Grooved Golf Swing - How To Read The Greens

Here is a great routine to follow before you begin to put. If you are like me you have a short piece of artificial turf somewhere in your house or garage and you have turned it into a practice putting strip. You practice every time you pass it and hit two or three puts until you sink most of them every time.

Then you go out onto the Golf course and guess what. There is always a bit of borrow or break in the line to the hole. So, to put as well as you do on your practice strip at home, you have to have some sort of system to determine the path to the hole. In other words you have to read the green.

You start your routine by looking at the Golf course itself and the green on it. Does the lie of the course slope in any direction? If it does, it will be a good bet the green will tend to slope, be it ever so slightly, in the same direction. So if in doubt, put with this factor in mind.

There will be some minor or major breaks on the green, but the over all lie of the land will be very important in your calculations as well. Of course the greens will have different speeds on some days and you will have to get used to this aspect of the course each time you go out there.

The professionals take for ever to read their puts, and this is something we amateurs are unable to do unless we want to be howled down and then disciplined by the committee. However, we can quickly pace out the distance of the put and convert to feet.

Knowing how many feet it is to the pin on a level green, a good thing to know is that every foot to the hole represents one inch of the back swing. So ten feet to the hole needs a back swing of ten inches. Don't forget to follow through ten inches as well and don't look up until your ball is well on the way to the hole. You say this is all very well. Surely the amount of back stroke is determined by the power with which one hits the ball.

This is so right.

Now the next bit takes some courage. You should have a stroke that you use when you put and this should be constant. The distance governed by the length of the back swing.

So, if your path is up hill to the hole, you will have to hit the ball a bit harder won't you? Well, this is not so. Well not quite.

If your path of your ten foot put is up hill a bit, then you have to think about putting to a point two feet or so past the hole. This is where the courage comes in. It is so hard to make yourself hit your put to this point. However you can see that by taking your club back two more inches for the ten foot put - 12 instead of 10 inches - your distance will be about right.

Now what about down hill puts? The ball runs and runs and you try to hit it softly. One way is to hit it off the toe of the putter and it shortens the distance the ball will travel.

However, if you aim to hit your ball so that it will stop two or three feet short of the hole, you will be about right for this distance too. So for your ten foot put, you take your club back say seven inches and hit the ball with normal power. Vary the distances past the hole and short of the hole depending on the degree of the slope. Ok, now you have all this worked out and you have a good deal of the speed of the put and how to hit it, you have to determine your line.

How much break is there?

Firstly have a look from ball to hole by squatting down. You will be able to determine which is the high side and which is the low side. The high side is of course, the side from which the ball will move towards the hole and hopefully fall in.

What few amateurs do and what most do not know is that you should go to the low side of the path to the hole. It is from here that you will be able to get the best idea of the degree of slope than you can by just looking from the ball to the hole.

Now the length of the put comes in as a factor. If the put is say ten feet, then the ball will be traveling faster than it will for a four foot put. The faster traveling ball will be less affected by the break than a slower moving ball over four feet. The shorter put will move much more as a result of the break as it reaches the cup because it will be almost stopping. The longer put will be less affected because it will be going faster.

Similarly, on a down hill put where you want your ball to ravel slower, it will be more affected than an uphill put where the ball will be hit a little harder.

Now visualization comes into it.

Having worked out distance, speed and break, visualize your put taking the path you have chosen and see it traveling to the hole and dropping in.

Then step up and full commit and hit the ball.

It is no good working all this out and then hitting a tentative put due to lack of confidence. All your calculations will go out of the window and you will probably miss. You will of course miss lots of times. But being definite will sink a lot of puts too.

I will say it again.

Keep your head still and do not look up until your ball is well on the way to the hole. Look at Tiger Woods. Now look at all the rest. Only tiger keeps his head still.

Only Tiger sinks amazing puts time after time.

Bill Maitland is a thinking, inventive Golf guru. He thought out and developed simple techniques and tips which enabled him to lower his handicap from 25 to 18, then from 18 to 15, and finally from 15 to 12. He is a passionate Golfer, and delights in helping others with their game should they want his help. To receive a valuable weekly Golf tip go to his web site Golfershandbook.com">http://www.onlineGolfershandbook.com and subscribe to his free Hole In One News Letter. You will be so glad that you did.

Author of On Line Golfers' Hand Book. An e-Book that takes you step by step to being the best Golfer that you can possibly be. The basics in great detail. To learn about his tips and simple techniques and order his book, visit his web site

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