The relevance of the dominant eye in green reading - Page 2

Actually, the ball rolls on more of a ballistic trajectory, with most of the curve occurring as the ball slows down.  The break is also affected by the change in up/down hill movement during the length of the putt.  Add in a double break and there is nothing even resembling a parabola.  And I'm not an Aim Point player either, just an observer. 

 

I played last week on a course in Idaho near the west side of the Tetons where my brother and I were the second group on the course, with just a single ahead of us.  We could clearly see how his putts broke by the tracks in the dew for the first 6 or 7 holes, and we could also see how we had misread some putts by our own tracks.  None of them looked anything looked anything like a parabola. 

 

The only way you really get something like a parabola is if you are putting almost straight up a steep slope with the intent of having the ball come back down about the same distance, and even then it isn't a true parabola, as the ball will tend to follow straight down the fall line as gravity accelerates it down the hill.

 

I am sorry, you can try to call it a Parabolas all you want, but its not. The reason, Parabolas are conic sections, meaning you take a cone and take a slice of it, at any angle. Parabolas also have an axis of symmetry, meaning that a parabolas will look identical on the other side. With a putt, that hardly ever happens. Given there might be a few cases were a putt might come close to a parabula, but on most cases a putt does not resemple a parabola at all, and will not travel on one, and to aim at the apex of a parabolas is foolish.

 

Now if you take a green, and look at in 3D, you can cut a slope, of lets say a bunker, it will have a parabolic shape, but that does not mean the ball travels that shape at all. The ball will travel along a gradient.  Depending on the initial speed, depends on when the gradient will take effect. Some putts have such a gradient that the ball will start to move right off the clubface, other putts wont start to break towards later. Then you throw in grain of the green, speed of the green, are the greens kept in shape, are they smooth..

 

Really to assume an consistant geometric shape as a way to line up a putt is to simplistic of a view if that shape could even hold up againts the complexity of the green.

 

Mmmm AimPoint... 

The above video:  it took him 57 seconds from the time he started on the second putt until he stroked it.  In my book, that's too long.  If I took that long on every putt, the guys I play with would expel me from the group.  I wanted to deck him by the time he finally got around to hitting the ball. 

 

Then too he is obviously a good player.  The guys I know have enough trouble just starting the ball on the chosen line, no matter if the line is right or wrong.  Finding the line is just a small part of being a good putter.

Yes you are right, any angle would not work, its if you cut the cone so the base is included, others would be an ellipse or a circle. 

But it still not a parabola, its a curve. its mostly likely a polynomial, not a parabola

 

I don't think he took that long, i have seen worse, with worse outcomes ;b

 

 

 

 

Dave Pelz has been wrong before. 17" past? Debunked. Just sayin'... If you want to worry about the dimples of your ball affecting your putt, go for it. I'll continue not to.

 

 

 

In other words, you "read the green" based on your experience. You see parabolas, even though no real putts even come close to having a parabolic shape. But you're just "reading the green" based on your experience. How are you going to teach a new player who doesn't have the experience?

 

 

 

Pardon me. It's my forum, and I'm a good putter, and I teach green reading, and I'm interested in and care about golf. That's why I "joined" this thread. And I don't think I've been at all absent minded, thank you very much.

 

 

Yes, with no friction at all, a golf ball would form a parabola. It would also never come to a stop. In the real world, where most of us live , golf balls don't travel in anything at all resembling a parabola.

 

That's the biggest problem I have with what you seem to be telling us. The golf ball doesn't roll in any way like a parabola.

 

 

 

 

Parabolas don't exist in planar surfaces on the golf course. The closest you can get to a parabola is a pitch shot, and even that's not a parabola.

 

 

 

 

The golf ball will not roll in a parabola shape on 99.999% of greens. You'd need to have a putt with a ton of break that gradually decreased as the ball slowed down.

 

 

Yeah, I'm not sure what he was doing there. 57 seconds is too long. It did include his pre-shot routine AND his read. If someone else had putted in between, you wouldn't have seen about 47 of those 57 seconds. In other words, 80-90% of what he did for the second putt could be done while others are looking at or hitting their putts. When it's his turn to hit, he should be ready to hit almost right away. He also stares at his book for too long - that part should literally a second or two.

 

I've had people ask me how I putt so well since "you don't even read your putts!" As I've said, I've "read putts" from the tees of par threes. "Looks like 20 feet, 2% slope, 90 degrees to straight. Give it 22 inches right to left." You get to the green, confirm those numbers, and the read is correct.

 

 

 

 

They are, and you'd do well to stop mentioning it as if it was some sort of policy we made up just to prevent you from sharing something you sell.

 

I've mentioned the "apex of the putt" (two threads started on it...) before. Perhaps nobody else mentioned it here because it's common knowledge around here, just as it's common knowledge that a ball rolling on a green will not trace a shape resembling a parabola.

Doesn't matter, i was taught to start reading greens from the fairway as well. You can gain alot of information from the fairway, like if the green slops from right to left, or front to back, were the bunkers are at, because the sand typically builds up the green over time causing mounds. 

 

I will say this again, its not a parabola. A parabola has a axis of symmetry, were one half of the curve is identical to the other half. There is probably one putt that has that type of break, all others don't. Because all others start on a straight line then curve out, more in the shape of a polynomial. The only parabola shaped putt i can think of is if you have such a severe slope that you have to putt back up into the slope because going at the hole would cause the ball to go way to far past. Basically you would have to have your back to the hole to make that putt. Even a putt that starts to slide off the clubface will not be symmetrical to create a parabola. 

 

Like you said, you putt to the fall line, that to me is not seeing a parabola, its seeing a polynomial. Your basically seeing a generic curve, to name all putts after one type of geometric shape is ignorant at best. 

You're welcome to your opinion but you're a bit off base.  You came here to sell a book to us and created a thread about putting as the method to do so.  The site is sponsor friendly, but to be fair to the paying sponsors you have to sign up as an "Insider" and pay to advertise your book.  You chose to violate the policy to gain free advertising and now you're upset that Erik removed  the link and site name that you sell your book on. 

 

It's a tough world, not everyone will agree with your viewpoints but if you believe in them you will have the ability to defend yourself as long as you do so within the terms and conditions listed on the site. 
 

 

 

 

A parabola is not a "fair" estimate. Never mind "perfect" parabolas - putts don't break anything like a parabola.

 

Great. Except there are no parabolas. And since you're apparently going to carry on with this "advice" thing, look up the rules, because otherwise you're just going to make a fool of yourself. AimPoint charts aren't "advice." I'm happy to talk about your non-existent parabolas, but if you want to keep bringing up AimPoint I'm happy to do that as well.

 

 

 

Actually, I know how the charts I use were built. They weren't built with parabolas. A breaking putt doesn't trace anything even close to a parabola. And you're provably wrong on "advice." Look up the rules.

 

 

 

Yeah... the thing is, they don't. The ball's speed isn't constant. Acceleration is constant but the velocity vector in the direction of gravity is not constant.

 

And if it is (it's not, but I'm humoring you here): show us how. Show us a putt breaking in any way in a parabola. Simply saying "it is a fair approximation" or whatever isn't proof. Instead, you've chosen to cry "woe is me, the guy who does things that are borderline spammy and not at all close to the reality of how a putt breaks, and is being called out on it." It's you who is choosing to take your ball and go home. Rather than defend your bizarre ideas, you're whining about things and "quitting." Okay by me.

 

This statement of fact remains unchallenged by you: "Putts don't break in shapes that are even close to parabolas."

 

I agree. I think if Marcel was actually interested in discussing and not selling then he might tell us how, duh, putts don't break in the shape of a parabola, but if we somehow picture a parabola, we can determine how much putt will break. That might be fine, but he's chosen not to do that, unfortunately.

 

 

Bingo. +1 to you, ntg.

I agree...that was painful to watch.

 

 

Pretty classic exchange, I hope Marcel never comes back. I read his ebook. I have also spent time with aimpoint, I have the digital level, the charts and I putt on my intended line. Marcel's system is better, faster and creates a more true and deeper knowledge of the subject. I am not as good a golfer as you iacas, but I took the time to read and understand his system, you bang on about parabolas being irrelevant but you fail to understand that it is sections on a parabola not the entire parabola that describe a balls behavior. To you other readers out there, you can learn a lot from both systems, they are pretty similar actually, but aimpoint is very dependent on advance knowledge of stimp, percentages of slope and the charts information. Marcel's is more creative.
Iacas... You never know what will make you a better player, I am sure that at some point you did not use aim point, but you are a better player now that you use them. Currently you do not understand how certain sections of a parabola can illustrate perfectly the putt you are facing. If you had the knowledge you would be an even better player. Forums can expose you to new ideas if you let them or as in this particular case they can be like a high school clique.

Are there any pros on tour that use AimPoint? 

 

Plenty, most famously the player of the year on the LPGA Tour, Stacy Lewis.

Thanks for the reply Iacas.  They need to get an AimPoint instructor in Oklahoma.  EJ Pfister has been listed as "Coming Soon" for a long time.....