How to Make Every Putt by Joseph Parent

Author:Joseph Parent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Eyes on Each Side of Your Ear

Your eyes are designed to work best looking straight ahead, with both eyes at the same height and at the same distance from the object that you’re looking at. That’s exactly how you read a putt from behind the ball or behind the hole: looking straight ahead along the line, both eyes horizontally level and at the same distance from the hole.

But when you set up to the putt and turn your head to look down the line toward the hole, it’s a different story. Your eyes are looking sideways, not straight ahead. They are tilted, one higher than the other. One is closer to the hole than the other. An all too common perceptual problem occurs in this different position: the break looks different from what you saw behind the ball. That’s why I like to say that if we were really meant to play golf, we’d have eyes on each side of our ear.

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The Challenge: When you have different lines for the putt in mind, two things can happen: 1) you feel doubt about the line you originally chose and don’t make a committed stroke, or 2) you adjust your stroke to the other line, but it turns out to be wrong. Worse yet, sometimes you do both—you adjust to the wrong line for the putt and also make a tentative, uncommitted stroke.

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The Solution: The read from behind the ball or the hole, with your eyes working the optimum way, is usually more accurate. The task is to override your perception of how the line appears from your putting stance. Make a strong commitment to the original line and trust your process of stroking the putt where the putterface is aiming. Send the ball down that line, knowing that your level-eye view from behind the ball is the more accurate one. Making a committed, positive stroke gives you the best chance to hole the putt. If you made your putt, but it turns out that the line you chose wasn’t accurate, learn what you can from the outcome to improve your green-reading ability.

If you’re ready to putt, but your doubt about the line is so strong that you feel it would be difficult to commit to that line, don’t do it! Go back behind the ball and read the putt again. When you’re convinced of the line, use a discolored bit of grass or part of an old pitch mark in front of the ball as an intermediate target. When you take your stance again, aim the putterface toward the intermediate target. Get your feel for speed and commit to rolling the ball over that spot.

You may prefer to use the line marked on the ball as a reference point for aim. Align the putterface to the line on the ball and commit to starting the putt in that direction.

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Exercise: Whenever you practice putting, spend some time on breaking putts using your full routine. Read the

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