Why Speed Dictates Aim

When it comes to putting, and more importantly holing putts, there are only a few factors that are truly going to make a difference when it comes down to it. Technique aside, Speed is going to be one of the biggest influencers on the probability of making the putt. The reason for this is because Speed is going to determine the line you aim the ball on. A putt with less pace is going to break more than a putt of equal distance with more pace.

In addition to Speed being an important contributor to the line you select, it also affects the size of the golf hole that you are putting towards. The hole doesn’t really change size, however, once the golf ball goes into motion, the holes “effective size” changes. Essentially, at rest the golf ball can cross any threshold of the hole and fall in, thus making the holes “effective size” 100%. However, once the ball is placed into motion and is traveling at 1.68MPH the “effective size” of the hole decreases to 75%.

1.68 MPH, Entry Speed, 1-foot past the hole on an 8 stimp meter green, or 2-feet past the hole on a 14 stimp meter green, they all represent the same thing, your best chance to make the putt while giving you the best chance at a kick-in on your next attempt should you miss. Entry speed is a relatively new term, however, is a concept that has been around for a long time.

Real World Application

Mr. Smith is an average golfer and routinely shoots in the mid 80’s at his local course from the regular tees. Mr. Smith decides he wants to put in some work on his short game, and set’s about making more putts from 10-feet and closer. Mr. Smith knows that the practice green has some slope and undulation and picks a putt that breaks from left-to-right at a 2% grade. Mr. Smith putts 10 tries and makes 4 of them from 10 feet. Out of the 6 that missed, only one was missed on the low side of the hole with all of the other putts missed on the “pro” or high side of the hole. The balls that missed on the high side of the hole all came to rest between 3-5 feet past the hole. Based off of traditional knowledge, he feels confident that if he just aims a little more right on those left to righters, he is sure to make more on the next batch. Will Mr. Smith make more than 4 putts out of the next 10 attempts while aiming slightly more to the right?

Mr. Smith could potentially make more putts by aiming more to the right and maintaining his current speed, however, by aiming more “directly” at the hole he has created a more downhill putt which will also increase the Effective Stimp making the ball roll farther past the hole should it miss. Therefore, while we may increase make percentage some, the putts that are missed will be farther from the hole when they come to rest increasing the risk and likelihood of a three-putt.

What would be most beneficial to Mr. Smith would be working on speed control and using the slope and undulation to his advantage. Mr. Smith is like most golfers and routinely misses putts only to blame the line, when in actuality, it was the speed that caused the putt to miss the hole.

Why is Speed Control to Blame?

Some athletes see more curve, and some swear that they only see straight lines. Either way both are at a disadvantage if they are trying to putt the ball to the apex of the break. The reason for this is because the ball will begin to move off of the aim line very quickly as the break takes effect on the ball, and in most cases with breaking putts, the aim line will be outside or farther away from the hole then the actual apex of the break due to this initial breaking prior to reaching the apex.

With that said, using our previous example of Mr. Smith, when the average golfer sees the ball miss left of the hole on a left-to-right breaking putt, they assume that they “pulled’ the putt, when in actuality, they had to strike the putt much to firmly to get the ball to the apex of the break which is what caused it to not take the break at the end of the putt and go in the hole.

Now that we understand that most golfers are hitting the putt with too much pace and not playing enough break, how do we fix this problem? One way to approach this problem would be working with a coach and identifying the areas of speed control (length of stroke, force application, tempo, centeredness of contact, etc.) that need the most work and then develop a training plan to change the motion pattern. Another way, from a club fitting perspective would be to look at how the Instrument is weighted throughout and how that matches and affects the biomechanics of the athlete.

The Heavier the Putter the Better, right?

When you pick up your putter, do you ever balance it on one finger? If so, you know that the “balance point” of the putter tends to be a few inches up the shaft from the club head, and when you find it, you can balance the putter horizontally on one finger. Most putters in the market have most of their mass or weight much closer to the club head then the hands, and this is very important to understand. The more the total mass moves towards one end point, the more the heavier side is going to want to swing relative to the other end point. In engineering, they call this a moment arm.

When we feel how “soft” a putter face is, we are actually experiencing all of our senses and sound tends to affect what we feel a lot. For example, older Ping putters would tend to be lighter and have less mass than current putters, and luckily, they were named Ping because that is the exactly the sound you would get when you struck one. Often times, people would describe a Ping putter as being hard due to it being cast and not forged when in actuality it was due to weight. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the Heavy Putter that was around about 10 years ago. This putter was big and heavy and always felt to be incredibly soft, but in reality, was just a big chunk of lead with lots of mass.

The issue with having a putter that feels great and has a lot of mass is that it tends to hit the golf ball too firmly relative to the perceived “effort” needed to be applied to get the ball to travel to the hole. This leads to putts traveling at too much speed to take the amount of break that we planned on which influences our aim over time.

Perception vs. Reality

Most athletes believe that they prefer a heavy putter, however, when asked about putting, they frequently state that they tend to hit their putts too firmly and miss on the high side of the hole. Based off an understanding of how the weight affects the moment arm and acceleration of the putter, we can see how this is a conflicting ideology. So, if we know that weight contributes to creating the correct “feeling” of the putter for the athlete, yet leads to poor speed control, how do we satisfy both needs?

The answer lies in moving some of the weight or mass to the other side of the center of mass of the putter. The more we “balance out” the weight distribution between the two endpoints, the less moment arm effect will be created. The other advantage to moving mass or weight to the other side of the center of mass of the putter is that we can now satisfy both needs if we are strategic with where the mass or weight is added.

If the center of mass of the putter is a few inches up the shaft from the club head, then if we added mass or weight within the shaft but below the hands, technically the mass or weight is above the center of mass of the putter, yet still below the hands of the athlete which satisfies the “feel” component while still reducing the amount of moment arm effect. This internal weighting can be accomplished using the Opti-Vibe system.

If this attempt at slowing down the club head fails due to the weight of the putter “feeling” too heavy, then we can counter-weight the putter and actually put more mass in the butt-end of the putter. This tends to be very effective in slowing down the club head and many putter manufactures have begun to sell counter-weighted putters. This process can also be completed using a product called Tour Lock.

Summation

Speed kills, and most of us are much too aggressive with our putting strategy, which exposes us to longer “come-back” putts and leads to a higher likelihood of 3-putts. By better understanding how speed effects the line, we can reduce the number of total putts taken by reducing the amount of 3-putts. This is a much easier task to accomplish than having to make more putts outside of 10-feet.

If you are interested in seeing this concept in action, I highly recommend our Big Tilt Pro Max XL. Not only does it project the aim line, but also the maximum speed, minimum speed, and maximum percentage to make line. In addition to being able to see the lines, it also comes with over 50 different training programs designed not only to help with making more putts, but also developing all the necessary skills that go into becoming a good putter.

In addition to training the necessary skills to become a good putter, it is also important to evaluate your putter from a few different perspectives. In addition to creating the proper alignment and loft scenario at address, it is also important to evaluate the weight distribution of the putter and how that affects the timing or tempo of the stroke. While the timing or tempo will be unique for each individual, most good putters will maintain the same timing or tempo when hitting putts from different lengths, which is impossible to do with a putter that is either too light or too heavy. It is important to understand that you probably don’t need a new putter, just a little fine tuning with the weighting.

Fine tuning this process is very easy with the use of the Trackman 4 Putting Solution. By understanding the “fine details” of how we deliver the putter, and how this matches the biomechanics of the body, we can finally get down to working on the parts of the stroke that will have the biggest effect size and actually lead to lower scores.