Green Reading Versus Speed Control

[saevel25]

Struggling with green speed? Try this, says LPGA pro

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Recreational players tend to focus on line rather than speed, says Emma Talley. The LPGA pro has an easy way to dial in speed on the greens.

For me, they influence each other. If you underread a putt, you will adjust your speed to match the line you believe the ball is going to take, so you hit the putt faster. If you read more break, you will tend to want to hit it softer. 

Also, I think learning good speed control improves your green reading because it gives you feedback on what a good putt looks like for future reference. You see a 15-FT left to right breaking putt go in with good speed, you will remember that for the next time you get a similar putt. 

I think the biggest issues is that most people do not know how to read greens good enough. Most do not give enough break on longer putts. 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I think the biggest issues is that most people do not know how to read greens good enough. Most do not give enough break on longer putts. 

I think most people can't read greens because they can't hit putts a consistent speed, and so they never really get accurate feedback on their reads. It's a bad never-ending feedback loop.

[billchao]

There’s like absolutely no substance to that article. I agree that speed is more often more important than line, but at some point it flips. If you hit a 20’ putt 20% too hard, you’re going to miss long by about 5’, but if you hit a 4’ putt 20% too hard, that putt still has a chance to hole if the line is correct for that speed.

I also think analyzing speed is something golfers just internalize. I very rarely hear people other than myself saying out loud that they want to hit this putt 8’ or something, but I often hear people thinking about the break out loud.

46 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think most people can't read greens because they can't hit putts a consistent speed, and so they never really get accurate feedback on their reads. It's a bad never-ending feedback loop.

I agree with this. I see people say, “it’s going to break a bit right,” and then they miss it high and go, “dead straight.” Dude, you hit it 3’ past the hole. Also it broke 6” anyway but it’s like they’re not looking at the start line or the apex at all.

[Poppy525]

Before a round I will go to the practice green and figure out my distance control for speed.  I do not, like most people on the practice green, try to make putts.  I go over to a side away from the holes and putt 3 balls 4 different distances.  I first move my putter directly back in a line to where it lines up with my back inner foot and putt that distance 3 times, then I pace off how far the 3 balls rolled.  I repeat this both up and downhill and write down the resulting paces.  I then repeat this moving putter back linearly to the center of my back foot then to the outer back foot and finally to about 6in past my back foot.  Then I count the paces for each one both up and downhill and record the results.  Since I started this distance control way of putting I dropped 5 strokes in my scores because I rarely 3 putt anymore.When I line up a putt now I feel VERY confident that I will either make the putt or have a very makeable second putt.

[Ty_Webb]

13 hours ago, billchao said:

There’s like absolutely no substance to that article. I agree that speed is more often more important than line, but at some point it flips. If you hit a 20’ putt 20% too hard, you’re going to miss long by about 5’, but if you hit a 4’ putt 20% too hard, that putt still has a chance to hole if the line is correct for that speed.

I think the point is that the "if" there is doing a lot of work (if the line is correct for that speed). I think the point is that on an 8' putt, let's say you read it perfectly at 8" outside the right edge for a putt speed going a foot past the hole. Let's say you then line it up spot on that line. Then let's say you hit it at a dead weight speed. That putt is probably not going in. Likewise, if you hit it 2 feet past, it's probably not going in either. Speed is less important on short, straightish putts. Otherwise, speed is king. Line is less important the further you get away. You can see that from the plot of where balls end up - short/long variance is way bigger than left/right variance. 

[WillieT]

I've tried the "Jordan Speith" look at the hole drill, with some decent success.  I continue to go back to the drills we were doing in the Covid-19 Practice Drills series in '20 that @iacas so adeptly provided.  These days, before a round I focus more on speed and how far the ball rolls with a given stroke length (working on having a consistent stroke speed helps - again the drills from '20). 

[saevel25]

For the most part, I just focus on speed prior to the round. Unless something feels off, like I am pushing or pulling putts or hitting it off my initials on my putter (it happens more often than I want 😛).

17 hours ago, iacas said:

I think most people can't read greens because they can't hit putts a consistent speed, and so they never really get accurate feedback on their reads. It's a bad never-ending feedback loop.

Yea, that makes sense. If the first thing a golfer can do is learn to control their speed then they will figure out the correct break more often. They will know if they misread high or low. 

 

[DaveP043]

That's a pretty standard "mainstream golf publication" advice piece, nice and generic.  There's no doubt that speed is important, as are read and hitting the intended line (read, bead, and speed as has been said once or twice on this forum).  I have a feeling that most pro-am players are getting that round in on greens substantially faster than those they normally play.  Even with the best efforts on the practice green, to me its a pretty big challenge to adjust to a different speed.  That's my guess as to why Ms Talley sees speed as a significant problem for her pro-am partners.

As for "heads-up" putting, I'm sure it works for some, but possibly not for all.  I haven't tried it myself.  But to me, there are better drills to get used to different green speeds during a pre-round warm up.

[StuM]

I've not tried looking at the hole during my actual swing.  I do look at the hole a few times as I take practice putts but I tend to have poor contact if I do not watch the ball during my actual putt.

On the practice green I do focus on speed over line.  Let's face it, whatever break you see on the practice green has no impact on the breaks you will see on the course.  Ideally the practice green is prepped to be similar speed to the actual greens so that speed control can be taken onto the course.

I try to hit several putts with similar back swings on different slopes...Flat, Up-hill, Down-Hill and Side-hill, to get a feel for the speed.  I still need to adjust for the actual steepness of the slope on the green during play but this at least gives some frame of reference.

[billchao]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

I think the point is that the "if" there is doing a lot of work (if the line is correct for that speed). I think the point is that on an 8' putt, let's say you read it perfectly at 8" outside the right edge for a putt speed going a foot past the hole. Let's say you then line it up spot on that line. Then let's say you hit it at a dead weight speed. That putt is probably not going in. Likewise, if you hit it 2 feet past, it's probably not going in either. Speed is less important on short, straightish putts. Otherwise, speed is king. Line is less important the further you get away. You can see that from the plot of where balls end up - short/long variance is way bigger than left/right variance. 

I don't think we're really disagreeing on anything. My point was that from inside a certain distance for everyone, though it may differ from person to person, there comes a point where a person is unlikely to miss distance outside of tap-in range. At that point, line becomes more important than speed. Or if you were trying to ram a putt in to take some break out, line becomes paramount. The article is just too generic and addresses no specific situations.

19 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

That's a pretty standard "mainstream golf publication" advice piece, nice and generic.  There's no doubt that speed is important, as are read and hitting the intended line (read, bead, and speed as has been said once or twice on this forum).  I have a feeling that most pro-am players are getting that round in on greens substantially faster than those they normally play.  Even with the best efforts on the practice green, to me its a pretty big challenge to adjust to a different speed.  That's my guess as to why Ms Talley sees speed as a significant problem for her pro-am partners.

This is a good point, too. It's hard to just flip a switch and adjust to different green speeds. It works both ways, too. Pros complain all the time about greens that are slower than what they're used to.

21 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

As for "heads-up" putting, I'm sure it works for some, but possibly not for all.

I'm a big proponent of heads-up putting. It helped me with my lag putting tremendously. I don't do it inside of about 10', and I'm terrible at putting inside of 10'. Not sure if coincidence or it's related. I suppose the only way to find out is to commit to heads-up putting completely and see if my SG stats change over a period of 10 rounds or so.

11 minutes ago, StuM said:

Ideally the practice green is prepped to be similar speed to the actual greens so that speed control can be taken onto the course.

Unfortunately, it's been my experience that this is often not the case at my local courses. It probably doesn't help that I tend to play early in the morning and the greens change speed as the dew evaporates.

[StuM]

7 hours ago, billchao said:

Unfortunately, it's been my experience that this is often not the case at my local courses. It probably doesn't help that I tend to play early in the morning and the greens change speed as the dew evaporates.

I’m sure this varies by course and agree speed will change as dew burns off and/or the sun bakes the greens.