Reading Putting Distance – An Essential Golf Technique
Article by BQ Browning
How often have you been so close to winning a game of golf – there’s just the final putt. You take your time and breathe deeply, you concentrate and contemplate your stroke – and then you come up short! Worse still, you just miss the hole and have to watch your ball go rolling past the hole, leaving you with a return putt that is further than the original to which you gave so much thought and effort. Putting is one of the basic golf techniques that is sadly neglected by beginners and experienced players alike.
A huge number of games are lost on the putting green and in most cases it is down to the wrong distance, rather than to the direction of your ball. One of the great truisms of golf is that ‘You drive for show and putt for dough’. The weight of your putt is just as important as direction. Many new golfers rapidly get a ‘feel’ for the direction their ball will travel and how it will roll, even on the most unpredictable of greens. No doubt you have seen it yourself when a relative newcomer to the game leaves the ball within inches of the hole even on a sloping green time after time, getting more and more frustrated as the game goes on. What you don’t see quite so regularly is a miss with the ball coming to rest a few inches beyond the hole.
Learning to read the distnace on the green is one of the most basic golf techniques there is. So many factors come into play when making up your mind about the distance your ball will travel on the green. You need to factor in the slope, the quality of the green, is it wet and slow or dry and fast. Even the number of players that have been through the green ahead of you has an effect depending on how well they repair their pitch marks. Fortunately with the increase in the use of soft spikes we don’t generally have so many spike marks to contend with these days. Not least among the factors you must consider is the time of day – greens inevitably speed up as they dry off from the morning dew and the difference by afternoon on a warm day can be quite astonishing.
The main factors you have to concentrate on after taking the conditions into account are reading the line and the distance. Reading the line comes with experience of the game and the course. There are a couple of greens on my course that have deceptive swings which always give the local player the advantage as they are very difficult to spot when you’ve not played the course before. Reading the distance should be a great deal easier but it requires one thing that many new golfers don’t like to do – putting practice. Going to the range and bashing balls a huge distance with your driver is great for the ego but it won’t win you a game, and there is nothing more frustrating than leaving those putts on the edge of the cup, even if it’s a friendly round with your regular partners.
Time spent on the practice green is never wasted, especially if you are playing in a tournament. You should always practice on the day, in the conditions that you will be playing and on the type of grass that is on the greens of that course. You will never see a Pro go out on the course without spending time on the putting green and those guys don’t waste their time practicing golf techniques they don’t need to. Even ten minutes on the practice green will give you a feel for distance in the current conditions.
One of my playing partners learned the hard way never to leave the ball short. As a small boy, who didn’t get a great deal of pocket money he occasionally played with some members of his father’s regular fourball. They had a simple but effective system. If your ball didn’t reach the hole, you paid a ‘fine’, not much to them but a lot to a small boy. The winner took the ‘pot’. These days he never leaves a putt short! Quite simply if the ball doesn’t reach the hole – it won’t drop. I was always taught that you should aim about two or three inches beyond the hole and that way it should just roll gently in.
About the Author
BQ Browning grew up in a Golfing family and has been involved with the game for many years. News views and information are willing shared with fellow addicts at Golf Techniques and Tournament Tips. You will find a treasure trove of golf information written with wit, humour and wisdom.