Can Putting Distance Control Be More Systematic?

[Themightyoz]

Here's my putting warm up that I have found makes things a happy balance between analylitcal and feel.  It might look like a lot, but it warms up all aspects of my putting and now that I have done it for a while it only takes about 10 minutes.

1.  When I warm up I do five drills, one for timing, one for aimpoint, one for distance,  and one for path and one for feel.  I wrap up with one for confidence.

Most important drill in the set:

Timing Take 5 balls and just putt them until you find your timing 

Aimpoint Uses aimpoint. Find a spot on the green that to you feels like 2 degrees or so of break.  Putting until you hole it so you know the green speed and a feel for how much break for aimpoint.  Adjust as needed.

Distance test I use a mallet putter so I use it as a rough estimate of how far back to bring the club.  I put down 4 tees representing the three basic gears of my distance for putting on a flat part of the green.  The first tee lines up with the leading edge of my putter the back tee lines up with back tee.  I then putt from with a backswing from the first to second tee then the first to third tee and first tee to fourth tee.  I DO NOT worry about follow through distance.  I do worry about timing as outlined above.  I then pace off   how far a 1,2,3 go write it on my scorecard and then use

path gates

I then hit some putts with this to warm up path

Feel

I wrap up by hitting putts to the edge of the green to get a sense of feel for green speed.  I hit from various spots.

Confidence 

I finish off by holing 5 3 ft putts for confidence and lining up my eyes
 

 

[Ty_Webb]

Oof - pet peeve of mine - that aimpoint video, there is no way the aimpoint shown matches the line shown. That aimpoint needs to be much further from the hole. It's at the apex, not the starting line. 

[Themightyoz]

6 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Oof - pet peeve of mine - that aimpoint video, there is no way the aimpoint shown matches the line shown. That aimpoint needs to be much further from the hole. It's at the apex, not the starting line. 

For sure.  

[Dewdman42]

This is an area I am still working on.  For me I have become deadly accurate distance wise by looking at the hole while I stroke the actual putt.  Nearly any distance I am scary accurate with distance this way without even thinking about any calibrations or calculations or systemic ways to determine the backswing along with a hyper consistent non accelerated pendulum swing, etc  i just eye the hole, swing the putter while still looking at it and my lizard brain does the rest, and I’m pretty sure it works better when I actually am accelerating the putter through impact this way because my lizard brain is doing constant refining of the swing speed on a nanosecond level, all by feel.

however

i also miss the line often this way, I mis hit off the center of the putter face, sometimes hit thin or fat, etc.  so…. Doesn’t always work out.  For this reason I am trying to do my practice swings thet way and then the actual swing while looking down but I lose my lizard brain when I do that and completely miss the distance.  I have to actually be looking at the hole when i putt to get this kind of lizard brain feel, with the stated problems sometimes present, not always.  Not to mention everyone thinks I’m weird and also people tend to move around a lot when standing by the pin, thinking I am stilL practicing or something and it becomes a distraction problem.

i wish I could find a way to use this lizard brain feel while looking at the ball to putt I have tried to visualize it but in my mind all visualizations become zoomed in closer the minute I look down.  Meanwhile when I look down I can get the line right but totally miss the distance, particularly anything longer then about 20 feet.  By now i have a feel and perhaps some loose system for making 5, 7, 10, 12, 15 and even 20 footers while looking down.  Longer then that I find backswing calculations to be impossible to get right compared to my lizard brain feel while looking at the hole.  From really far away I find it more helpful to get the distance right even if it ends up 5 feet off line, so thet is what I do,  I would love to find a better way to get those lag distances as scarily accurate as my lizard brain can do,  but while looking down at the ball for the stroke in order to get the line and strike right.

it also makes me wonder frankly about all the good advice to have a perfect pendulum swing without acceleration, and perfect strike and angle of attack, etc which basically means you start to lose feel and it’s all about precise calibration for the day and precise backswing, etc.  human brain.  Well that may be the best compromise due to the need to look down at the ball, I don’t know, but this disparity between putting by lizard brain feel or human brain logic has haunted me for years

Edited April 21, 2024 by Dewdman42

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Dewdman42 said:

This is an area I am still working on.  For me I have become deadly accurate distance wise by looking at the hole while I stroke the actual putt.  Nearly any distance I am scary accurate with distance this way without even thinking about any calibrations or calculations or systemic ways to determine the backswing along with a hyper consistent non accelerated pendulum swing, etc  i just eye the hole, swing the putter while still looking at it and my lizard brain does the rest, and I’m pretty sure it works better when I actually am accelerating the putter through impact this way because my lizard brain is doing constant refining of the swing speed on a nanosecond level, all by feel.

however

i also miss the line often this way, I mis hit off the center of the putter face, sometimes hit thin or fat, etc.  so…. Doesn’t always work out.  For this reason I am trying to do my practice swings thet way and then the actual swing while looking down but I lose my lizard brain when I do that and completely miss the distance.  I have to actually be looking at the hole when i putt to get this kind of lizard brain feel, with the stated problems sometimes present, not always.  Not to mention everyone thinks I’m weird and also people tend to move around a lot when standing by the pin, thinking I am stilL practicing or something and it becomes a distraction problem.

I also do heads-up putting. It took me almost a year to get decent at it. I'll still miss it on the heel and once in a while will drop-kick the putter, but honestly I did those things looking at the ball, too. For everything outside of about 10' it is more important to get the correct speed than the correct line so I'm not too worried about not having exact control over my line. It's not like I'm going to read a 40' putt exactly right anyway. Anything inside of 10' I have a number in mind for the weight of the putt and focus on hitting that distance while looking down at the ball. I stress weight because sometimes you only want to hit an 8' putt 2' if it's downhill, or a 4' putt 6' if it's uphill. I keep that number in my head while I focus on hitting my line because that's one of the things that my brain subconsciously takes care of by looking at my target while putting. Incidentally, the worst part of my putting is inside of 10' so clearly heads-up putting works for me.

[4zim]

Lots of great info on this thread. Thanks everyone. I struggled with lag putts the other day, leaving a long second putt that too often I missed. Going to work on that standard length putt. 
 

I found this episode of the Sweet Spot had a lot of helpful info too, similar to (my interpretation) of what was shared throughout this thread. 

‎The Sweet Spot - Golf Podcast: How to Become a Better Putter w/ Preston Combs on Apple Podcasts

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‎Show The Sweet Spot - Golf Podcast, Ep How to Become a Better Putter w/ Preston Combs -...

 

Edited May 22, 2024 by 4zim

[Dewdman42]

lately I have grooved in a simple rule for stuff under 20 feet, which happens to be approximately 1" of takeaway for every foot of travel I want to roll the ball (including 2 feet past the hole and mentally adjusting for slope).  This is based on a consistent tempo that I use.  I worked this out using a wellputt matt, which was very helpful in this regard.  I got very good at rolling the ball to a stop 18 inches past the virtual hole on that matt, from any distance  on the matt (13 feet long) and then it turns out to work very well up to maybe 20 feet.  

That being said, due to the fact that greens are not perfectly flat or with the perfectly same stimp, it also comes down to some feel, so I use that guide above to get in the ballpark and then still allow myself some feel around that.  

Over 20 feet doesn't work out that way, and starts to be a lot more about the tempo and feel to hit the ball the right distance, I still feel I get better distance control by looking at the hole when I stroke those putts, but I often mishit the ball that way too...so I would prefer to work out a better way of handling my 20-50 footers.  

[saevel25]

I've been getting away from being too technical with putting. When I am on the putting green, I just hit putts certain distances to get a feel for how the ball looks while rolling out. I hardly ever try to make putts. I really focus on how the ball rolls for pace. 

On the course, I've been getting away from making any practice strokes. I think I end up making the same practice stroke for most all distances because I am going through the motions. I wanted to get back to just feeling it out with my depth perception and how I intuitively feel how hard a putt should be hit. My distance control has returned to a much better state. 

Here are a good set of drills. 

[billchao]

6 hours ago, saevel25 said:

On the course, I've been getting away from making any practice strokes. I think I end up making the same practice stroke for most all distances because I am going through the motions.

I don’t usually make practice strokes but when I do it’s always a practice stroke for the distance that I want to hit, similar to how I do for practice swings for short game shots.