If you’re missing putts, there’s a good chance your mistake happened before you even hit the golf ball: you’ve misread the putt.
Ralph Bauer knows all about that. Bauer is a putting coach from Canada who works with a slate of PGA Tour players, and developed the increasingly popular Tour Read app, which just launched a new putting course within it.
I like talking with Bauer, because I always walk away learning a lot, and putting a little better because of it. On the ground at the Cognizant Classic last week, he was telling me about a couple of findings he’s discovered recently, and what the rest of us can learn from them…
You’re bad at reading putts
Over the span of multiple tournaments, Ralph tested 10 different PGA Tour players and found something interesting:
- Players under-read putts (meaning they don’t read enough break) that move from left-to-right by about 30 percent.
- Players are slightly better at reading putts that move from right-to-left, but they still under-read those by about 15 percent.
“Players tend to read a little more break when they’re more turned away from the hole,” Bauer says. “When they’re facing the hole more face on, their eyes tend to under-read it.”
That’s a useful nugget in itself – play more break than you think on left-to-right putts – but even still, the fact remains that golfers misjudge both types of putts.
Look at the putt from below
So, in an effort to fix it, Bauer conducted a green-reading test on 100 of all different types of golfers. He had each golfer read putts from various locations, then used his Tour Read app to test where they were most accurate.
And what did he find?
That golfers’ green-reading was most accurate when they stood halfway between the ball and the hole, standing on the lowest point of the green.
“Eighty-five percent of golfers could perceive the slope best when they were looking uphill, halfway between the ball and hole,” Bauer says. “If you are one of those players, as you are walking up to the green you should be deciding which side of the hole you will read the putt from.”
Fifteen percent of golfers read the putt best when they were straddling the line of the putt – meaning standing directly between the ball and the hole. The combination of both those two methods would help a lot of golfers, Bauer explains.
DON’T look at the putt from above
One thing that won’t help a lot of golfers is standing on the highest point of the green, and looking down at the putt you’re about to hit. When golfers did that, they under-read putts by about 25 percent on average, Bauer explains.
To understand what that all looks like, here’s a hypothetical example from the famed double-plateau 11th green on National Golf Links of America.
Let’s say your ball is where the X is below.
According to Bauer’s results, most golfers would judge the break of this putt the best if they stood about halfway between the ball and pin at the front of the green (the lowest point of the area) and look back up at the putt. Or, if they were to stand between their ball and the hole.
Standing above the whole in either direction would probably result in an under-read – and a missed putt.
Ultimately, it’s all about finding a method that works best for you. Making a change like this is small, but may work wonders for your putting.
