Is putting mostly about green reading?

[Nels55]

5 hours ago, DLiver said:

Well this thread morphed pretty quickly...

Yes it has.  Nothing unusual there.

 

To answer your question yes I believe that Ralph Bauer is correct.  On my putting mat I can make one 7 footer after another.   On the course my make percentage from 7 feet is considerably lower.  Missing is a combination of the read combined with the fact that the ball does not always roll well on the greens that I putt on.  So my solution is to do the best I can to figure out which way the ball will break and then do the best I can to feel the distance while making a good stroke.  If I make a good stroke I'm happy and I practice not caring if the ball goes in the hole or not.  It's fun when it goes in but to me it's just something that happens if it doesn't.  Something similar to a bad beat in poker.   S happens.

[Nickb333]

 Before my wife began to actually play golf, she putted lights out. And I mean like nobody’s business lights out.
 

The first time I witnessed her talent was at fundraiser. They had an artificial putting green set up at roughly 25’. You got 5 putts for $5. We watched for a bit. Most folks made one or two. A couple guys made 3. I made 2. Wifey makes 5 in a row! Even as she’s laughing uncontrollably after her third, she sinks the next 2.

 

Some of the really old dudes (my dad included) looked like they were going to check out.

 

This wasn’t a one time thing either. We'd play miniature golf and she’d kill me. She’d almost never miss a putt.

 

Anyway, now that my wife is playing golf regularly, and more specifically she’s watching golf on tv, her putting has gone to hell. Why?  Not sure, but I see her lining up and mimicking a bunch of crap the pros do. Coincidence? 

[GoGoErky]

5 hours ago, Nels55 said:

Yes it has.  Nothing unusual there.

How has it morphed?

 

the op made a claim based on watching pros putt, some stats and his time working on putting. Some experts provide a rebuttal to that and shows it’s more about speed am than the line. 
 

Thats not morphing, that’s having a theory busted and not liking what one reads that disagrees with their theory 

[RichieHunt]

The more I think about it the more I think that putting is mostly green reading.  Or at least it's the most critical part.  It's not so much about making a read that can put the ball in the hole, but being able to consistently make the most optimal reads.

For example, I've used AimPoint for nearly 15 years and it taught me that I wasn't playing enough break than I was before.  Before I played less break and hit the ball firmer to play for the lesser amount of break.  The ball could still go in the hole, but the odds were much less than when I started playing more break using AimPoint.  And I had *better* speed control because my brain could naturally adjust to the speed required for playing more break.

Then recently I started to take record of my putting results and once again, even with AimPoint, the data showed that I wasn't playing enough break.  And once again, I adjusted my reads (still using AimPoint) and my brain was able to naturally adjust and my putting had improved dramatically.

Although I do believe that a bad putting strokes mechanics can make reads more difficult for a golfer.  Years ago David Orr was talking about this with how the putter head 'orbits' in the thru-stroke.  At the time I had a pretty severe leftward path and I would tend to over-read left-to-right putts and under-read right-to-left putts. 

I started using an elevated string line on my putts and started to really see the effect my severe left path had on how I saw the putt roll and by proxy how it affected my reads.  With my path going so far left, it looked from my perspective that a putt that was going perfectly square to the target was actually a pushed putt.  So my brain would tell me that on left to right putts I needed to aim way left or I'd miss low.  And on right to left putts I didn't need to aim too far to the right or I'd miss high.  

All of the skills in putting matter, but if your green reading is poor you've lost the battle before it has been fought.



RH

[GoGoErky]

still amazed at how experts come in give  their knowledge including in many cases data that’s supports its and yet those with no, handicaps all over the spectrum somehow know better and more than the experts.

 

 

[Hawkeye77]

5 hours ago, Nickb333 said:

 Before my wife began to actually play golf, she putted lights out. And I mean like nobody’s business lights out.
 

The first time I witnessed her talent was at fundraiser. They had an artificial putting green set up at roughly 25’. You got 5 putts for $5. We watched for a bit. Most folks made one or two. A couple guys made 3. I made 2. Wifey makes 5 in a row! Even as she’s laughing uncontrollably after her third, she sinks the next 2.

 

Some of the really old dudes (my dad included) looked like they were going to check out.

 

This wasn’t a one time thing either. We'd play miniature golf and she’d kill me. She’d almost never miss a putt.

 

Anyway, now that my wife is playing golf regularly, and more specifically she’s watching golf on tv, her putting has gone to hell. Why?  Not sure, but I see her lining up and mimicking a bunch of crap the pros do. Coincidence? 

 

Give her a crappy bullseye knockoff! 

[DLiver]

9 hours ago, GoGoErky said:

Morphed?

 

Sounds to me like those who teach for a living and have experience at the highest levels showed it’s not about the line as much as it’s about speed.

 

My question was whether missing putts was due more to read (line/speed) than being able to start the ball on a particular line. Then it morphed into a completely different discussion about the importance of speed. That's what I mean by morphed. It's fine. No one seems astounded that a pro can make so many more putts when they know the read (like they do on the practice green when hitting the same putt repeatedly). Oh well, at least it was a robust discussion. 😋

[mshills]

On 5/20/2025 at 6:44 PM, DLiver said:

Do you believe Ralph Bauer's contention at most of the pros' misses at short range are due to bad reads? And how do you develop accurate green reading skills?

Yes. A truly poor stroke or failing to hit the intended start line at that level is pretty rare. So I accept that contention. 
 

However, I’d be careful extrapolating what separates players by a razor edge margin at the highest level to your own game (or mine.) Without reliable distance control the read is irrelevant. Yes, the speed of the putt is part of the read, but I’m several steps before that…simply talking about being able to consistently hit a putt 8’, 10’, 12’, 15’….etc.

 

What I do not mean is how you can see many players tricking themselves. Player on putting green “working” on 12’ putts. First putt 3’ short. Second putt 5’ long. Then five or six consecutive right around the cup. “Hey my speed control is pretty good.” 🤔 Think again. 
 

I am an adaptive player and this is a struggle for me. I can comfortably putt side saddle and inside about 8’ it is remarkable how reliable and stress-tee those putts are. But I struggle re: distance control on longer putts with this method, so I’ve gone back to conventional putting (well, sorta conventional….R arm only.) My thought is better lag putting will more than offset the odd shorty miss. I need more time to have facts / stats to see if I’m right.  

[GoGoErky]

6 minutes ago, DLiver said:

My question was whether missing putts was due more to read (line/speed) than being able to start the ball on a particular line. Then it morphed into a completely different discussion about the importance of speed. That's what I mean by morphed. It's fine. No one seems astounded that a pro can make so many more putts when they know the read (like they do on the practice green when hitting the same putt repeatedly). Oh well, at least it was a robust discussion. 😋

That’s not a different discussion. That’s the people with knowledge and experience telling you that it’s not about the line but rather speed, it stayed on topic and the point is that its speed not line that’s more important.

 

 

[DLiver]

10 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

That’s the people with knowledge and experience telling you that it’s not about the line but rather speed, it stayed on topic and the point is that its speed not line that’s more important.

I'm talking about the read, which is discerning the correct combination of line and speed. You can't separate line and speed. Except for straight putts, there is a different line for a given speed.

[Hawkeye77]

28 minutes ago, GoGoErky said:

still amazed at how experts come in give  their knowledge including in many cases data that’s supports its and yet those with no, handicaps all over the spectrum somehow know better and more than the experts.

 

 

 

Is that happening in this thread in any negative way?  I don't see anyone claiming to know better/more than the couple of experts who have chimed in.

 

I'm always happy to read people's experiences - hard to have a discussion if they aren't being shared, hard to get a feel for many issues or understand where some notions are coming from if they aren't thoroughly discussed.  

 

Alert, here comes anecdotal (😀), but I often get a lot more out of some off the wall or perceived "dumb" suggestion and the resulting back and forth when it comes to playing/golf swing than out of "x is the answer and it shall not be discussed further" - extreme example, but not too far off.  And it can often be entertaining, lol.  

[SNIPERBBB]

Putting is really an All of the Above answer as far as speed, read, and stroke.  You have to have your stroke and speed under control for your reads to mean anything. Under reading a putt will result is much worse misses generally than overreading a putt. You'll note that better putters tend to over read more than they under read.

 

Also experience cannot be underestimated in putting. The more you play the same course(s), the more you learn some of the quirks of the greens like the infamous Rae's Creek at Augusta.

Edited May 22 by SNIPERBBB

[getitdaily]

6 minutes ago, DLiver said:

I'm talking about the read, which is discerning the correct combination of line and speed. You can't separate line and speed. Except for straight putts, there is a different line for a given speed.

Imo, as the putt gets shorter, the line gets more important.

 

Assuming you're not blasting 7 footers 5 feet past the hole, it's mush easier to miss a short putt because you make a terrible stroke. 

[JamesFisher1990]

I'm not a great putter but I'm ok - Arccos has my putting handicap around a 0 to -1. For me it's 3 things, in this order of importance:

1) speed control - you'll never make a single putt if it's not at the right speed, By far outweighs all other aspects

2) face control - ideally you want it between -1 and +1 relative to the hole (or where ever you're aiming)

3) green reading - You can have #1 and #2 correct but if you read left to right and it's right to left obviously it's unlikely go to in the hole

 

Things people think matter very much, but I think matter much less:

- stroke mechanics

- aiming perfectly dead center cup (on straight putts)

 

Things I think matter more than people give credit for:

- putter overall weight and head weight (big factor in speed control relative to green speeds and grass types)

- Putter face design (heavy milling, insert, etc); again, will affect the speed at which the ball comes off the face and so on

- how their golf ball choice affects ball roll; it's been anecdotally shown that softer balls will roll further than very firm ones (G. Raflewski)

 

What I think is missing from almost all putter fittings and coaching (only seen this done once so far)

- Using a surface that can move, i.e. get a baseline but then see how you do putting up vs down hill, reading and reacting to left vs right break

- considering ball choice when it comes to putting; the changes in smash factor, feel, etc in combination with various putter faces factoring in your tendancies

      - If you chronically leave putts short, maybe you want to consider a 'hotter' ball or less face milling or a heavier head... or a combination of

- Varying stimp; every fitting I've ever done has been on perfect 10-11 stimp artificial surface...Most of us are rolling rocks on something like 6-9 stimps that vary during the year... I'm only seeing 10 or more if I travel to nicer clubs

[SNIPERBBB]

11 minutes ago, JamesFisher1990 said:

considering ball choice when it comes to putting; the changes in smash factor, feel, etc in combination with various putter faces factoring in your tendancies

Unless you play in scrambles where you can trade out balls for every shot, picking a ball just got putting is silly. If you play with the dajr ball and don't play whatever ball you found in the woods, you will get acclimated to the feel of the ball if you practice enough.

[JamesFisher1990]

3 minutes ago, SNIPERBBB said:

Unless you play in scrambles where you can trade out balls for every shot, picking a ball just got putting is silly. If you play with the dajr ball and don't play whatever ball you found in the woods, you will get acclimated to the feel of the ball if you practice enough.

I never said just based on putting. But I think it is overlooked. Let's say you need a higher spin ball because you play a draw normally and your home course is more firm. You could play TP5, Chrome Soft x, ProV1x as an example. TP5 is much softer than ProV1x - there is a good chance they will perform differently off the putter face, whether that's straight up smash factor or how the player reacts to the sound/feel. There's plenty of balls out there which have similar spin profiles for wedges & irons which feel drastically different (TP5X and ProV1 is another example).

 

I have done several fittings at big box and even 1 at a more 'boutique' situation, and not once was ball a variable. When you go randomly roll putts at PGA Tour Super store, what is the ball that's always present? A squishy little marshmallow Super Soft - you'll think to yourself oooo this putter feels like butter! Then you buy it and get to the course, slap down your ProV1x and it feels and performs totally different.

[SNIPERBBB]

Unless you're never played golf before, you'll know how your ball of choice comes off the putter face. 

 

If you go to a store and they have marshmallows and they come off hot for one putter and dead off another, you should have a pretty good idea how that putter will react with your normal ball.

 

Anyways you will get used to how your putter/ball combination works with a modicum of practice. 

[Petethreeput]

I will get excoriated for saying this because I can't back it up with statistics, but green reading is the largest factor for professionals, but much less so for amateurs which is why everyone has stated speed is #1.

 

Monte always says the major reason for poor speed control is mishits.  Pros don't do this often so getting the ball on their intended line at the proper speed is completely based on their green reading skills.  For amateurs the mishit is a product of a stroke that doesn't consistently repeat itself, that's self evident because of the mishits, therefore green reading skill is much less important.

 

If I misread a putt by an inch or two (which I am prone to do) between the speed and the mishit I am just as likely to pull it into the hole as I am to push it away from the hole.  In my case, speed is more important than line, which means the reading of the green is less important than the speed.  My goal is to get my putt to end as close to the hole as possible and speed is the most important factor given my putting stroke.

 

I do agree though, the player who reads greens better than his opponent has a distinct advantage.

[Noodler]

8 hours ago, Nickb333 said:

 Before my wife began to actually play golf, she putted lights out. And I mean like nobody’s business lights out.
 

The first time I witnessed her talent was at fundraiser. They had an artificial putting green set up at roughly 25’. You got 5 putts for $5. We watched for a bit. Most folks made one or two. A couple guys made 3. I made 2. Wifey makes 5 in a row! Even as she’s laughing uncontrollably after her third, she sinks the next 2.

 

Some of the really old dudes (my dad included) looked like they were going to check out.

 

This wasn’t a one time thing either. We'd play miniature golf and she’d kill me. She’d almost never miss a putt.

 

Anyway, now that my wife is playing golf regularly, and more specifically she’s watching golf on tv, her putting has gone to hell. Why?  Not sure, but I see her lining up and mimicking a bunch of crap the pros do. Coincidence? 

 

Instinct Putting - finding this method improved my distance control so much, putting became my primary strength in my game.  I actually stumbled onto this technique during some putting practice.  I then found out that not only was this a "thing", but there was a doctoral paper and books written about it.  I had tried every method under the sun to manage my distance control up to that point, but looking at the hole for the entire stroke opened up my natural distance control instinct.  If you don't have 8 hours/day to practice your putting, instinct putting can be a game changer for many golfers.

[me05501]

3 hours ago, DLiver said:

I'm talking about the read, which is discerning the correct combination of line and speed. You can't separate line and speed. Except for straight putts, there is a different line for a given speed.

 

 

If that's how you see it, you need to focus mostly on reading speed and let that determine the line you choose. 

 

What the pros seem to be telling us is that handicap players tend to read the line first and then choose a speed. It works better the other way around. 

Edited May 22 by me05501

[GoGoErky]

1 hour ago, JamesFisher1990 said:

Things I think matter more than people give credit for:

- putter overall weight and head weight (big factor in speed control relative to green speeds and grass types)

- Putter face design (heavy milling, insert, etc); again, will affect the speed at which the ball comes off the face and so on

- how their golf ball choice affects ball roll; it's been anecdotally shown that softer balls will roll further than very firm ones (G. Raflewski)

Did a ping fitting and the two biggest things of focus were head weight and head design. We talked milling more for feel/sound.

 

 

[MidwestHacker]

24 minutes ago, Noodler said:

 

Instinct Putting - finding this method improved my distance control so much, putting became my primary strength in my game.  I actually stumbled onto this technique during some putting practice.  I then found out that not only was this a "thing", but there was a doctoral paper and books written about it.  I had tried every method under the sun to manage my distance control up to that point, but looking at the hole for the entire stroke opened up my natural distance control instinct.  If you don't have 8 hours/day to practice your putting, instinct putting can be a game changer for many golfers.

Have you found that your contact has suffered at all doing this? I started putting my ball down with my single dimple sharpie mark where I want to contact the ball, and then just focusing on moving my putter through that mark, contact has become a lot more consistent, and with that I can control distance a lot better because I know how far the ball is going to roll if I bring the putter back a certain distance. 

[Noodler]

3 minutes ago, MidwestHacker said:

Have you found that your contact has suffered at all doing this? I started putting my ball down with my single dimple sharpie mark where I want to contact the ball, and then just focusing on moving my putter through that mark, contact has become a lot more consistent, and with that I can control distance a lot better because I know how far the ball is going to roll if I bring the putter back a certain distance. 

 

A big caveat here is that there is a lot of dependence on your putter design if you choose to go with instinct putting.  Putters with higher head MOI are not nearly as "picky" about the accuracy of the center-strike to maintain the same distance with strikes across the face.  So test this with your putter, and see how much an off-center strike actually changes the distance.  What I've found with mine is that there's much more variability due to my stroke than if I hit the ball a 1/4" off-center on the putter.

 

The other thing to keep in mind is that face angle is king with putting.  Your swing path is practically meaningless.  You can test this yourself using wildly crazy in-to-out or out-to-in swing paths, but with a good face angle and you'll see that the path the ball takes is still very much in line with the face angle.  

 

That said, you still need to groove a good consistent stroke.  I built a putter that has a heavier head and significant counterweight (100g positioned above my hands).  I also have the "flat" of the grip perfectly aligned with the putter face, so that I can feel the face angle in my hand.  All of this has given me a stroke that I'm confident with.  Then you don't need to watch the ball to hit it well, and can focus solely on the hole.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, DLiver said:

My question was whether missing putts was due more to read (line/speed) than being able to start the ball on a particular line. Then it morphed into a completely different discussion about the importance of speed. That's what I mean by morphed. It's fine. No one seems astounded that a pro can make so many more putts when they know the read (like they do on the practice green when hitting the same putt repeatedly). Oh well, at least it was a robust discussion. 😋

 

Your question was vague and started with a situation that you don't see on the golf course: someone hitting the same putt repeatedly after knowing the line. From 12' even a Perfect Putter can miss 1/3 of the time. And a Tour player will miss more often on a "typical green" than they will at a PGA Tour stop.

 

The data says that most amateurs are pretty good at also controlling the face angle. It's not a huge differentiator.

 

And I agree that green reading is important. It's one of only three inputs: read, bead, and speed. Bead is hitting your start line. Of the three, and for putting overall… speed control is the most important.

 

And on the golf course, where you're not hitting a bunch of putts in a row, speed informs the read and that's why it starts there: until you know the speed at which you're going to hit the ball, the read isn't determined yet.

And sometimes you can mess up all three and still make the putt: you can under-read a putt, pull it, and hit it a little too firmly and it still goes in. And sometimes you can do all three perfectly and still miss… because a dimple hits a little bump a bit differently, and the small bits of randomness magnify in the same direction, and you miss.

 

Tour players aren't terribly great greens readers. They're better than most amateurs, but… they're not tremendous. Heck, talk to Mark Sweeney off the record and you'll be shocked at some of the stories he'll tell you.

 

I've talked with a number of putting only Tour instructors… and they'll tell you the first thing they work on with almost everyone is… speed. Poor speed control leads to three-putts. And more missed 12-footers than read/bead. Once they've begun to address that, the read is often second because of how tightly those two are intertwined. Which of the nearly infinite lines (depending on how granular you want to be 😄) is the chosen line and what speed does it require?

 

2 hours ago, DLiver said:

I'm talking about the read, which is discerning the correct combination of line and speed. You can't separate line and speed. Except for straight putts, there is a different line for a given speed.

 

And when I say speed I mean the ability to hit the ball 14.5' when you want to hit it 14.5'. Or 26' when you want to hit it 26'.

 

22 minutes ago, Petethreeput said:

I will get excoriated for saying this because I can't back it up with statistics, but green reading is the largest factor for professionals, but much less so for amateurs which is why everyone has stated speed is #1.

 

Not excoriated, just disagreed with. My foundation for that:

• Tour putting instructors and their experiences and conversations.
• Stats. They tend to show the area with which even PGA Tour players struggle, and the area of separation from good to bad putters, is in distance control.

Now, because they're on the PGA Tour, you might say "they're already great greens readers." That's where I can't "prove" one thing or another (nor can you), because they're generally not from all I've heard and seen myself. (They've gotten better since AimPoint, and yet… the 50% mark has moved from about 7'10" to 8' only.) They putt from memory a lot. They make decent guesses. And they miss half of their eight-footers despite playing the same holes on the same courses year after year (generally speaking).

 

Now, if they can't control speed to an elite level (on a 12' putt they should be able to control speed to within about seven or eight inches), that messes with their reads, but they could be great at reading greens, still make a decent number of putts from that range, and still not be a great (to PGA Tour standards) level putter from 12'. They could be average. It's tough to separate everything out when they're so intertwined.

 

22 minutes ago, Petethreeput said:

Monte always says the major reason for poor speed control is mishits.

 

For who? Tour players or average golfers? Regardless, I'd disagree. It's one of the reasons, but the main reason is far and away poor putter head speed at impact (most often from a poor acceleration profile).

 

The video I linked to above says similar things to what I've said: amateurs aren't too bad in that area.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Petethreeput said:

Pros don't do this often so getting the ball on their intended line at the proper speed is completely based on their green reading skills. 

 

That part is untrue. Tour players aren't "great" at speed control either. They're better (as they are at everything) on average than an average golfer, but it's often not at the same level as their ability to hit a ball on-line.

[Noodler]

12 minutes ago, MidwestHacker said:

Have you found that your contact has suffered at all doing this? I started putting my ball down with my single dimple sharpie mark where I want to contact the ball, and then just focusing on moving my putter through that mark, contact has become a lot more consistent, and with that I can control distance a lot better because I know how far the ball is going to roll if I bring the putter back a certain distance. 

 

Oh, one more "trick".  My putter has a 79* lie angle (80* is the max within the equipment rules).  A steeper lie angle reduces the torque present in the swing.  Swinging a putter like a croquet mallet is illegal, but I have my setup as close to being able to do that as possible without breaking the rules.  This allows the putter to hang more freely from my grip.  A relaxed grip and stroke allows the putter to naturally square up through the ball.  I use an inside-down-the-line putter stroke (aka the Tiger putting stroke) and it feels so natural that it only takes some rocking of the shoulders to complete the swing.  And I should note that a consistent setup at address is critical.  I have checkpoints to ensure that my ball position in my stance and distance from the ball match-up every time.

[ShortGolfer]

If the green has a ton of slope course management comes into play.  I look for a line that will allow the ball to stop near the hole.  Sometimes it necessary to do this with the approach shot as some greens have so much slope that any ball above the hole will roll past it and not stop until it hits the fringe of the green for a very difficult putt back up the green.

[me05501]

I don’t know the source of this data but found it interesting (assuming it’s accurate).

 

Dave Pelz always said that finishing 18” beyond the hole was optimal, all things considered.
 

Among his considerations was the “lumpy donut” of raised/damaged turf around the cup, which varies greatly depending on the quality of the course and how often the cups are moved. 

 

 

Edited May 22 by me05501

[Nickb333]

Well, the hole becomes nonexistent for over 99% of putts that come up short. 

[mshills]

[Rbsiedsc]

13 minutes ago, me05501 said:

I don’t know the source of this data but found it interesting (assuming it’s accurate).

 

Dave Pelz always said that finishing 18” beyond the hole was optimal, all things considered.
 

Among his considerations was the “lumpy donut” of raised/damaged turf around the cup, which varies greatly depending on the quality of the course and how often the cups are moved. 

 

 

@iacas book "Lowest Score Wins"