I'm telling you guys...line on ball

[DaveLeeNC]

10 hours ago, wadesworld said:

No matter whether the line is good or bad, there will always be those of us with knee problems who can't get down sufficiently to line up the line, so we'd better figure out how to be good without it.

 

I am bone on bone in both knees and I literally can only lower my butt about 6-8 inches (using knee bend only) before things get uncomfortable (and actually audible WRT my right knee). I have recently (past 2 months) started using the line with a good bit of success (and hiccups along the way). Two things were critical here. 

 

1) When I practice putting I ALWAYS use the line so I am very good at placing it from basically directly above the ball (not quite but...). 

 

2) My ball marker has a line and when I put down my marker I do a rough alignment as defined by the ball marker line and that is my starting place when replacing the ball. I almost never have more than one adjustment after the ball goes down. No adjustment at all is the most common for me. 

 

So it is possible for the line on the ball and arthritic knees to coexist. 

 

dave

Edited July 16, 2023 by DaveLeeNC

[DaveLeeNC]

On 6/3/2023 at 9:15 PM, MonteScheinblum said:

If you’re horrific at lining up 3-5 footers, even you you use the line, you need to practice lining up better.  I’m not saying lining up the line is bad for everyone at all times, but it has many limits.  If you can line up the line and then hit a solid putt without steering the line on your putter to the line on the ball, you’re a better man than I am. 
 

Im saying for most golfers it has poor long term success. 

 

I stumbled into this on rereading this thread. I changed to using the line 6-8 weeks ago. I have never been a good putter (even when my index was in the 4-5 range). Putts inside 10 feet were particularly troublesome. 

 

Firstly using the line made it crystal clear that I CANNOT align a putter correctly from a conventional putting position. I see it WAY left and no tweaking of my head position comes even close to 'fixing' this. So on short putts I was basically counting on my 'golfing subconscious' to fix this somehow. That never worked well and I view this as THE explanation for my short putting woes (plus green reading - but that is a different topic). And it also explains why putting practice always felt like 'coin flipping practice'. 

 

And you really have to 'putt to the line' to make this work. The first two rounds that I played after changing to the line were exceptional putting by my standards. I got quickly  comfortable here and took the attitude of 'use the line to establish your line' and then make your putt. The next 3 or 4 rounds were some of the worst putting of my life and that is saying something. 

 

Once I figured that out I went back to putting ONLY to the line, and the cup (or target above/below the cup) was strictly pace calibration. I am aware that 'it looks wrong' but I ignore that, and quite frankly am getting so I kind of feel comfortable with that feedback. 

 

The last two rounds were back to 2-4 strokes better than I usually putt (I have been using my own version of Strokes Gained Putting since around 2004). If this holds up for the next 5-10 rounds then I will say that I am convinced that this is a better answer for me. Right now I believe it but view this as unproven. At one round a week it won't be tomorrow when I am sure. 

 

dave

[iacas]

I'm pulling a few posts from another topic and replying to them here, where it's more on topic.

 

9 hours ago, bobfoster said:

I use the line on the ball, but don't need to spend ages fiddling with it to get it "perfect". There isn't perfect in regards to aiming the ball at the hole.

 

So why bother at all?

 

At the end of the day, the line on the ball is irrelevant. You still have to align your putter or, more importantly, align your putter at impact to go where you want it to go. The line is a far-from-perfect intermediate step.

 

9 hours ago, bobfoster said:

Practice it way more than anything else (would be dumb not to - roughly half the strokes on a scorecard are with 13 clubs, and fully the other half are with that single club ... makes a lot of sense to obsess on practicing with that club). 

 

No, it's actually kinda dumb to practice your putting that much. For a Tour player about 12.5% of their strokes are tap-ins. Should they spend even 2.5% of their time practicing tap-ins? Putting actually has the lowest "Separation Value®" of the four aspects of golf: you should spend about 2/3 of your time practicing approach shots and driving.

But… really off topic for all of this. 

 

5 hours ago, larrybud said:

Your eyesight must be terrible if you can't aim a line accurately at 15 feet.

 

Have you tested a few hundred players on this? Because almost nobody is going to consistently aim a line on a ball inside the hole from 15' (if you tell them to aim it straight into the middle of the hole).

 

4 hours ago, klebs01 said:

Because that alignment, even if 5 degrees off is still better than any other method that the player may use.

 

I understand what you're saying — that if using a line results in better putting performance, then who cares if it's actually lined up exactly — but what if not using a line at all and just using a relatively white part of the ball results in the BEST putting performance? Because you then just line up the PUTTER to your intended aiming point or something?

 

2 hours ago, Schulzmc said:

A large percentage of people whose livelihood depends on their play use a line on their ball to help them on the putting green. I would never be arrogant enough to call that practice “silly” since I do not earn my living on the golf course. I trust they know what they are doing.

 

Love the logical fallacy there. 😄

 

Many pros have lines on the ball but don't use them on all putts, or even a majority of their putts. It's just there if they want to use it. Using a line is slower than not using a line.

[getitdaily]

27 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm pulling a few posts from another topic and replying to them here, where it's more on topic.

 

 

So why bother at all?

 

At the end of the day, the line on the ball is irrelevant. You still have to align your putter or, more importantly, align your putter at impact to go where you want it to go. The line is a far-from-perfect intermediate step.

 

 

No, it's actually kinda dumb to practice your putting that much. For a Tour player about 12.5% of their strokes are tap-ins. Should they spend even 2.5% of their time practicing tap-ins? Putting actually has the lowest "Separation Value®" of the four aspects of golf: you should spend about 2/3 of your time practicing approach shots and driving.

But… really off topic for all of this. 

 

 

Have you tested a few hundred players on this? Because almost nobody is going to consistently aim a line on a ball inside the hole from 15' (if you tell them to aim it straight into the middle of the hole).

 

 

I understand what you're saying — that if using a line results in better putting performance, then who cares if it's actually lined up exactly — but what if not using a line at all and just using a relatively white part of the ball results in the BEST putting performance? Because you then just line up the PUTTER to your intended aiming point or something?

 

 

Love the logical fallacy there. 😄

 

Many pros have lines on the ball but don't use them on all putts, or even a majority of their putts. It's just there if they want to use it. Using a line is slower than not using a line.

That horse you're beating has been dead for weeks.

[iacas]

37 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

That horse you're beating has been dead for weeks.

 

I'm generally ignoring you, but the posts to which I replied are from today, so… no.

[getitdaily]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

I'm generally ignoring you, but the posts to which I replied are from today, so… no.

Doesn't matter. In a thread meant to support using a line you keep.coming in espousing your reasons why people shouldn't. 

 

You stated your case in the first 2 pages. But you keep arguing your point. 

 

Monte stated his case and left it at that. You could learn from that...

 

Or, like I said before, start a thread on why the line is bad and how you think people should putt.

 

At this point, in this thread, you're just noise.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

Doesn't matter. In a thread meant to support using a line you keep.coming in espousing your reasons why people shouldn't. 

 

Cool. People get to disagree with you. And I'm not the only one who disagrees with you.

 

8 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

At this point, in this thread, you're just noise.

 

[getitdaily]

You can learn to use the line.

 

You have to practice it.

 

You cannot "putt the line". 

 

It will show if you have issues in your stroke. Whether you need to correct those or not is up to you. If you can aim out of the hole and push or pull the ball into the hole consistently then the line will hurt you.

 

Take aim out of the equation and work on the other aspects of putting and you'll get better....so long as you practice.