Uphill Versus Downhill Putts?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Ty_Webb said:

In the video that I saw with Bryson talking about this (on his youtube channel playing with Garrett) he was not talking about capture speed. It was purely suggesting that on a dead straight putt, if you pull it or push it on a downhill putt, the ball is pulled towards the hole, while on an uphill putt it is pulled away from the hole.

Which… is true.

1 hour ago, Ty_Webb said:

Right - I meant % not degrees - sorry.

Well then your answer is almost the same: there are almost no holes cut on 3% slopes on the PGA Tour 😀, and that's the only place where we can really get reliable data on elevation changes on thousands+ of putts.

If you're looking at downhill vs. uphill within ± 30° of straight, downhill putts are made about as often in the tests I've done than uphill putts for reasonable slopes. I attribute it to:

• slight error correction on start lines as discussed
• smaller strokes that are less error prone
• larger capture size of the hole

People under-reading putts helps the uphill putt numbers look decent. Among good green readers, the downhill putts are often made slightly (low single digit percentages) more often.

1 hour ago, Ty_Webb said:

That might very well be true about uphill magnifying errors because you're hitting them harder, but I don't think that's what Bryson said. I was talking about what he said.

I wasn't aware that we were limiting it to only what Bryson said.

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Okay I'll ask you then - for 8 foot putts that are straight, but 2-3* uphill/downhill, what's the relative make rate of those putts uphill vs downhill on the PGA Tour?

Again, they don't really exist, even if you did mean % instead of °. On more subtle slopes, downhill putts are made at the same or a slightly higher rate than uphill putts.

2 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

On the uphill putt, if you think the line is a hole out, but you're off on the slope by 10%, you're missing by a bit over half an inch I think. If you have the same slope and the downhill putt is 3 holes out (since downhill has more break) and you're off by the same percentage, now you're missing by nearly two inches.

First, you're just making these numbers up.

Stimp 11 (pretty typical for a "fast" PGA Tour green), 30° up from 8' on a 1.5% slope: the read is a little over 1" outside the edge. From 30° down, the read is… just under 3". So the read goes from 3" total break to 5" total break.

Second, again, the putt being hit more softly means it's not going to travel as far offline as the uphill putt. What goes farther offline (assuming no curve): a ball hit 5° right with a pitching wedge or a ball hit 5° right with a driver.

Imagine a putt that's almost at roll-off speed: you could hit it 1/2" sideways (90°) and make the putt.

[Ty_Webb]

55 minutes ago, iacas said:

Which… is true.

Well then your answer is almost the same: there are almost no holes cut on 3% slopes on the PGA Tour 😀, and that's the only place where we can really get reliable data on elevation changes on thousands+ of putts.

If you're looking at downhill vs. uphill within ± 30° of straight, downhill putts are made about as often in the tests I've done than uphill putts for reasonable slopes. I attribute it to:

• slight error correction on start lines as discussed
• smaller strokes that are less error prone
• larger capture size of the hole

People under-reading putts helps the uphill putt numbers look decent. Among good green readers, the downhill putts are often made slightly (low single digit percentages) more often.

I wasn't aware that we were limiting it to only what Bryson said.

Again, they don't really exist, even if you did mean % instead of °. On more subtle slopes, downhill putts are made at the same or a slightly higher rate than uphill putts.

First, you're just making these numbers up.

Stimp 11 (pretty typical for a "fast" PGA Tour green), 30° up from 8' on a 1.5% slope: the read is a little over 1" outside the edge. From 30° down, the read is… just under 3". So the read goes from 3" total break to 5" total break.

Second, again, the putt being hit more softly means it's not going to travel as far offline as the uphill putt. What goes farther offline (assuming no curve): a ball hit 5° right with a pitching wedge or a ball hit 5° right with a driver.

Imagine a putt that's almost at roll-off speed: you could hit it 1/2" sideways (90°) and make the putt.

Interesting thanks. Regarding making the numbers up, yes I'm aware and I think I acknowledged that in my post. In any case, for the stimp 11 example, 30* up from 8' on a 1.5% slope the read is about 3" of total break, while down the read is about 5" of total break. What does the read become if it's 1% slope, not 1.5% slope? 

What percent slope would a putt need to be on from let's say 10' away such that you could hit it 1/2" sideways and make the putt with stimp 11? Would that be a hole that could actually happen? 

[snapfade]

I don't usually have the need to putt, but when I do, I prefer to putt uphill. 🙂