Putting - Reading the green thru to shot execution.

[Kellfire]

Putting. The one thing that lets me down as a beginner constantly. Too often do I surprise myself and land that approach 20 feet from the hole, only to three putt and blow another par opportunity.

My current routine is thus:

Pace from hole to ball to judge length.

Kneel down behind ball from a few yards award and judge line.

(this is where I start to go really bad)

If you look at the picture I attached, you will see the line I use to line up my putt. I'm currently in a rut where I line up the face of the putter with where I want my putt to start out. This means that when I stand up to address the putt, I am trusting on myself to turn the putter exactly 90 degrees so that the same line now matches up with the directional line on the top of the putter. I'm sure you can see my problem.

I'm getting better at lengths of putts, but I still push far too many right. I believe this is because of my weird lining up method and because my head isn't over the ball enough. I intend to work on getting over my putts more but can anyone suggest a basic routine I can use to line up my putts a little better? Maybe I should aim at a small spot nearer to me?

[J_Bone]

I use an old CD I have laying around. Place the ball in the middle of the CD and look down at the ball. If you don't see your eyes, move around till you see you eyes on the CD. Then once you see your eye's, zero in so you get your eye's on top of the ball. I will try to hold this as long as possible to ingrain the posture and alignment for when I'm on the green's. That has helped me get into the position I want to be in.

As far as putter alignment goes, I try to find a spot 3"-12"" in front of my ball in the path I want to hit it. Not strait at the hole, but the path that the greens want me to hit it. That has worked great for me if I can find a spot. But some times there is no spot to find so then I try to find a blade of grass or something to hit towards.

[Kellfire]

I use an old CD I have laying around. Place the ball in the middle of the CD and look down at the ball. If you don't see your eyes, move around till you see you eyes on the CD. Then once you see your eye's, zero in so you get your eye's on top of the ball. I will try to hold this as long as possible to ingrain the posture and alignment for when I'm on the green's. That has helped me get into the position I want to be in.

That alone is a cracking bit of advice. I'll definitely use that to train my stance.

[iacas]

Also, why are you using the face to line up your putts? There's a big black line you should be using to line up your putts on that putter.

Sounds like you could stand to read this article, Almost Everything I Know about Making Putts .

[Kellfire]

I just found the face much easier to line up and it's a habit I got into without realising the consequences. Thanks for the link, I will read it now.

[pjsnyc]

This may sound extremely dumb, but what has helped my putting game is EA Tiger Woods (almost any version will do, but i have '06 and '07). When I'm on the the green in real life, I imagine the "putt cam" from the game to help line up putts...but its really the speed that matters most. So whatever line i line the ball up on, I try to imagine the "ideal putt cam" and figure out what the ball will do and give it speed accordingly. It has dropped my total number of putts down dramatically and i rarely ever three putt anymore (I avg just below 30 putts per 18).

[beung]

I would say use something static like a line on the ball rather then using your putter head, too many things can change from the time you line it up to you standing over the putt.

Another suggestion is instead of using the line on the ball to point to the line you want the putt to start on, turn the ball so the line is perpendicular to the line you want the ball the start on. That way when you stand over the putt the line on the ball and the putter face will be parallel, which is easier to see if your putter face is square to the line then trying to see if the line on the ball and the line on your putter (if you even have one) are perfectly straight or being able to see if your putter face is perfectly perpendicular to the line on the ball.

[beung]

This may sound extremely dumb, but what has helped my putting game is EA Tiger Woods (almost any version will do, but i have '06 and '07). When I'm on the the green in real life, I imagine the "putt cam" from the game to help line up putts...but its really the speed that matters most. So whatever line i line the ball up on, I try to imagine the "ideal putt cam" and figure out what the ball will do and give it speed accordingly. It has dropped my total number of putts down dramatically and i rarely ever three putt anymore (I avg just below 30 putts per 18).

I don't want to hyjack this thread but....

If you are averaging less then 30 putts per round and you rarely 3 putt you are making on average of 6 one putts, or lets say 3 one putts per 9. That's pretty good putting. How come your index is so high? I may be missing something here but with an index of almost 19, you are probably shooting low to mid 90s on average, which means you are taking over 3.5 strokes to get on the green if you average 30 putts per round. Man if you could get your GIRs up you would be able shoot some pretty good scores.

[pjsnyc]

I don't want to hyjack this thread but....

Indeed. Using digitaldivot.com to keep track of metrics, I am only averaging 2.5 GIR per 18. I just cant seem to get the ball on the green consistantly (I'll either hit an awesome drive right down the center then shank my second shot or vice versa). So I figured the easiest part of the game to correct (with the most reward score-wise) is putting...not everyone can hit 300 yard drives, but anyone can sink a 60 ft putt if they practice enough at putting :) Don't worry tho - I am trying to get my GIR's up :) -Pete

[Kellfire]

Just shot my first round below 100!

Cut my best ever round from 112 to 97. And guess how I did it?

Yep, putting!

I paced out all putts of any distance more than a couple of yards, read them for slightly longer, made sure to keep my wrists from breaking and more about the shoulders and I took just 34 putts, to average 1.88 putts, when my previous best was around three. What a difference!