AimPoint's First Major - Stacy Lewis at the Kraft Nabisco

[iacas]

http://www.lpga.com/content_1.aspx?pid=28070∣=1

Q. I was talking to Karrie a little bit about your game, and she said she felt like putting was the thing that needed to improve to put you over the edge how now you've spent a lot of time working on some new methods. Can you talk a little bit about your putting?

STACY LEWIS: Yeah. It was last September I came back, I was back home after the Canadian Open, and I had missed three greens in 36 holes and missed the cut. So I knew I needed to do something else. And my college coach, Shauna Estes‑Taylor, she kind of told me about this AimPoint which is a greens reading method, and she's like, let me just show you a little bit and just kind of get a general understanding, so I learned the basics and I finished Top 10 at Arkansas. And I was kind of like maybe there's something to it.

Then I went and worked with Mark Sweeney, and I worked with him over the winter and things like that, but it's more ‑‑ I understand how greens work and what the putts are going to do. It just made me more confident over the putts in general.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Just saw the vid you posted too. Nice recommendation definitely! Didn't see her using am aim card though?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

Just saw the vid you posted too. Nice recommendation definitely! Didn't see her using am aim card though?

She pulled it out a few times in the tournament and glanced at it quickly. Her caddie helps too. He's had 10 hours of training with Mark Sweeney, and she's had about 16 hours. They go more slowly so it really sinks in with tour pros. There's less "go practice on your own" time. ;-)

In the video I posted, if you know what to look for, you'll notice when she's stepping around that she feels something and steps backwards then. After AimPoint training you'll know what she was doing there.

[Stretch]

First step downhill? I don't know Aimpoint terminology but assume she's feeling for the fall line?

[MiniBlueDragon]

First step downhill? I don't know Aimpoint terminology but assume she's feeling for the fall line?

Yup yup. Basically 6 o'clock

[iacas]

Originally Posted by MiniBlueDragon

Yup yup. Basically 6 o'clock

Kinda, yea. She was confirming her position on the grid.

They don't use clocks anymore btw.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Quote:

Kinda, yea. She was confirming her position on the grid.

They don't use clocks anymore btw.

Hmmm intriguing!

Well I've just emailed one of the UK instructors to see about getting on one of the L2 courses near me. Fingers crossed there's availability. :)

[walk18]

I'm still confused about what aimpoint really is. Is it training on reading greens coupled with using technological gizmos to figure out the break? The websites are confusing and it would be nice to just have the whole thing summarized in a few sentences.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by walk18

I'm still confused about what aimpoint really is. Is it training on reading greens coupled with using technological gizmos to figure out the break? The websites are confusing and it would be nice to just have the whole thing summarized in a few sentences.

I'll take a stab at this... it's physics based and validated green reading.

Correctly applied, AimPoint will tell you where to aim virtually any putt (some are literally unmakeable) in order to make the putt. An AimPoint golfer simply uses a chart to read the greens.

The old way of "learning to read greens" is trial and error. It's building up a memory bank. It still often results in being confused - architects try to do that, after all - and misreading putts. AimPoint takes a little time to learn, but it takes less time than "trial and error" and provides drastically better and drastically more consistent results.

Steve Stricker missed this putt because he didn't know where the straight putt was. And it was only three feet or so.

[John Graham]

AimPoint is what you do to prepare for a putt.

Basically, it is determining the balls location on the green relative to the slope direction and using that information plus a few other factors to determine the expected amount of break.

[Stretch]

I'll definitely give it a shot once I'm back in a location that actually has AimPoint instructors. Feel like I can get a pretty good read right now on simple planar surfaces but throw in a crown or saddle and I'm lost.