Putting is more of an Art Form than Science. Every putt changes with the slope of the green, the height and moisture in the grass and the distance to the hole. The Art Form can only be learned by feel and practice for each putt. Fortunately, determining the break can actually be determined by Science. Just use your putter as a Plumb Bob.
Putts break more as they slowdown. That’s why you should be more concerned with the break or slope of the green at the hole instead of the slope near your ball. On November 6, 2017, we released a Swing Tip about reading putts using your putter as a Plumb Bob. That tip is correct but my recent experience proves that you can speed up the process by focusing more on the break at the hole.
Rules for Plumb Bobbing (PB):
1/ Don’t waste your time with PB if the break is easy to see. Only use it when you are not sure about the break at the hole where the slow rolling speed of your ball magnifies the break.
2/ If you can see 2 or more breaks in your putt, DON’T Plumb Bob. Use your experience to make your best guess at the breaks in your putt.
3/ Your ball will break more as it slows down (near the hole) so you should focus on the break at the hole (NOT the break near your ball).
4/ Don’t try to PB if you have not calibrated your putter
How to Calibrate Your Putter
Hang your putter by the grip with 2 fingers and line up the shaft with a vertical line (corner of a building or door frame). Close either one of your eyes and rotate the putter until it lines up with the vertical line. Ideally you should try to find the matching vertical lineup when your putter face is facing the vertical line. That will make it easier for you to recall the CORRECT PUTTER FACE direction, the CORRECT EYE to keep open and the CORRECT SIDE of the putter shaft for your PB. [Without those 3 pieces of information, you will never be able to use your putter correctly for PB.]
When you line up your putter with the hole and your putter grip is to the left of the ball, that is the high side of the hole.
How to Plumb Bob (PB)
1/ Because the putt breaks the most when it slows down, don’t waste your time checking the break from behind your ball. Go behind the hole and keeping only your CORRECT EYE open, line-up the hole with your ball.
2/ Then hold your putter up with the CORRECT PUTTER FACE direction so that the CORRECT SIDE of your shaft is lined up with the hole.
3/ If the upper end of you shaft falls to the left (as shown in this image) or right of your ball, that side is the high side of the slope of the green. Your ball will break from the high side back to the hole. The wider the gap the greater the break in your putt.
Plan Your Putt
1/ Stand perpendicular from your putting line to determine if your putt is uphill or downhill.
2/ Know that uphill putts will break less and downhill putts will break more as they approach the hole.
3/ Based on your PB, you know the high side of the green where your ball will break (or curl) down to the hole.
4/ Build your confidence using PB on the practice green. Plan to minimize the break by always stroking to hit your ball about 12 to 18 inches past the hole.
Using your putter to Plumb Bob for the break at the hole will give you more confidence to sink more putts with a committed putt at your ball. Practice the perfect flat wrist swing with your GOLFSTR+ by locking your leading wrist and bracing your hips as you rock your shoulders to putt straight at your target point. Buy one today at WWW.GOLFSTR.COM
I have read about this method of reading a putt more than once in various places (the first time in Golf Digest if I remember well) , and, still, I don’t know if it’s me or what, but I fail to understand how this can work on a purely geometric point of view.
Let’s say that, after you stand behind your ball and you PERFECTLY align the ball with the hole using only your correct eye, there is no reason why, when you then hold your putter on a PERFECT vertical, you still wouldn’t find the ball aligned with the hole, no matter what the side-slope may be. The side-slope, even if it was 45 degrees has no bearing at all on what your eye see as long as you align the ball with the hole.
(UNLESS some sort of subconscious effect enters into action!)
Your eye just has to move a couple of inches left or right when you do this reading and the whole process is “contaminated”.
The most reliable way, respecting the rules, I have found so far to tell me the exact side-slope at the hole is this:
(first, I need to find the true vertical of my putter, and this is done the way you explain it)
Then, I stand behind the hole, facing the ball (no particular visual “alignment” with the hole) with my legs spread about 18 in. and PERFECTLY STRAIGHT so as not to compensate tor the angle of the side-slope. This forms an “A” whose legs rest on the sloped ground and duplicate the angle of the ground (albeit with a 90 degrees’ difference). Then I let my putter hang from the summit of the “A”. The deviation I am going to read between the putter shaft and the middle of the “A” is the exact angle of the slope. This has always worked for me, but, then again, I’m still open to a revised explanation of the “plumb-bob”method.
Regards,
Gilles B.
You will understand Plumb Bob better if you use a green with an obvious slope. Put your ball about 6 feet from the hole on the side of the slope (not above or below the hole). You really want to determine the slope near the hole as that is where your ball will break the most. Walk back behind the hole (about 4 feet)and use your CORRECT EYE only to line up your BALL to the HOLE to your FEET.
Now hold your calibrated putter up with 2 fingers and line it up with THE HOLE. If you are standing on a sloped green THE BALL will be lining up on one side or the other of the putter grip. Your grip end will line up on the high side of the ball. Your ball will break from that HIGH SIDE down to the hole.
Try it and let me know how you make out. It really is a game-saver to know the break.