Dear Tim,
I love any opportunity to teach Canadians! You guys stick together!
The four basic fundamentals everyone needs to master for putting are:
1. READING THE PUTT: pick an effective target to aim at
2. AIMING THE FACE AND BODY: aim the putterface and the setup straight at the target
3. ROLLING THE ROCK: putt straight away from the putterface
4. CONTROLING DISTANCE: putt with good touch or distance control
All putting practice ought to be geared to one or more of these fundamentals. That is, you need to know why you are practicing in a certain way, and what you are supposed to be learning from that specific practice, so you can see improvement in one of these four areas when you play. Obviously, indoors during the winter, your practice will be concentrated in the areas of distance control, putting straight, and aiming.
What you should come to appreciate is that every single putt is the same -- the same process of selecting a target, the same aiming and setup process, and the same stroke with the same tempo. The only thing that ever differs is the length of the backstroke, and as you'll see this is not something you have to think about at all if you have good tempo and an accurate targeting process. In other words, you will always do exactly the same targeting and aiming / setup routine, and you will always make exactly the same stroke movement and always putt the ball in exactly the same way. The ball will always roll away from the putterface and setup in exactly the same direction. There is not much to think about, at least once the target is selected, other than do the same steps of the process well and consistently the same every time.
The above 4 fundamentals are ordered chronologically, but in fact it is better to learn them in the order 4, 3, 2, 1 -- sort of like a sock turned inside-out. So, I would recommend learning first a solid, repeating, excellent tempo as the basis for distance control. Then I would learn how to putt straight, no matter where the face is aiming thru the ball, by using consistent movement biomechanics. Then I would learn to putt straight at a specific target by correctly aiming the face and then setting up the body to the aimed face. Finally, using my ability to putt with known distance control and known straight putting accurately at any target, I would learn how to read a putt for purposes of selecting a target to aim at and start the straight putt off out of my setup with good touch. There is nothing else to learn, fundamentally, although there are many, many nice elaborations of these four skills. I consider learning the psychology of putting to be something tackled only in light of the development and nurturing of these four skills, as your skills level determines what sort of psychological issues you will need to deal with.
STEP 4. DISTANCE CONTROL is the key to putt reading, and TEMPO is the key to distance control. A gravity tempo is more exact and consistent than a "muscle-memory" tempo. Let the putter move itself coming down into impact. For distance control, you can try to learn to allow gravity to pull the putterhead down from the top of the backstroke, so that your body simply "rides the putter" as it free-falls beneath your body's pivot in the base of the neck or clavicle. The putter has its own tempo just like a mechanical pendulum, and every stroke you ever make ought to be based on this tempo. That is, every stroke free-falls from the top of the backstroke to the top of the follow-thru in exactly the same amount of time regardless of the length of the stroke. Usually, with a 35-inch standard putter, this free-fall takes about one full second. The critical area, however, is from the top of the backstroke down to the bottom of the stroke in the middle of the stance and body. This is about one-half of a second -- every single stroke, long or short. The trick to an even-tempo stroke is to recognize that the putterhead will "drop" in a free-fall fashion very smoothly always with the same timing simply by virtue of relaxing the body so that the shoulderframe relaxes from its tilted position at the top of the backstroke back to level, and this will get the putterhead to the bottom of the stroke in the middle of the stance, but then the body tissue resists allowing the pendulum action's desired symmetrical rising to the top of the follow-thru. You have to help a little, and only in the correct way. The correct way is to "ride the putter" down and sense its natural acceleration as it goes from zero at the top of the backstroke to a maximum putterhead speed right at the bottom, and then lift the lead shoulder vertically up away from the lead foot (balls of lead foot) to continue this motion pattern in reverse upward, as the putterhead gracefully slows from its maximum and coats to zero at the top of the follow-thru. When you make this lifting move, it needs to be graceful and smooth, starting exactly at the bottom of the stroke (1/2 second down), and the pivot of your stroke needs to stay the same place in space. You have to resist the urge to do anything at all coming down until the putter has gotten about 2/3rds of the way to the middle of the stance, and then when you start the lifting or rocking up of the shoulderframe, you only do so in the smooth, symmetric reverse-pattern of the free-fall down. The way I handle this is to learn to time the stroke to the phrase "one potato ... two" where "one potato" is sending the putterhead straight back from the ball to the top of the backstroke (done by rocking the lead shoulder socket straight down at the balls' of the lead foot so the shoulderframe as a unit moves in a vertical plane curling down and back along the line of the feet and the "triangle of arms and putter simply stays the same shape). This is strictly not necessary, since the movement from ball to top of backstroke is not really part of the tempo's free-fall down and thru, but it nonetheless helps prefigure the tempo. The "..." represents the momentary pause and transition at the top where the putter of its own accord gradually begins from zero to start falling down, and also represents my "patience" with the action as I await the putterhead's nearing the exact bottom of the stroke. The exacft bottom is very precisely recognized because you started there or just ahead of there with the initial putterhead placement, it is the position when the shoulders are level, when the hands are lowest, when the sole of the putter is just skimming the tops of the grass blades, when the putterhead reaches its peak speed, when the downward action is transitioning to an upward action beneath a fixed pivot, and always happens right at the exact same time regardless of the length of the backstroke -- right on the syllable "two." Because of the importance of starting the helping lift at this time, I often think "one potato ... LIFT" instead of "one potato ... two." When you "ride the putter down" you feel nothing at all in your grip, because no changes are occuring in the hands-handle relationship. The butt of the putter points always at the same part of your sternum and the line across the shoulders stays perpendicular to the putter shaft at the start, at the top of the backstroke, and all the way thru to the top of the follow-thru. There never is any issue of wrist-angle change unless you choose to have one, and I personally don't because I emphasize "dead hands" as less likely to produce undesireable putterface orientation changes or putter path changes. If you learn this motion pattern, the well-tempoed putting stroke becomes: a) putt the putterhead straight back to the top of the backstroke with a smooth even "one potato" dropping of the lead shoulder socket to rock the whole system back; b) a letting go or relaxing so that the shoulderframe drops right back to level as the putterhead free-falls to the middle of the body and stance; and then c) lift the lead shoulder to continue the shoulderframe rock straight up with good timing to "lag" the lead arm, hand, and putterhead up and thru the ball on a rising and straight trajectory that propels the sweetspot of the putterhead slightly up and thru the center of the ball and out the front of the ball like a battering ram, without independent hand action. So, there are two voluntary moves (back, up) sandwiching a great big relaxation down into impact. This is tempo.
With a stable tempo like this, every stroke will take exactly the same time from top to top regardless of length of backstroke. A longer stroke just moves faster at the peak speed at the bottom than a short stroke, since the natural and gradual acceleration of gravity downward has longer to work in increasing the putterhead speed in a longer fall from a higher backstroke. There is a one-to-one correspondence between all different backstroke lengths (heights of fall of the putterhead), then, and peak putterhead speed at impact (or strictly speaking, at the bottom of the stroke). Every single inch of added backstroke length increases the putterhead speed at impact in precise increments naturally and without your involvement at all -- let the putterhead do the work by moving on its own accord under the exact and repeating influence of gravity only -- not your trying to time the downstroke with "muscle memory" or anything voluntary. Just ride the putter down with useless hands and arms (albeit at a stable tone, perhaps 2 on a scale of 1 to 10) as the shoulderframe falls to level. Because of this, for any given green speed, every exact distance across level green will correspond to one and only one backstroke. Distance control is understanding how the brain relies upon your tempo always being the same, plus recognition of green speed, to "target" the distance of the putt and hence establish the backstroke instinctively and completely without your conscious involvement.
The brain, specifically the cerebellum, uses your pre-established tempo plus an appreciation of green speed, putterhead heft, and ball heft, to know what sort of speed the putterhead will have for every backstroke length. The brain then correlates the length along the ground to the target with the stroke that rolls the ball just that distance, using your even tempo and stroke movement pattern. In simple terms, once you appreciate green speed (you already know your putter and the ball), and once your tempo and motion pattern is set, the only other thing you need for TOUCH is TARGETING. Hence, TOUCH equals TEMPO plus TARGETING.
The sense in which I am using TARGETING here is how the body (especially the head and neck) MOVES to build an appreciation for the distance from ball to target for purposes of the forthcoming well-tempoed stroke motion of rolling the ball that distance. It boils down to setting up beside the ball with the gaze straight out of the face and then turning the head-neck like a Ferris Wheel or Tilt-a-Whirl on a stable axis of turn and delivering the passive gaze straight along the ground as the neck turns a specific angle and pace to the target. Starting by looking straight out of the face (not down the cheeks) and positioning the face so that the gaze is directed down to the ball with the eyes either vertically right above the ball or slightly inside (doesn't matter all that much so long as the gaze is really straight out), the neck ANGLE corresponds one-to-one with different distances along the ground. The PACE of the neck turn is the pa\ce that results from imagining your neck turn is making your still gaze follow an actual rolling ball in real time from the address position along the ground towards the target, slowing down and taking any break to the hole, and then toppling over the lip into the hole. (It's best to get this first on level straight putts, and later on breaking putts.) The head then turns the face back along the same path to the ball at your feet, and the last section of every putt path straightens out coming back to the ball and your setup and face alignment, so the start line of the putt is always straight off the face. (That's why it's best to get this first on straight level putts with no curl in the path.) Once the head and gaze returns to looking down at the ball, pause a moment as vision and balance reestablish their focus, then start the stroke. The brain will simply give you the backstroke length by your adhering to your tempo. Let the putter move as far back as it wants while you think "one potato" and don't deliberately get involved in "fixing" the backstroke length -- especially by shortening it and stopping before all four syllables of "one potato" have gotten out and the putter coasts to its own stop at the top of the backstroke, wherever that ends up. Just stay out of your own way on this. The rest of the putt takes care of itself from here on in with your dropping naturally and then riding the putter down and up to a finish. It's always the same. "One potato" coasting to the top, the a transition "...", and then start the lifting to finish the stroke right at the bottom on "two" or on "lift." Always the same.
The end result is that TOUCH is simply the TARGETING "look" that sets the backstroke length instinctively. once the targeting look is done, just putt with a nice tempo.
To back up just a little, getting an appreciation for green speed can come from just hitting some putts and letting it grow on you, or by making a very specific backstroke with perfect tempo and waiting to see what distance results. I call this the "Core Putt" as there is one backstroke length you can repeat every time, which is a backstroke that just gets outside the back foot to a point where it would require your lifting the putterhead to get the putter further back. Once this point is reached, just let that be the backstroke length and go from there to see what sort of distance of roll the specific green will allow. You should be able to send two balls rolling off with this same stroke and tempo so that the second exactly bumps the first. If the balls go different distances, you didn't get the stroke or the tempo or both exactly the same twice, so do it again. Once the balls bump, you have a calibration of what your core putt produces on this green, and the brain will soak that distance in and correlate it with your core backstroke. All other backstrokes on that green speed are built around this core targeting distance. Now you can TARGET that same core distance, and your instinctively occuring backstroke ought to perfectly match your core backstroke. And shorter putts have a shorter backstroke and longer putts have a longer backstroke. Now you have TOUCH simplified to TARGETING. Look and go, so long as you know how and why to look in a certain pattern.
The one thing that no golfer ever believes is that such a relaxed, easy, thoughtless, try-less, effortless stroke as this can have enough power to roll the ball far enough. This is confusion. The ball will always roll as far as your targeting motion tells your brain to go. Even all the way across the green, without deliberately speeding up your stroke tempo. Do NOT "gas" any putt, but stay with the relaxed tempo even on monsters or very long lag putts. The only faults that hamper excellent distance control are shortening the backstroke, failing to relax in the downstroke or tightening (which kills speed and distance), or "gassing" the putt by voluntarily speeding up the stroke past what gravity alone would do. So put the putterhead all the way back as the brain instinctively wants, relax, and finish the stroke with smooth action.
You MAY use a metronome, but if you do, there are two things you want to watch out for. First, you have to set the metronome to the gravity fall of your stroke, and not try to set your stroke to some selected setting of the metronome. That would be backwards. Make strokes and try to match the metronome to your stroke. Second, using a metronome is sort of like performing a ballet dance in full medieval armour, or at least like performing a water-ballet while wearing your street clothes. It is really better in the long run to get an internal sense of movement timing that is related to your breathing and heart rate, rather than "fitting" your stroke always to a mechanical beat. Hence, the use of the silent phrase "one potato ... two" or "one potato ... lift" corresponds to inhaling going back in a nice easy manner and then exhaling to the bottom of the stroke. The movement of the chest during this breathing pattern will get a little larger with a longer putt, so this is another subtle way your instinct system matches distance to stroke.
STEP 3. PUTTING STRAIGHT EVERY TIME: Having worked out TEMPO and TOUCH with TARGETING and instincts, you need to putt straight every time the same so the ball always goes straight away from the square putterface and exits the setup exactly the same way every time. Wherever the face is "aimed" thru the ball's center, that is how you have to setup the feet and shoulders, hands and eyes. The way to do this is to first place and aim the putterface behind the ball (I use the left hand), and thn get the sole of the putter nice and flat on the surface. The putter will be poised behind the ball. You should then "come to the putter" with your hands and feet to adopt your setup without moving or altering the putterhead and its aim. The bad pattern is to adopt your setup and settle your feet WHILE aiming the face or BEFORE aiming the face. You should always aim the face first and then come to the putter for your body setup and only after the grip is taken and the head and gaze set with square shoulders should you "settle the feet." The shoulders and feet need to match in squareness, so square the shoulders to the putterface and THEN get the feet "happy" with this arrangement so they are square also. Actually, you really progress from the grip to the setting of the gaze, and then the shoulders, and then ther feet. Your use of the putter shaft to get square is fine, and I teach it, but here is what you want to do with the shaft. In setting the gaze to the ball, you want to a) look straight out of the face, and b) make the "horizon line" across both eyes match the intended putt line thru the ball. The "horizon line" across both eyes is how the bones of the head are oriented when you are standing with upright posture on a seashore gazing out to sea -- the horizon line of the far ocean is a level line right across your two pupils and the bridge of your nose, and also crosses the inside corners of your eye sockets, just above the outside corners of the eye sockets, and just above both ears. If you held the shaft up so that it matched the sea horizon, the shaft would also match the "horizon line" across these features of your facial bones and your pupils. You carry this "eye line" wherver your face is aimed. So when you look straight out the face down at the ball, this "eye line" should perfectly match the putt line thru the center of the ball, and should be perpendicular thru the putterface. This is what you are trying to get squared away by holding the shaft out between your eyes and the puttline -- cover the puttline with the shaft while gazing straight out of the face at the ball and this sets your "eye line" square to the puttline. With this, you are in a perfect position to assess whether the face is truly squarely aimed down the puttline and also you are in a perfect position to turn the head as described above for TOUCH TARGETING, but this time your head turn will also show you WHERE YOUR PUTTERFACE and SETUP is actually AIMED. But that is jumping ahead a step. Right now, the only concern is putting straight every time, right down the puttline square off the face, and hence also right down the eye line. The eye line lets you "square up" the eyes first, and then the shoulders are squared to the putterface using the orientation of your head-neck-face to the putterface. Everything about the setup builds off the putterface orientation to get the body set for a straight stroke that rolls the ball that way. Once the shoulders are squared to the eye line and putt line, then settle the feet. A lkine out from the lead big toe will intersect the line square out of the putterface thru the ball's center and form a "T" shape intersection. Every ball MUST roll over the spot of this "T" intersection, or the putt is not straight away from the face. This spot and "T" shape is always exactly the same because your setup distance from feet to puttline is always the same (about two putterheads, and fixed by the distance from your shoulder socket to your pupils, about 8-10 inches for everyone) and the width of your stance for balance is always about the same as the width of your shoulders. Happy feet give you the "all-clear" signal that the body is ready to make a stroke that will roll the ball mover the "T" point. The "T" point is about 3-5 inches ahead of the leading equator of the ball. When looking down at the ball, your entire universe at the time of pulling the trigger is just what you see at your feet, and this look is ALWAYS exactly the same. You can see exactly where the ball must roll over the "T" and this helps sort out the feelings in your shoulders and feet so that the actual stroke movement does what it needs to do for a straight putt.
The upshot of this step is that, wherever the face is aimed, a straight stroke builds from setting up square to the FACE, and not square to the TARGET. That is, however the face is aimed behind the ball, there is one and only one direction square thru the ball, and that is the direction you must setup square to, even if the aim is wrong.
Once you are square to the face's only aim and puttline, and have taken your head-turn look to gauge distance by programming the neck with an angle and pace, and also to double check that your setup and face is actually aimed where you think it is (part of Step 2), then the technique for a straight stroke is a) start straight away from the ball to the top of the backstroke, b) let the shoulderframe rock back down by itself with dead hands, and c) lift the rock straight up to deliver the putterface square thru the back, center, and front of the ball on a slightly rising trajectory down the line.
With regard to the takeaway, moving the shoulderframe so the lead socket heads to the balls of the foot and then curls bak along the line of the feet will push the "triangle" as a unit straight back from the ball. In contrast, if you start the stroke with the hands or arms, the putterhead will likely move across the puttline away from you, and this will spoil the rest of the stroke. At best, you want the shoulders to move the putter away in a straight line or possibly a tiny touch to the inside going back, and any crossing the puttline is absolutely the worst. You will have to teach yourself the benefits of starting the stroke with the shoulderframe so the socket goes down at the balls of the foot. Set up the putter near a wall's baseboard so the toe of the putter is about 1/2 an inch back from the baseboard and use this initial move to show yourself that the toe will not get any closer to the wall, and also will not really go inside much at all and may well go perfectly straight along the baseboard with the toe staying exactly 1/2 inch away at all points in the backstroke. Another training drill is to set down a ball, setup to it, and then place a second ball straight back from the putterhead's sweetspot about 1.5 to 2 feet. Then make the initial move and the putter's sweetspot should back straight away and hit the back ball straight on a line. You can elaborate on this with a third ball even further back on the same line, so that the takeaway move knocks the second ball and rolls it straight into the third ball.
Once the top of the backstroke is reached, just relax so the shoulderframe sinks back to level. The hands in all this remain inert with the preestablished grip pressure unchanging. There is no rotation of the hands, no manipulation of the hands, and this means the thumbs stay flat on the putter handle in the same plane at all times and that the hands stay the same distance from a plane across the thighs at all times -- regardless of backstroke length. The feeling is a little odd, as if there is a slight curling away from the body as the hands go to the top back, and then drop down again to the bottom, and a slight curling away from the body going forward, but this is illusory. That is because the "usual" body action keeps the hands close to the hips, and a straight stroke powered by a shoulder rock feels as if it extends the hands away from the hips a bit. You can feel this by setting up over a yardstick and starting back with the shoulder move. You do not have to actually extend the arms or wrist or otherwise do anything with the hands to keep the putterhead straight back along the yardstick, but you do have to move the blooming shoulder straight down at the balls of the feet and ignore how the hands and arms feel a bit extended. The odd feeling is correct. Just focus on the shoulders and ignore the arms and hands.
The dropping of the shoulders is natural enough and just retraces the shoulder rock, this time coming down. You will need to wait patiently as the stroke falls on its own. If you hurry down, your hands will become active and the face and path of the stroke will get altered into a pull or a push. So just leave the hands out of the fall and be patient. My thought is that the hands are like golf gloves filled with wet heavy sand. The hands stay low and don't do a thing except keep the same grip pressure and hope nothing happens, and there is no new feeling as you "ride the putter" down.
Finishing the stroke is catching the speed pattern of the putter downward and then starting the lifting action in the shoulder rock right at the bottom, with the pivot in the base of the neck staying still. The line across the shoulders turns with the shaft of the putter to keep the butt of the putter aimed at the sternum. The lead shoulder socket has to go vertically up. The "normal" and "feel-good" motion is for the lead shoulder to curl back around, with the hands turning inward towards the lead hip, and the uplifting of the shoulderframe is artificial and must be practiced. Once you get the feel of the shoulder socket lagging the whole heavy left arm and hand straight up from the foot as the putterhead rises into the back of the ball, you will feel an extremely smooth and solid impact of the lower half of the putterface as the sweetspot lifts on a slightly upward path from ther back of the ball thru the center and out the front of the ball, entering the back about one dimple below the equator and coming out the front of the ball about one dimple high of the equator. The ball will not jump or hop off the face, but will make a very pleasing "pock" sound and roll smoothly straight off the face, over the "T" point.
AIMING THE PUTTERFACE AND SETUP AT SOME TARGET. Yes, aiming can be taught. If you stick a tee peg in a green for a straight and level putt, say b15 feet away, the routine series of physical movements to aim along the line from ball to target and then to set the putterface square down that line is fairly straightforward, but the execution can be subtle. There are two separate aiming process (from behind the ball to placing the face behind the ball, plus checking the face aim from beside the ball), and these two processes both need to agree for you to get a "go" signal for pulling the trigger with a straight stroke.
First, stand behind the ball the same distance as the distance from ball to target. Position your dominant eye on a projection of the "line" back to you, with your torso and face directed straight into the line and with good posture and a straight gaze out of the face. If you are right-eye dominant, your right eye and right lung is "on" the line, not your nose; if left-eye dominant, your left pupil and heart are "on" the line. Actually, I think of a vertical plane rising up from the line so that my dominant eye is "in" this plane of the puttline and my torso is squared to this plane. You can then riase your putter shaft to use it as a visual ruler and connect the center of the ball with the center of the target along one edge of the shaft and look along this line with your dominant eye. The ruler will show you the exact back of the ball to square the face up to, the orientation of any writing on the ball in relation to this back of the ball, the orientation of any shadow behind the ball, and all blades of grass behind and in front of the ball exactly on the line. Use these reference points on the ball and ground to "fix" or "anchor" the location of the "line" that you now accurately perceive from this perspective behind the ball. Once you start walking to the ball to place the putterhead, you will lose the sense of the line's location without these anchors. remember that the back of the ball is only the back of the ball as seen from this specific perspective. If you shift off the line to look towards the ball, you will see an entirely different "back" of the ball, and it will be incorrect. I think of looking at the back of the ball as looking at a dart board hanging on a wall, so I realize that even if I move off the line and change my perspective, the wall will stay perpendicular to the original line of sight. Another way to think of this is that the "ball" is actually a sleeve box with the long part of the shape aimed straight at the target. Then, whn you start to walk to the ball, walk straight along the line into the back of the ball without altering the perspective, and keep the anchor points in mind. You can also walk into the ball while still keeping the ball and target connected by the visual ruler if you like. Once behind the ball, then you have to reconstruct where to place the putterface so it aims directly thru the center of the ball in the only acceptable direction -- straight thru the center of the ball at the target. This is where the anchors and the manner of approaching the ball pay off. If you have steadily identified the exact back of the ball, this point on the back equator necessarily defines a "line" thru the ball, from this back point thru the center of the ball. This "line" continues out the front equator of the ball, exiting the ball right where the round edge of the ball is closest to the target. This "line" thru the center of the ball MUST coincide with the line from ball to target (the puttline). The putterface is then squared to this line thru the ball, which square the putterface to the target also. To square the putterface thru the line of the ball, the sweetspot of the putter has to be positioned on the back center of the ball and ALSO the face has to be rotated until the face is flush to the line thru the ball. There are two separate aspects to squaring the face thru the ball (sweetspot and line of ball perpendicular to face). Once the face is squared thru the center of the ball in this fashion, the first of two separate aiming processes is complete. Leave the putterface orientation alone as you step around to the side of the ball for the second aiming process.
With the face aimed, then adopt your setup by bringing the body and hands to the putter and squaring the setup to the face of the putter and it's only straight puttline. Setting the eye line to the puttline allows you to use a side-on head turn that moves the line of sight in a straight line along the ground straight away from the putterface. In this fashion, you can assess just exactly where your putterface is really aiming and see that your setup and putterface aim is good to go. For this to be done correctly, you have to know that your gaze is directed straight out of your face, that your eye line is perpendicular to the face of the putter so it runs true to the aim of the face, and that your head turn is accomplished with the axis of rotation steady and the top of your head kept in one point in space as the turn progresses. Then you just turn without anticipating where your line of sight ends up, and wait to see if your sight ends up pointing right at the target. If yes, you're good to go. If not, you have some unresolved aiming conflict between aiming from behind the ball, aiming the face thru the ball, and checking the face aim from beside the ball. You will have to try again, either just the side-on check, or adjust the face and resettle the feet and try the side-on check anew, or recycle to back behind the ball and start over -- your choice.
Once you have a "go" signal, you are square in aim and setup and should simply putt straight, sending the ball over the "T". The nice part is that once you have finished aiming at the target, you can go brain-dead and forget about the target entirely. Just make the same-everytime stroke. The TOUCH will be there by virtue of the TARGETING you've already done and the backstroke length just happens naturally. So just putt straight, with happy feet.
1. STEP 1. PICKING A TARGET TO AIM AT BY READING THE PUTT. Putt reading is really knowing how fast the ball will be rolling at different points along the way into the hole. The only thing you will really know for sure is that, because of your TOUCH, all putts will always slow down near the hole in exactly the same way and enter the cup with the same terminal speed (about 2 revoilutions per second over the lip). because of this, you best can read the shape of the curve of a breaking putt BACKWARDS out of the hole like a movie in reverse. Tracking the ball back out of the hole this way shows you how the surface contour will define the exact entry point into the cup and the critical shape of the path over the last two or three feet of the curve. With this key part of the break establsihed, you can smoothly extend the curve back towards the ball until it effectively straightens out and runs straight to the ball at your feet. When this putt path returns to the ball, it has to come squarely into the face aim. If it does, then you will start the ball off straight from the face every single time, start the ball off high enough to stay on the upper side of the "himp" of the break as the path curves into the cup, and aim higher than the "apex" of the path. The "apex" is where the curve of the putt is farthest above a direct line from ball to hole. You cannot aim at the "apex", contrary to what thousands of golfers advise, because this is where the path of the ball is changing and gets parallel to the direct line from ball to hole. Your start line cannot "parallel" the base line from ball to hole, and has to be aimed higher up from the base line. Consequently, you have to always aim higher than the "apex". The correct start line is always the same as when the path coming back to the ball at your feet finally straightens out. Extending this start line over the back of the hump until it reaches a point hole high, you can use that point as the aim spot for targeting both line and distance. Aim the face there, setup square to the face, and putt straight at this point with good touch, and let the breaking of the ball into the cup take care of itself.
There is more to this than I have said about reading the putt, so I would refer you to my articles about Boxing the Break, Seeing the Spider, and similar tips [
http://puttingzone.com/ziptips.html#GRE].
Enough for now. More winter drills later.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone
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