall-line, the break direction is sorted and the remaining issue is the SIZE of the break. This issue is all about touch or the rolling speed of your ball as it near and goes in or passes the hole, especially the last 2-3 feet of the putt.
The analytical sequence is the following set of propositions in order.
1. The exact shape of the successful breaking putt at the end is totally determined by your pace on the ball (as this reacts in physics with the gravity of the slope contour and with the friction of the green surface speed).
2. When anyone putts, he or she in the event sends the ball off with only one pace, whatever pace that might be.
3. Reading a putt is seeing the shape of the putt in the future at the end of the putt by visualizing the actual ball speed react with the surface contour and surface speed so that this ball speed follows one curving track into the hole.
4. Because your read of the future shape of the putt at the end is based upon only one actual pace at the end of the putt near the hole, your actual execution of the putt must be with this same pace on the ball as measured at the end of the putt.
5. Golfers with touch have a consistent end-speed or pace on the ball for all putts regardless of distance or complexity of the total putt.
6. Only golfers with touch as defined have the ability to predict the future of breaking putts with consistency and accuracy, since they actually execute putts so the pace matches the visualization.
7. Once a golfer reads a putt with a pace or touch that he or she can execute with accuracy and consistency, there is NO OTHER PACE that should or can be used to make the ball follow the physics of the contour and the surface friction of the visualized curve into the cup and executing the putt with any pace other than the USUAL used for the visualization and prediction of the future curve of the break will either run the ball thru the break or miss to the low side.
8. The physics governing whether a ball rolling sideways over a hole falls in and stays in the hole, in this case a golf hole 4.25 inches in diameter, is not up to the golfer but is set by objective requirements of reality, and those requirements practically must balance the need to get the ball all the way to the front lip, the need for the path across the hole to be lengthy, and any misses not to be long past the hole.
9. An objective balancing of the requirements of physics for ball speed across the front lip of a golf hole favors 2-3 revolutions per second at the front lip, thus allowing the ball to fall deeply inside the cup even when the path across the hole has only 2 inches as opposed to a centercut putt with 4.25 inches, as ball speeds on such a short path above 3 revolutions per second does not fall deep enough before hitting the back wall to be safe and 2-3 revolutions per second gets the ball all the way to the cup without resulting in a lengthy comeback in case of a miss.
10. Golfers with instinctive touch do not use a ball speed much above 2-3 revolutions per second at the front lip and the actual end-pace of the touch of great putters eventually settles down to 2-3 revolutions per second at the lip in accepting compliance with the objective reality of ball capture physics in the real world.
11. Golfers with great touch that accepts reality use 2-3 revolutions per second as the delivery pace for all putts and also use only this end-pace to visualize and predict the future of the shape of the break path over the last 2-3 feet into the cup.
12. Every single roll or revolution of a golf ball covers 5.28 inches along the ground, which is roughly the same as the span of the hand from butt of palm to fingertips or about two rolls of the ball for each foot of the putt (a 5-foot putt requires rolling the ball 10-11 times to the front lip and 11-12 times for the end-pace to be 2-3 revolutions per second at the front lip).
13. For standard green speeds and putts that do not involve slope that is seriously tilted uphill or downhill past the cup, putting with this end-pace and missing the hole seldom if ever rolls the ball farther than 2-3 rolls past the cup, which is the equivalent of the ball stopping within 10-15 inches of the cup (putts on slow greens stop shorter; putts on slope that is downhill past the hole stop farther away, etc.).
USING THE END-PACE REALITY TO SEE THE SIZE OF THE BREAK
The quickest and simplest way to use the good end-pace to visualize the SIZE of the break is to imagine or visualize what would happen if you aimed straight at the center of the cup and then putted with this end-pace: the ball will start off straight but then break to the low side and cross the fall-line at only one distance below the center of the cup and then continue past the fall-line an additional 2-3 rolls of the ball -- the start line for the real putt that incorporates the correct SIZE break aims at the point on the high side of the fall-line that is exactly this same distance above the center of the hole. If ther imaginary straight-on putt crosses the fall-line low-side 5 inches below the center of the cup, then aim 5 inches above the center of the cup on the high-side fall-line and then putt with the usual / same end-pace of your touch.
Another way is to focus on the high side of the cup and run a movie / visualization of a ball arriving over this slope with the usual end-pace and make sure the movie corresponds to reality in the way the ball speed will interact with the slope and green speed. The curve of the successful putt will have to be high enough so that the ball does not miss to the low side of the cup. Any miss to the high side by aiming excessively high will never roll more than 2-3 rolls past the fall-line if you have executed the putt with the usual pace.
These parameters of what is too little or too much pacing "keeps it real" when you visualize and also allows you simply to "get in the ballpark" of a good read. The idea is to visualize the MINIMUM pace that will just get the ball to the lip without losing the putt to the low side arriving at the lip with just-get-there speed, necessarily defining the greatest possible break that could be played; then visualize the MAXIMUM pace that will take some or most break out of the curve and yet still allow the physics of hole capture to allow the ball to go across the cup on the centercut path and still fall deep enough to stay inside before hitting the back wall. The BEST pace will surely lie somewhere between these two imaginary MINIMUM and MAXIMUM paces.
Because end-speeds of 9-10 revolutions per second simply are ruled out by reality and 7-8 revolutions per second (rps) are the MAXIMUM PACE for even a centercut path across the hole, and because 0+ to 1 rps revolutions per second is the MINIMUM PACE for any putt to reach the hole along the biggest breaking curve, the ratio of maximum pace to minimum pace is 8:1 (8 vs 1 rps). A very good or optimal pace is 2-3 revolutions per second.
Whatever pace allows you to take out as much break as possible and still make the putt is the maximum, and a miss of the cup at this pace will roll the ball 8 times farther than a very good or optimnal pace (8 vs 2 rps). Such a maximum pace will send the ball 3.5 to 5 feet past the hole on standard green surfaces and slopes (42 to 60 inches). One-fourth of this is about 10-15 inches past the hole. Consequently, the optimal break path is closer to the minimum pace / maximum break than it is to the maximum pace / minimum break, and is only 25% lower than the break of the minimum pace / maximum break while being 75% of the way from maximum pace / minimum break to minimum pace / maximum break.
By the same ratio analysis, a putt that is between the MINIMUM PACE and the OPTIMUM PACE is one that just gets to the edge of the hole and one that travel 2-3 rolls past the fall-line in case of a miss.
So, if you first imagine putting (starting the putt) straight at the center of the cup with a pace between the minimum and the optimum, this is imagining a putt that either just curls low and gets to the fall-line or crosses it and continues past only 2-3 more rolls. How far down the fall-line this crossing point appears to your visualization is how high to aim the start-line. Then imagining the putt along this high-side start-line also needs to visualize the result ending either just at the lip or going into the cup with 2-3 rps over the edge.
My impression from your description of the problem is that you have insufficient skill at visualizing the interaction of the ball with slope and green speed at various delivery paces. Your build-a-skill exercise, then, is predicting how low a certain putt will cross the fall-line when aimed straight at the hole on a breaking putt and then seeing if your actual straight-at-the-hole putt crosses the fall-line where predicted. And if the ball rolls over the fall-line 1-3 rolls only, and you can predict this point of crossing down the fall-line on the low side of the cup when starting the ball straight at the hole, then your ability to visualize a good pace will sharpen up and your ability to see and predict the high-side interaction and curve path will also sharpen so you see the correct size of break. It helps to do this exercise from the sidehill direction (3-9 on the clockface with 6-12 being the fall-line thru the cup).
Building on this visualizing-speed skill, visualize stopping the ball at the fall-line on the high side of the cup as near to the lip as possible without going in. The better aim line that results in a sink is lower than this and the pace faster than this, but not by much.
SUMMARY
Accurately seeing the real fall-line's direction thru the cup is the start of appreciating the reality of the putt. Accurately visualizing the optimal pacing in predicting the future of the curve that succeeds builds upon the perception of the fall-line, and also this speed visualization takes place within minimum / maximum parameters or the "ballpark" of what is real and what is possible. These two skills (seeing the fall-line and visualizing optimal delivery speed and its interaction with the surface to indicate a curve into the hole) shows the break direction and size. Then it's down to whether you can execute the putt with the same pace used to predict the curve.