Transition to Using the Line on Your Ball (Putting)

[DaveLeeNC]

2 hours ago, Varry_Hardon said:

It aligns (pun intended) with the Malaska video posted here at times, on the subconsious aspect of it. The line helps if and only if you are able to trust it. When you step into your play box (after aligning it) if something seems off and you keep thinking about it, your subconsious will steer you to compensate (close the face, or else). Why most people have a great time with the line when they practice on a flat surface with alignment aids at home, they know it's right - and why all hell breaks loose on a sloped green when the hole is in their peripheral vision, something appears off on their aim point.

 

Interesting that you would mention Malaska as I think that the idea of 'putting to the line and not the hole' came from me watching one of his YouTube videos not long ago. 

 

dave

Edited May 26, 2023 by DaveLeeNC

[MelloYello]

35 minutes ago, Varry_Hardon said:

It aligns (pun intended) with the Malaska video posted here at times, on the subconscious aspect of it. The line helps if and only if you are able to trust it. When you step into your play box (after aligning it) if something seems off and you keep thinking about it, your subconscious will steer you to compensate (close the face, or else). Why most people have a great time with the line when they practice on a flat surface with alignment aids at home, they know it's right - and why all hell breaks loose on a sloped green when the hole is in their peripheral vision, something appears off on their aim point.

 

To the points made above >> golfers are wasting their time if they're not fully committed and trusting the line.

 

To that end, there are some absolutes when using a line: 

 

(1) You must be careful aligning the ball.

(2) You must set up square TO THE BALL each and every time.

(3) You must ignore everything else and try to get the ball & line rolling end-over-end.

 

And as @Varry_Hardon (great name, lol) rightly points out, it takes some effort to commit but you only get better at things you're committed to. So, to anyone trying it you get out what you put in. The more you cheat, the more you're hurting yourself. 

[mshills]

I love using the line (all the way around the ball) for extensive practice drills. I am certain that working on solid, square contact which gets the ball rolling with no wobble is one of the best ways to practice, and it has definitely helped me.
 

Conversely, I do not take my lined balls out for play so I can focus on speed above all. 

[Nard_S]

If you feel it works great but I find it a distraction. Set ball with no visual marks.  I square the face with line on putter, I square the path to a spot by monitoring toe line of putter. Neutralizing the variations of impact is probably a better way to address directional woes. If you cannot see the line well enough from setup, the setup is bad. If you cannot roll end over end, the stroke is bad.

[DaveLeeNC]

43 minutes ago, Nard_S said:

If you feel it works great but I find it a distraction. Set ball with no visual marks.  I square the face with line on putter, I square the path to a spot by monitoring toe line of putter. Neutralizing the variations of impact is probably a better way to address directional woes. If you cannot see the line well enough from setup, the setup is bad. If you cannot roll end over end, the stroke is bad.

 

IMHO (only WRT my situation), I believe that the line is a mental thing. It gives me something useful and invariant to focus on. I have actually practiced some with the line intentionally "pointed wrong". Then I can focus on just putting across whatever angle exists between my line and the line on the ball. I just don't seem to deal well with blank space. My mind wants to make adjustments in that case probably a confidence issue). 

 

dave

 

ps. What is the putting notion of the ball not rolling end over end? Is this a reference to the case of the putter path and face not being aligned? I am not a good putter, but this issue of the ball 'not rolling end over end' is not something that I have sensed in my own putting, at least on shorter putts. A different story on really long putts. 

[Nard_S]

51 minutes ago, DaveLeeNC said:

 this issue of the ball 'not rolling end over end' is not something that I have sensed in my own putting, at least on shorter putts. A different story on really long putts. 

Well you can cut or draw putts, you can have less than pure rolls, I have heard people feel that seeing the line on ball roll square to putt is helpful. I personally don't utilize that, I sense quality of strike by impact to speed ratio.

 

A big thing that doesn't get mentioned a lot in putting discussions is length of putting stroke. Most have too long of a stroke for distance to be hit. You can always sense a lousy putter by how long they move head for a 4 foot putt or any putt for that matter. They are more inclined to decelerate into impact with it which probably is biggest reason putts go bad. I actually practice nailing short 3-5 footers with inches of head movement, purposely levering to get max distance out of stroke length without hand tension involved. It's a good exercise. Used to do a bout stroke foot for a 5 foot putt, now it's less than half that.

 

Long putting,lag putting is really good way to assess how good your stroke is. If you can repeatedly hit to same 10% leave near every time, if you can hit same lines too, in some ways really revealing about what you have going on. You'll hear folks go on about how SG matters more elsewhere, but if you can lag 50 footers well, 10-15 footers become more doable to drain.

[bluedot]

This is never accepted when I write it, but a lot of golfers can’t use the line.  Those who can answer that by saying, “Just keep practicing; you’ll get used to it like I did; anybody can!”  A top shelf putting instructor told me he believed that more than half of golfers simply cannot use the line.

 

I can’t prove this, but I suspect that eye dominance, not only which eye but perhaps moreso the degree to which that eye is dominant, figure into this.  In my case, as a right handed golfer who is EXTREMELY left eye dominant, the line ALWAYS looked tilted toward me and left of the target.  That caused me to make a poor stroke, no matter how much I worked of believing that the line was correct.  

[DaveLeeNC]

1 hour ago, bluedot said:

In my case, as a right handed golfer who is EXTREMELY left eye dominant, the line ALWAYS looked tilted toward me and left of the target.  That caused me to make a poor stroke, no matter how much I worked of believing that the line was correct.

 

In one of Mike Malaska's Youtube putting videos he stated that the right putting setup is NOT necessarily your eyes directly over the ball. For many he says the correct setup is whatever eye position is required (this will change based on the person) to make the line appear to be lined up. So far I am sticking with the line and a conventional setup, but it was an interesting comment. I just do not recall which of his putting videos that shows up in. 

 

dave

Edited May 28, 2023 by DaveLeeNC

[DaveLeeNC]

9 hours ago, bluedot said:

This is never accepted when I write it, but a lot of golfers can’t use the line.  Those who can answer that by saying, “Just keep practicing; you’ll get used to it like I did; anybody can!”  A top shelf putting instructor told me he believed that more than half of golfers simply cannot use the line.

 

I can’t prove this, but I suspect that eye dominance, not only which eye but perhaps moreso the degree to which that eye is dominant, figure into this.  In my case, as a right handed golfer who is EXTREMELY left eye dominant, the line ALWAYS looked tilted toward me and left of the target.  That caused me to make a poor stroke, no matter how much I worked of believing that the line was correct.  

 

8 hours ago, DaveLeeNC said:

 

In one of Mike Malaska's Youtube putting videos he stated that the right putting setup is NOT necessarily your eyes directly over the ball. For many he says the correct setup is whatever eye position is required (this will change based on the person) to make the line appear to be lined up. So far I am sticking with the line and a conventional setup, but it was an interesting comment. I just do not recall which of his putting videos that shows up in. 

 

dave

 

 

The Malaska video above speaks directly to the situation of setup and how you see the line causing real problems when using either a line on the ball or an intermediate aim point. Just an FYI that might (or might not) have relevance to your game, but certainly supports the issue that you have raised. Whether it solves the problem in your case or not - it probably depends. 

 

dave

 

[bluedot]

1 minute ago, DaveLeeNC said:

 

 

 

The Malaska video above speaks directly to the situation of setup and how you see the line causing real problems when using either a line on the ball or an intermediate aim point. Just an FYI that might (or might not) have relevance to your game, but certainly supports the issue that you have raised. Whether it solves the problem in your case or not - it probably depends. 

 

dave

 

Dave, 

My issue with the line went away 8 years ago when I started putting face on/side saddle.  The only time I use the line now is on the practice green to check the roll I’m putting on the ball, but the least of your worries when you put side saddle is hitting the line you’ve picked.  

[DaveLeeNC]

@bluedot Side Saddle - I have seriously considered that in the past. 

 

dave

[MelloYello]

On 5/27/2023 at 10:09 AM, DaveLeeNC said:

What is the putting notion of the ball not rolling end over end? Is this a reference to the case of the putter path and face not being aligned? I am not a good putter, but this issue of the ball 'not rolling end over end' is not something that I have sensed in my own putting, at least on shorter putts. A different story on really long putts. 

 

You nailed it. The ball rolls end over end when you have the face & path both on line. Some have pointed out that you can fake it slightly (as with all drills) but it's generally good if you can do it -- or at least informative if you can't. 

 

I think for me, it extends directly to the most frustrating of misses, those would be tap-ins from 2' - 4' which seem like they should be routine (and for some people are). I have a real tendency to align out to the right on extremely short putts (~2'). I think it's something about having the cup in my peripheral.

 

I've evolved to a point where I'm pretty religious about using the line in these particular scenarios and have seen a pretty dramatic improvement from missing as many as 4-5 tap-ins during some particularly awful rounds to now only missing 1-2 if I'm a bit off. There are some days I don't miss any and we have particularly undulating greens here (which need to be re-contoured pretty badly). Anyhow, the days of missing 2-footers seem to be over, thank God. 

 

I missed one today from about 4' but it was just a pull, a bad stroke. The idea that I use to leave all those up to "chance" though seems shockingly dumb to me now. I can't believe I ever used to just walk up and try to align "blindly" assuming that my aim would be correct. As the Malaska video shows, it's almost a guarantee that your aim is going to be off somewhere. 

 

The idea of your eyes being directly over the ball might be wrong but if they're not, you're physically incapable of not having a bias left/right at some distance(s). It's like sighting a rifle in. It's a calibration. It's not perfect. It'll inevitably be a little off beyond some range. 

 

I advocate for having your eyes where is best but I will never go back to the days of not using a line on critical putts inside 5-ft. My stroke can fail me. My read can fail me. My eyes can fail me. The line generally can't. 

 

.

Edited May 29, 2023 by MelloYello

[bluedot]

12 hours ago, DaveLeeNC said:

@bluedot Side Saddle - I have seriously considered that in the past. 

 

dave

Dave,

Side saddle isn't a magic trick; like anything else, it takes time and practice.  But it does get rid of a ton of visual issues caused by both eye dominance, and what happens when you line a putt up from behind with binocular vision and then move to the side to putt.  There are other advantages as well, but the visual advantages are pretty huge.  I still have a couple of conventional putters in the hall closet, and every now and then I'll pull one out and hit a few putts on the mat; I feel like I have a bag over my head!

[SollyinGA]

I’m a feel putter. I find an intermediate aim point and go from there. I don’t have the patience to try to line the ball up with my chosen  line because I could never get it to perfectly match up. 
 

My buddy uses the line and takes 5 mins to put the ball on every green. We put about the same as far as I can tell per round.

 

 

[Ethan DelGrosso]

I'm an AP statistics student and for my final I actually tested whether there was a significant difference when putting with a line vs without a line. I ran a controlled test with 25 different putt locations where I used the same "line" and pace but simply aimed the ball with the graphics of Taylormade TP5 PIX or by eye alone. I then took the difference between each pair of putt and ran a statistical procedure to determine if there was a significant difference which there was not for me. Although not statistically significant was on average closer when using the line on the ball. I am attaching a copy of my slideshow if anyone is more of a stats nerd and wants to take a deeper look.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1M_2z9f0gu18FdhmaUqjVuvrC2nCBYdiDKs_8i0O-N5o/edit?usp=sharing

[bluedot]

One thing that is rarely mentioned regarding the ability to use the line is not only eye dominance, but the DEGREE of eye dominance.  I’m traveling right now, so I’m not going to be able to post the links, but studies have shown that the degree to which one eye or the other is dominant varies from person to person, just like any other characteristic of vision.  Elite athletes TEND to have a very low degree of dominance, just as they tend to have superior vision in other respects.

 

I think I can say with some confidence that nobody reading this worked any harder than I did at trying to make use of the line, or had less success with it.  I hit hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of putts on my putting mat, the putting green, and during actual play; the line never looked right to me, and was a huge distraction in live play, which I just couldn’t afford in competition.

 

I play right handed, but I’m EXTREMELY left eye dominant, so much so that a sports vision specialist at Duke correctly told me that I would tend to miss putts to the left (dominant) side anyway.  So the last thing I needed was a line that not only looked tilted toward me, but aimed left.  And the line DOES look like that for me, even now after 8 years of putting face on/side saddle.

 

If you can use it, great, and I know and play with lots of guys that can and do.  But please, please DO NOT ever, EVER write, say, or think that everybody could get used to the line if they just tried hard enough and long enough.  That is sheer stupidity.

[DaveLeeNC]

1 hour ago, bluedot said:

One thing that is rarely mentioned regarding the ability to use the line is not only eye dominance, but the DEGREE of eye dominance.

Just as an interesting aside, I have a friend (more of a tennis player than golfer) who recently had a relatively severe AFIB event. He was left eye dominant prior to that event and after leaving the hospital was right eye dominant. I don't know if that reverted back to 'normal' or not. I would never have guessed that could/would happen.

 

dave

[DaveLeeNC]

8 hours ago, Ethan DelGrosso said:

I'm an AP statistics student and for my final I actually tested whether there was a significant difference when putting with a line vs without a line. I ran a controlled test with 25 different putt locations where I used the same "line" and pace but simply aimed the ball with the graphics of Taylormade TP5 PIX or by eye alone. I then took the difference between each pair of putt and ran a statistical procedure to determine if there was a significant difference which there was not for me. Although not statistically significant was on average closer when using the line on the ball. I am attaching a copy of my slideshow if anyone is more of a stats nerd and wants to take a deeper look.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1M_2z9f0gu18FdhmaUqjVuvrC2nCBYdiDKs_8i0O-N5o/edit?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for posting that. I do believe that this is an extremely personal situation. I am early in my 'transition to the line' but I believe that for me my direction control is better but my distance control is worse using the line. My expectation is that I will end up using the line on shorter putts and not on longer putts - but time will tell. 

 

If I were to do a similar experiment I would probably chose to measure somewhat different outcomes where inside 10 feet (or something similar) I would be measuring putts made and on the longer distances it would be distance from the cup (as you did). 

 

dave

[bluedot]

8 hours ago, DaveLeeNC said:

Just as an interesting aside, I have a friend (more of a tennis player than golfer) who recently had a relatively severe AFIB event. He was left eye dominant prior to that event and after leaving the hospital was right eye dominant. I don't know if that reverted back to 'normal' or not. I would never have guessed that could/would happen.

 

dave

If you can, google “Justin Jefferson eye dominance” and read a piece from The Athletic about all of this.  Testing shows that Jefferson’s eye dominance actually changes based on where he is on the field and where the ball is thrown. That makes him a unicorn; literally one of one as far as any testing shows.  
 

But as the article points out, elite athletes typically have a very low degree of eye dominance, and all of us are somewhere along a continuum of degree of dominance.  In short, what one golfer sees when he looks at the line isn’t what another golfer is seeing, and maybe by a lot.

 

I don’t know of a shred of data that supports the idea that, with time and training, anyone can teach themselves to see anything the same way someone else does.  

 

 

[Trippels]

22 minutes ago, bluedot said:

If you can, google “Justin Jefferson eye dominance” and read a piece from The Athletic about all of this.  Testing shows that Jefferson’s eye dominance actually changes based on where he is on the field and where the ball is thrown. That makes him a unicorn; literally one of one as far as any testing shows.  
 

But as the article points out, elite athletes typically have a very low degree of eye dominance, and all of us are somewhere along a continuum of degree of dominance.  In short, what one golfer sees when he looks at the line isn’t what another golfer is seeing, and maybe by a lot.

 

I don’t know of a shred of data that supports the idea that, with time and training, anyone can teach themselves to see anything the same way someone else does.  

 

 

Elite athletes have low eye dominance? That's disappointing, I've got zero eye dominance and always been trash at sports

[bluedot]

1 hour ago, Trippels said:

Elite athletes have low eye dominance? That's disappointing, I've got zero eye dominance and always been trash at sports

Well, it’s not the ONLY defining trait of elite athletes…

[Simp]

Like another poster said, I use a line on all of my putts because once I'm over the putt I don't want to think about anything but speed. It's been a game changer for me. 

[dlam]

I might be classified as non linear   As my eyes tend to look for curves than straight lines 

I can putt straight up to 5-6 feet then I get offline 

Been trying line on the ball for putts > 6 feet and feel it’s helping up to about 12 feet

I feel it helps me just focus on rolling the ball and not thing else 

For putts over 12 feet then I feel like I have to use my intuition without the line for any putts for some reason 

Edited June 8, 2023 by dlam

[DaveLeeNC]

OP, here. I have done a decent bit of work at home on using the line and this  practice is as much about aiming the line as it is using the line. Right now I am more comfortable on the course with the line than without it. 

 

And I will say that using the line (and its associated better control of your initial line) will reveal in a glaring manner any mis-reads on shorter putts. And my reads on shorter putts are worse than I had previously thought. 

 

dave

[mshills]

My issue with the line during play is difficulty in getting the line on the ball aligned perfectly to my target line. I am strongly left eye dominant, and am no longer able to get to a full catcher’s squat. So aligning the line is difficult, tedious, and lengthy….and I don’t use it during play. 
 

I do love the line during practice to check impact and get that baby rolling with no wobble. 

[barryw710]

This is my take on using the line which seems to be working for now.  I have tried using line on and off in the past but found it finicky and inconsistent. My best success in putting was always with picking a spot 2-12 inches in front of the ball (depending on distance of putt) . Problem is that I can pick a spot from behind the ball but tend to lose the spot by the time I have setup.

So line up the line . Then use side of putter shaft (straight line) to confirm alignment then when over ball use the line on the ball to pick my spot and try and ROLL the ball over the spot. Can't actually even see my ball when I am putting as I am looking at the spot so takes out the tendency to HIT. Also easy to adjust spot 1 mm either side if line not perfect. 

Interested to see hear how people using the line deal with sidehill lies. Do you always try and have line perpendicular to the slope or perpendicular to eye-line ? Can't really find any articles that address the issue. 

 

[getitdaily]

18 minutes ago, barryw710 said:

This is my take on using the line which seems to be working for now.  I have tried using line on and off in the past but found it finicky and inconsistent. My best success in putting was always with picking a spot 2-12 inches in front of the ball (depending on distance of putt) . Problem is that I can pick a spot from behind the ball but tend to lose the spot by the time I have setup.

So line up the line . Then use side of putter shaft (straight line) to confirm alignment then when over ball use the line on the ball to pick my spot and try and ROLL the ball over the spot. Can't actually even see my ball when I am putting as I am looking at the spot so takes out the tendency to HIT. Also easy to adjust spot 1 mm either side if line not perfect. 

Interested to see hear how people using the line deal with sidehill lies. Do you always try and have line perpendicular to the slope or perpendicular to eye-line ? Can't really find any articles that address the issue. 

 

Generally, if a putt is more than a cup of break then I forego the line. For right to left putts it's more like half a cup and I don't use the line. 

 

I use it for small breaking putts inside 10 feet and putts over about 25 feet. Between 10 and 25 is use no line.

[mgoblue83]

This may have already been said but the line is super helpful for anyone who is good at reading greens and will not help at all for people who struggle reading greens.

 

The line helps verify alignment before the stroke and provides very valuable feedback after the stroke.

 

For me it's completely changed my putting inside 20 ft because I can immediately tell by watching the ball roll whether a miss was from a misread/speed or a mishit. 

[Scottbox]

Here's a cool vid on this from the king himself:

 

 

[golfortennis]

I was watching a European Tour broadcast some weeks ago, and when the camera showed a players ball, he not only had a line but he also had what appeared to be cross hairs.  Mark Roe(sp?) said he believes that is a legal cheat all players should use, because it also makes it even easier to line up your putter face.  Sample size of n=1 and all that, but it does seem to help.  You just get one of those tools that also has cross hairs and you're golden.