Gadgets And Procedures That May (or May Not) Help In Golf Putting (part 1)

Everybody agrees that golf putting is the most important part of the golf game. At first sight, however, improving the putting performance doesn"t seem so rewarding as working with the driver or any other of the golf clubs inside the player"s bag. No wonder that the great majority of average golf players don"t devote any serious attention to golf putting. And when it comes to breaking putts, even fair and good players are usually, and understandably, moving in the desert. Believe me, the great majority of what you can read about this subject are laughable pieces of absolutely worthless text.

We have to deal with two main problems.

First: To read the green, that is, to evaluate the shape of that area between our golf ball and the hole.

Second: To know what to do supposing the green was correctly read in the previous step.

There are some gadgets and procedures available to assist golfers in the first step that will be analysed in this article. Some of them are not allowed in the golf course because of golf rules and others are just useless. Only two are useful and permitted by golf rules and one of those two, as far as I can figure, has never been revealed before. But if any of my readers can prove that someone else has disclosed it before, please let me know because, in that case, I owe the author an apology.

Let"s start our comprehensive review. If you are not interested in "solutions" that aren"t useful or violate golf rules, skip to part 2.

a) Plumb bobbing. A procedure that is allowed but useless.

I won"t give too many details about this technique. Those interested can google plumb bobbing in golf and get countless results.

Briefly, stand behind the ball and look straight to the hole, hold the top of the grip between your thumb and forefinger, extend your arm slightly and let the putter hang freely in your grip. Block the view of the ball with the lower end of the shaft of the putter. Only keep your dominant eye open. If the hole looks like it is on the left of the shaft, then you should expect the break to be from the right to the left and vice-versa.

All this is pure fantasy. It"s always possible to position the shaft, the ball and the hole in the same alignment. If they are not aligned it"s because the players have done what they needed to do in order to see what they wanted to see. It"s a kind of confidence booster to reinforce what they probably already saw by careful visual examination of the putting surface.

If you are not convinced imagine the pin is in the cup standing vertically. Imagine also that you have a big door that turns around the pin. Rotate it, in your mind, till it is over the ball and stop. The door is a vertical plane that, if you were plumb bobbing, would contain the pin, the hole, the ball, the putter"s shaft and your dominant eye. How can you measure any break in this situation? The answer is: you can"t, unless you cheat and move your head a bit to get it "out of the door".

b) Devices to measure break and provide the direction of the fall-line. Very useful gadgets but not allowed.

We are now referring to objects, either electronic or air bubble based, which display the most important piece of advice needed for the management of breaking putts: the direction of the fall-line, an information that is critical to establish the shape of the curve the ball will follow after the putter stroke.

Fortunately, in my opinion, they are not allowed. However, due to its usefulness, they are currently used by golf professionals to map the greens before tournaments.

Here you have the names of some of them, not as an endorsement but with pure informative purposes:

"eez-read", an air bubble based break meter
"exelys break master", an electronic break meter

A quick reference also to "the green reader", a disguised sophisticated plumb bobbing device, not allowed by golf rules.

End of part 1. Part 2 is available in this site.

Marcel White