Green Reading

I have always struggled to read greens, and as such I then struggle to commit to the stroke and it becomes a viscous cycle as it is impossible to make good reads if you are consistently hitting bad putts.

I have a putt out mat at home to work on my stroke, but I am not sure what I can do at home to help with green reading. Due to time I can only get to the course to play so not sure what I can do away from the course.

I have thought about aim point but being in Australia it seems not overly accessible as everyone says to do the course.

wow you're in Australia! love your titleist hats!

Aim point will change your green reading forever instantly, even if you don't do the finger thing you are able eye ball it after a while. I heard the DVD is a solid learn.

I'm totally for AP, turned my 3- 4 putts into a confident 2.

Don't worry about it and focus on speed instead. As long as you have a general idea of how it's breaking and hit it the correct speed you will almost always get it close to the hole and avoid 3 putts. The more you play the better you will get at picking the line but it's not something that you should expect to learn right away. Even if you CAN pick a perfect line every time it's all about speed anyway.

Spend time on the putting green before you play working on 10 ft, 20 ft, 30ft, and 40ft putts to get a feel for the speed. Don't worry about making anything just try to get the ball to stop near the hole.

Worry about speed. Put the line on your ball directly on line you want to hit and then try to take your club and move it directly down the line on your golf ball. If you can do that, you only need to worry about speed. Trust that your read is right because you did that Preshot. Getting reads and speed correct is tough, but if you can get it close, you’ll two putt a lot with a few makes in there too.

Thinking it may be worth investing in the DVD.

It is actually not 3 putt avoidance that is driving this. It is those putts in the 8-20 ft range that should have a chance of going in (I know the percentage of makes are low) but so many from that range I may read a foot of break and it doesn't move, or read it straight and it moved 18 inches. It is still a 2 putt but it never stood a chance of going in!

I align the ball, I generally hit the line I want pretty well if I am committed to it. It is trusting the read for me is easier said than done.

Try to get multiple angles. Sometimes from one angle you cannot see the break but when you look for side on or up to the ball, you can see the break. Other times try to determine where the water runs off to and that will help show you the break. If you have absolutely no clue, play it straight on.

Also, I like to think about rolling a ball to the hole and how I would need to roll it to make it in the cup.

if it’s a breaking putt, I also will pick a spot where I think it will break and then try to putt it to that spot and let the break do the rest.

Even PGA tour players don't expect to make many 8-20ft putts. If you can make most of your 4 footers and avoid 3 putts you are doing better than most golfers.

As far as making more putts the green reading comes with experience and playing with better players can really help. Don't expect to learn how to read a green from a DVD or instructional guide.

here's a general tip to reading greens. I apply it on every hole, before ever getting up to my ball and making my read. understand the green is completely designed, and i am not talking about to fool you with misreads. It isnt a video game. the green is designed to be playable, look good, and hold up to weather conditions. the rest is just gravy.

first, understand the vast majority of greens you have ever played are sloped back to front, meaning the back part of the green is elevated higher than the front part of the green. this makes the green more visible on the approach and helps hold shots. thus, if your ball is short of the flag your are likely putting uphill and vice versa.

next, the green is designed to drain. there must be slope as a flat green will flood with water when it rains. Greens are not designed to drain into bunkers as the bunkers would flood. There are lowspots or depressions around the green, there are wet spots or muddy spots around the green. Or sometimes just well watered grass when the rest of the course if super dry. This is where the water is draining. Naturally if there is a water source like a pond or creek around the green, that is an obvious spot to direct drainage to so greens are usually sloped to them.

Use these clues to get a lay of the land so that you understand the general lay of the land of the entire green. And then use these clues to access the break where your line is.

Aimpoint express. Aimpoint express. Aimpoint express. Speed is super important, but most people are playing a line that is 1/3 - 1/2 the amount of break they should play. The result is having a hard time getting the ball close to the hole on their first putt. What I have people do is get on a putt with some side slope at least 20 ft away. From there I tell them I want them to leave the putt short and on the high side. Now, they’re playing twice as much break and they start leaving the ball way closer to the hole. Try it sometime. When you can start to get that line better then focus on speed and get really good at it.

Green reading is difficult and tough to learn. Aimpoint express offers an awesome shortcut, but isnt for everyone.

One thing I would tell higher handicappers would be to miss more on the high side. A putt with good speed missed on the high side will end up much closer to the hole than a putt with good speed on the low side. You'll see your 3 putts go down just from missing on the high side more.

Stand behind the ball and you will naturally go to one side or the other. That is your subconscious creating a line for you. Now just use that line. To get puts the right distance you should use one hand with a light grip. Switch to two hands once u get the feel. If you use your dominate hand you will get distance control perfect every time.

From everything I've read and heard from pros, they actually do expect to make every 8-20 ft putt. Ams should too.

I use AimPoint's "feel the slope with your feet" method. I do NOT use the finger portion of their technique. Using my feet/stance to feel slope is one of the things that helped me immensely in the last two years.

Great advice! I do the same

I honestly find that most people who claim to be bad green readers don’t hit putts solidly and where they are looking (exceptions do exist). I think getting reps on a practice station with a gate for center face contact and a gate for start line control is one of the best things you can do. How can you read the green if the ball doesn’t start rolling on the intended line?

Another great drill is to try to hole putts at different speeds with different amounts of break obviously. Look for a 4-5 footer that has some break. Try hit one at medium speed - medium break, firm speed - least break, soft speed - most break. It helps with your imagination and speed control.

Its one thing to expect to make every putt, that confidence can be a good thing. Its a completely different thing to accept misses as a normal and expected part of good putting. If a guy begins to get frustrated after missing 3 or 4 20-footers in a row because he "expects to make every one", that expectation is counterproductive.

I'm a believer in the Aimpoint system, it has helped me to become better at reading greens. One of the biggest aavantages of "feeling the slope" is that you can remove all of the visual trickery that designers can use to mislead a player. No matter how much you try to ignore it, you can always see the green beyond the hole, and the terrain beyond that, all of which can influence your visual read, and none of which really matters because the ball isn't going to roll there. But having a good read is only part of the process. As others have said, you have to pair that good read with proper speed, and the ability to start the ball on the intended line. Problems with any one aspect can lead you to doubt the others.

Expecting to make every putt and how one reacts after their effort are two completely different states of mind. I believe the best putters, and it has certainly changed my putting for the better, believe they are going to make every putt. If someone continues to find frustration when not making every putt, they obviously have a mental block that more than likely permeates every other aspect of their game.

If you don't think every shot you are about to hit isn't going to be exactly what you want, well then your just slapping a little ball around outside. Managing post execution expectations are an entirely different animal. It's another reason why ams suck. They can't get past the last miserable shot, or putt, they made and it creeps into their next shot. There is no reason, including statistical data, to think you aren't going to make a putt before you make the putt.

I like getting a view from the low side of the putt trying to find the fall line. If I am having trouble reading a putt fully I try to break it into sections or thirds.

I like getting a read from behind to pick a good target and line up my ball line. I will use my feet on the tricky reads when I've got a little doubt in there. That takes practice to really feel it though.

Walking up to a green (I walk 99 percent of my rounds) I will try and at least pick out the lowest part of the green or try to generally view the entire slope of the green.

Is the AimPoint video worth buying at $49?

I am getting very interested in using AimPoint and watches most all YouTube videos on it. Wondering about purchasing their DVD.

Ironically enough, I do the exact opposite of this. I have had a hard time mastering determining the slope with my feet, so instead I eyeball the slope like I'm reading a putt not using AimPoint, and assign what I see a 1-5% value and use the AimPoint finger method to get my intended line.
But @Obee is verified as a MUCH better putter than me, so there is also that.
I really would like to get the feet to work, but is just hasn't clicked. I have spent a total of about 2 hours with a digital level trying to get a feel for the slope percentages with my feet and was consistently as much as 2% off. I would read something as a 3% with my feet and the level would tell me it was a 1.5%.

Something I always do that hasn't been mentioned is pay attention to your playing partners. When they are chipping watch how the ball moves when rolling in the green. Watch their putts and get an idea. Pay attention to their shot shapes and what ball did when it landed on the green. I also try to have an idea of the slope of the green before I'm even on the green. Sometimes it's easier to see the low point from the fairway than it is when you get to the green.

So I've never used it for percent. The ONLY way I use my feet is to CONFIRM what I think. There's nothing worse than playing a course you've never played, being certain your putt is uphill, and it turns out it's actually a bit DOWNHILL at the hole (or vice-versa). I'm just trying to remove SURPRISES by using my feet. I use them at the ball and then up by the hole. :-)

Only caveat to this erring on the higher side when in doubt with the goal of three-putt avoidance is that you better get it past the hole. I know you implied that with the adage "with good speed," but still, if it doesn't get there, then you've left yourself with a downhill tester short putt rather than uphill.

I left myself in this terrible predicament Saturday in the quarterfinals of my club's summer matchplay event. While 2-up thru 14 I had a 25-footer, downhill breaking right to left for birdie. I erred on lagging it up the high side and it stopped 4 feet short above the hole.

Par would have made it dormie, but I lipped out the downhill 4-footer for par and it rolled a disastrous 7 feet by for bogey. Missed that one, too, for my only 4-putt of the year, and in the process lost the hole outright to a bogey. Turned what should have been 3-up with 3 to play to only 1-up.

Thankfully I still won, but in hindsight I would have been better off missing on the low side and having an uphill par putt.

Green reading is sort of simple, especially if you're not a city person. People raised in the country tend to see their surroundings differently. I've told many friends how I go about reading greens yet they tend to overlook influencing factors mostly due to impatience. or forgetfulness.

This past weekend played a course that was along the base of high foothills and holes meandered into valley's with lots of elevation change. One guy kept missing puts on the low side so by the 8th hole I offered to share. I mentioned a few determining aspects but he had a perplexed look on his face. So didn't bother. He not only thought it was too complex later we learned he had poor eye sight. If a person can't see subtleties and track a ball in flight out to 250+ yards, seeing influential undulations, drainage and looking for things like tree shade and sun directing grain is not likey. One of the reason I am never in a hurry to putt, want to watch how balls behave rolling towards the cup. If you don't read the green topography and influences correctly missing on the high side like pros is not likely to happen, plus chipping to the cup to save par will be crap shoot.

Last, IME buying equipment hoping to improve putting can get expensive and still doesn't improve skills because most putting tools address hitting the ball with the sweet spot of the putter face and hitting the ball straight. Being a good putter is about taking into account all the outside influencing factors that affect the ball as it's rolling to the cup. And those factors vary in number per course and location but always exist.

That DVD has put a lot of money in my pocket since I bought it last spring in money games.

Wanna sell it? Haha