Reading Greens

I did a search and came up empty. Hopefully, this has not been answered already.

My biggest issue in golf has always been misreading greens. I put the ball online most of the time. That is, it goes where I mean it to go. I do have mishits, not perfect. My routine is to look at the putt from the side and behind then plumb bob to pick up the slope. My aiming point is a couple feet ahead of the ball or the hole itself. I then take a couple strokes away from the ball, get into address and get my feet in the proper position to hit my target. Ball is above my left eye, I'm a righty.

How can I improve reading greens? Most of my misses are flat out misreads.

I'm sure you're going to get many responses, but the things that help me the most are to look at the green as a whole from right edge to left edge and far to near edge. This gives me the general slope of the green as a whole. Then I narrow it down to the slope of the area I'm putting over. You can use the water flow idea or whatever works best for you. Finally, I like to use my feet to determine the overall angle of where I'm standing. I've even stood with a wide stance with my eyes closed and rocked back and forth, and front to back to determine the slope. You will feel which way your body is falling most. If there are multiple breaks, I try to separate them in my mind and see the ball moving over each area independently, then I put it together in my mind before I pick my line. Once I pick my line, I have to trust it and roll it over my intermediate point no matter how tempting it is to change at the last second.

If all else fails....just read it, roll it, hole it.

This is the Ask the Pro section. Please leave this clean until GolfTec has a chance to come in and answer the OP. Thanks.

Smallville said:

This is the Ask the Pro section. Please leave this clean until GolfTec has a chance to come in and answer the OP. Thanks.

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Ooops.

Idrops said:

Ooops.

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No prob bro! I did it as well when I joined

And I do appreciate your insights.

griff - great questions....green reading is something everyone can improve on.

Remember this....READ IS A FUNCTION OF SPEED! Before you ever pick a "line" you must have an idea of what type of speed you will want to use based on the amount of uphill slope, downhill slope, or sidehill slope. Other things such as green speeds, grain, etc...can affect how much break or how much speed you will need. But...always identify those things first before you settle on a line. Too many people confuse mis reads with getting the speed wrong so the putt either broke too much or not enough.

A couple of tips you can try are:
- Remember, uphill putts break less and downhill putts break more.
- As you walk around the green look at the putt from a couple of different angles to see if you can get a better perspective. Staying below the putt is usually the best point of view. What does below the putt mean? If you know it is downhill then go read the putt from the other side. If you can tell you have a left to right breaking putt then walk on the left side of the putt (do the opposite if it is a left to right breaking putt) and you can get a better idea of how much side slope there is.
- Another tip I like people to learn is to read the green with their feet. So, in the tip above where I am talking about walking around...pay attention to your feet as you do so and see if you can "feel" what the slope is doing.

Hope it helps!

Patrick Nuber
PGA Certified Professional
GolfTEC - Golden, CO

Idrops said:

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bad dog!

Thank you from all of us Patrick, good stuff and all of us can use all of the help we can get about putting.

Since the golf gurus have spoken I will add this to the comments. If you always ride it is helpful to walk around to near the front of the green and see overall what the green contour is from that angle. Most of the time when you are riding you screech up to the green and jump out on the right or left side of the green and head for your ball and what looks like a right to left or vice versa is actually totally wrong. I putt a lot better sometimes when I walk because I see the green and the contours better walking up on it that way.

Great tips!

I believe working on speed will be a big help. Wonder if I should get my eyes checked? I just don't seem to be as sharp on the green as I used to be. Thanks for the input and I will take the suggestions to the course.