The Apex of the Putt

[Spyder]

Most people who aim right at the break use quite a bit of speed on the putt though, from what I have seen in my personal experience. This is either going to result in sinking a very aggressive and in my opinion, a very lucky putt if it drops. Usually, they will miss or hit the lip and end up quite a distance away on the next putt. I was always taught to finesse the putt though, outside of the break and let the ball come in towards the hole. When I really started performing this type of shot, I usually ended up with an extremely close second putt if the first did not go in.

A major problem that I see people doing though, close friends of mine, is lining their feet up in line with the hole and manipulating the club face to the line that they want to play. I brought this up to a friend at the turn when we were playing 18 and he thought I was crazy and didn't think he was doing this. I let it go and on the 10th green I stopped him when he lined up for a 15ft putt and he looked down at his feet and just started laughing. Since then he's become a better putter and drastically improved his touch.

The only time I try to force a putt with speed to ignore a slight break would be from 3-4 feet. Even then it is really risky and you could possibly end up with a 5 ft putt on the other side of the hole.

[Patrick Gilmore]

I wonder if some of the confusion stems from how we translate what we see into an aimpoint. If you see a line then relate it to the hole you might say inside right or two balls left. You know that what you see is a curve that if you start your ball on that path it will curve into the hole. On longer putts this is silly, but on short putts, under 10 feet, if break is not severe, it can be expressed this way. On long putts it will screw up your alignment. I blame this trend on golf announcers looking for shorthand way to communicate break.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Patrick Gilmore

I wonder if some of the confusion stems from how we translate what we see into an aimpoint. If you see a line then relate it to the hole you might say inside right or two balls left. You know that what you see is a curve that if you start your ball on that path it will curve into the hole. On longer putts this is silly, but on short putts, under 10 feet, if break is not severe, it can be expressed this way. On long putts it will screw up your alignment. I blame this trend on golf announcers looking for shorthand way to communicate break.

How will it screw up your alignment?

I've played putts at a spot "47 inches right of the right lip." I line up to that spot and hit a "straight" putt at that spot. No alignment issues.

[Spyder]

Originally Posted by Patrick Gilmore

I wonder if some of the confusion stems from how we translate what we see into an aimpoint. If you see a line then relate it to the hole you might say inside right or two balls left. You know that what you see is a curve that if you start your ball on that path it will curve into the hole. On longer putts this is silly, but on short putts, under 10 feet, if break is not severe, it can be expressed this way. On long putts it will screw up your alignment. I blame this trend on golf announcers looking for shorthand way to communicate break.

It really frustrated me when I heard Scott Van Pelt try to call the break on a 15 foot putt the last time I caught an hour of golf. He literally said.. "Look for this ball to virtually have no break at all, maybe half a ball left edge". The line that was then played was what looked to be like a foot outside left and the golfer missed the putt by just a hair. The ball came to rest literally on the back side of the cup for a blind-folded tap in. Then he followed it up with "Well, the appropriate way to approach that putt was to play speed and left edge. That's just a classic case of an unfortunate break due to a misread green".

Really Scott? You're up in that damn booth calling "half ball breaks" and the ball clearly broke nearly a foot and was missed only because of too much speed? Yet it was to be played straighter with MORE speed? I really do hate Scott Van Pelt so maybe I'm biased but wow, it brought back memories of John Madden broadcasting Fox's NFL Sunday - minus the entertaining WHAM! WHACK! BOOM! POW! and TV pen all over the screen so you can't even see what's going on lol.

[colin007]

look, im a terrible putter (i mean really awful) but i sometimes need clarification...what youre all saying is that most hacks like me dont play enough break?

what i try to do is visualize the line that i think the putt would take if it were to go in, and start the ball on that line on the guess that i take to be the right speed.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by colin007

look, im a terrible putter (i mean really awful) but i sometimes need clarification...what youre all saying is that most hacks like me dont play enough break?

what i try to do is visualize the line that i think the putt would take if it were to go in, and start the ball on that line on the guess that i take to be the right speed.

Most don't, you're right. Especially on the short putts.

I grew up on a course built in the 1950s, so when green speeds rose you got some pretty big breaks. There are some places on the course where you literally putt away from the hole because it breaks that much - 15 foot putts breaking 20-25 feet types of things. So golfers at that course knew to play a lot of break, and so it took a long time for me to see that golfers, by and large, don't play enough break.

That's not to say golfers don't make putts or start the ball on the right line. Let's take a 20 foot putt that breaks four feet. The golfer will often read, say, "a foot" of break. They'll aim at that (most golfers have at least some aim bias, and some quite a bit of bias, so that compounds the issue) spot, then push or pull the putt because their body subconsciously knows they can't possibly make it on that line. Or they'll hit it harder to try to take some break out, again subconsciously. Then they'll lip out and the ball will roll six feet away and they'll think "I read that one right, just didn't have good speed" when really neither is the case: they hit it 2.5 feet out and smashed it, so the read and speed were wrong (as was their aim).

Imagine good putting like a tripod that has to be level and at a certain height to make the putt. Good putting requires three things: good green reading, good aim (i.e. being able to hit it where your green reading tells you where to hit it), and good distance control. If any one of those three things are off, the tripod isn't going to be level, and if you "level" the tripod with the one leg too short or too long, the tripod is no longer at the proper height.

[saevel25]

I totally agree, with the one thread talking about how the hole shrinks based on the speed you putt the ball. For me, i like the speed of my putts to be such that the ball if missing the hole would just end up on the otherside of the hole. Enough to make sure it gets there, but not enough to cancel out it catching the lip. So, i base alot of my misses on that results. If i hit my ball a foot and half past the hole, thats to hard for me, and then i look if i missed it high or low. If i missed it high, i might have had my right line and just hit it to hard. If i missed it to low, then its a combination of both speed and not reading enough break. If you constantly hit putts bad on speed, its tough to know if you had the right brake or not. Thats why i personally like having the ball die into the hole. Thats not to say i am not upset when the hole gets in the way of a putt i knew i hit to hard. A made putt is a made putt.

[bunkerputt]

I gave myself a little test today to see if I'm really as good as I think I am at putting.  Turns out I'm not.

It also turns out that, in spite of saying that "I consider all of the break", I think I'm underreading break and hitting it too hard so my comebacks are too long.  I'm not pushing or pulling the putts, just picking lines with not enough break and hitting it hard so that it stays on that line.  I get a lot of lip-outs that are 6 or more feet away, consequently.  3-putt city.  I erroneously thought, since I was lipping out most of my putts, and my stroke dispersion was tiny, that I was a good putter.  I forgot one leg of the tripod.

I picked a downhill 15 foot putt with 15 feet of break.  It took me about 6 balls of fighting my instincts to stay on the high side, and only one of those almost made it in the cup (half a revolution away).  It was the kind of putt you need to help a little to a spot 15 feet left of the hole so it starts falling down the slope at the right speed, almost at a 90 degree angle.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

It also turns out that, in spite of saying that "I consider all of the break", I think I'm underreading break and hitting it too hard so my comebacks are too long.  I'm not pushing or pulling the putts, just picking lines with not enough break and hitting it hard so that it stays on that line.  I get a lot of lip-outs that are 6 or more feet away, consequently.  3-putt city.  I erroneously thought, since I was lipping out most of my putts, and my stroke dispersion was tiny, that I was a good putter.  I forgot one leg of the tripod.

It sounds to me like you could benefit from attending an AimPoint seminar and really, really understanding the concept of capture speed . :-)

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

I gave myself a little test today to see if I'm really as good as I think I am at putting.  Turns out I'm not.

It also turns out that, in spite of saying that "I consider all of the break", I think I'm underreading break and hitting it too hard so my comebacks are too long.  I'm not pushing or pulling the putts, just picking lines with not enough break and hitting it hard so that it stays on that line.  I get a lot of lip-outs that are 6 or more feet away, consequently.  3-putt city.  I erroneously thought, since I was lipping out most of my putts, and my stroke dispersion was tiny, that I was a good putter.  I forgot one leg of the tripod.

I picked a downhill 15 foot putt with 15 feet of break.  It took me about 6 balls of fighting my instincts to stay on the high side, and only one of those almost made it in the cup (half a revolution away).  It was the kind of putt you need to help a little to a spot 15 feet left of the hole so it starts falling down the slope at the right speed, almost at a 90 degree angle.

An exercise I like to do when practicing is to find the fall/zero line above the hole on a big breaking putt and lay an alignment rod down along it right up to the lip of the cup. Then try and hit all my putts on the top side of the hole without running into the stick. Obviously you still will do quite a lot from longer ranges, but it trains you to think about playing high and soft and leaving the ball on the "elephants ear" above the cup -- where a miss is dying closer to the hole rather than running away underneath.

[jgreen85]

I appreciate this post; this helps to explain why I miss 10-12ft swingers so badly. I'm good on the longer ones b/c I pick a spot closer to my ball, but the shorter ones I aim at the apex, but I guess the speed I hit the putt at makes that early break more pronounced.

[brit-rob]

I think there is a certain amount of "feel" that you have to have for putt. If you try and think about it too academically then you are never going to be a good putter. Try as many thoeries as you like and then commit to one for a decent amount of time and try and let it become natural.

[JayMc]

MVMAC - the video really explained it well.  Thanks.

[Jooma]

Law of physics apply to everything and perhaps golf gurus like Eric should know that.

The best example - putting up hill with a break - the ball DOES NOT BREAK IMMEDIATELLY because the ball must have enough velocity to climb and the gravity cannot overcome the force that equals mass of the ball by its initial acceleration imparted by putter - therefore it does not break.

The simple rule is – slower the put, more break there is, apart from other conditions on the green like wind, grain etc.

[uscfan]

i understand if it breaks a foot or six but what if only breaks a ball right of the cup how do you properly aim , how do possibly play more break im confused as to how much outside the apex point.

[jamo]

Law of physics apply to everything and perhaps golf gurus like Eric should know that.

The best example - putting up hill with a break - the ball DOES NOT BREAK IMMEDIATELLY because the ball must have enough velocity to climb and the gravity cannot overcome the force that equals mass of the ball by its initial acceleration imparted by putter - therefore it does not break.

The simple rule is – slower the put, more break there is, apart from other conditions on the green like wind, grain etc.

......You want to try to explain that a little bit better?

[saevel25]

The key is friction, which has alot to do with grain of the green, but lets not go there. Lets assume there is neutral grain, meaning no matter what direction you putt the friction is the same.

So lets say you have a straight putt up hill, on the zero line. The friction between the ball and the green opposes the movement of the ball. You have to account for slope.

So if you are on a green and your ball is on a slope that is so severe the ball doesn't stay still. That means the force from the mass of the ball, Mass times Gravity is greater than the friction force resisting that movement. This is assuming a perfect green, of course if your ball hits an indent, that changes the slope at were the ball contacts the green, so the ball can sit on a slope, but its not sitting on the slope that you see.

Now if you move that ball to the left or right off that zero line, that slope adds breaks, because now your cutting across the slope. So when you hit a putt, its fastest movement is right when you hit the ball. This is just assuming a normal uphill putt. Not if you have to hit the ball to a downslope, then the speed can change. So when the ball is its fastest right off the clubface, it gets hit with friction, that starts to slow the ball down. This friction acts in the direction of the slope. Since your going across the slope, that friction is acting on an angle of which the ball rotates on, changing its rotation and causing the ball to curve.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Jooma

Law of physics apply to everything and perhaps golf gurus like Eric should know that.

I do. I don't know who Eric is but he probably does too.

Originally Posted by Jooma

The best example - putting up hill with a break - the ball DOES NOT BREAK IMMEDIATELLY because the ball must have enough velocity to climb and the gravity cannot overcome the force that equals mass of the ball by its initial acceleration imparted by putter - therefore it does not break.

The ball breaks immediately. You may not perceive it due to how little it breaks, but it breaks immediately.

A bullet fired perfectly horizontally begins dropping immediately as it leaves the barrel. Gravity doesn't "take a break" for awhile.

Originally Posted by saevel25

This friction acts in the direction of the slope. Since your going across the slope, that friction is acting on an angle of which the ball rotates on, changing its rotation and causing the ball to curve.

Small point: the friction from the grass directly opposes the motion. Gravity's vector force alone is responsible for the curve.

Also, grain doesn't affect the direction of break as much as you probably think. It has a much larger effect on speed .