The Best Practices for Reading Putts

welcome back to another good good Labs video today we're going to be talking about Green [Applause] [Music] reading green reading is obviously a very important part of putting it is one of the three pillars of putting which three pillars are green reading starting it on your line and speed you could have perfect speed on a putt you could hit that putt right where you wanted to right where you picked the line to be but if you misread it it's not going to go in so it's super important to be able to read your puts correctly and I feel like I've always been a pretty good green reader and uh my own opinion luckily so I'm going to share with y'all what my thought process is like um when I'm reading greens and kind of what I Look to do when I'm trying to rree and trying to figure out which way a putt is going all right so first off we're we're going to try to make things as simple as possible here at the beginning um if you're a beginner you might even be wondering like all right how do I even know which way put put supposed to be going it might be you know simple for everyone else but uh I can't tell which way a putt is supposed to go the number one thing I can tell you is that if you imagine pouring water onto a green and which way that water would be flowing then that's which way it's going to be breaking so like obviously on this little putt I can clearly tell in my eyes it's going to be breaking left but some people struggle with that if you're just new to the game or whatever whatever it may be so I mean if I just imagine pourn water it's coming down this way so it's obviously breaking left and I know that seems super simple might seem kind of dumb but I know a lot of people I've met before people have tried to help with their putting and they're just new to the game they can't even tell which way a putt supposed to go so if you can just imagine on a putt if you have like a 7 footer or something if you imagine pouring water in the middle of that putt which way that water would flow then uh that's just that's the way it's going to break also another little hack for reading greens is is reading the grain so on greens that have grain mainly Bermuda greens you'll usually see on the hole one side will be burnt out so it'll be healthy healthy grass and then one side will just be kind of dead and not looking too hot that's grain so whichever side that burnt part is that means it is going to be breaking towards that way grain wants to grow on whatever the slope it is so if there's a slope like this on the green that grain is going to be going that way so for instance if I had this putt to that hole and we were on grainy greens obviously like I said these are not grainy greens these are poana I think which don't have grain but if I was right here it's uphill so that means this side right here would be the burnt side so that just means it's going to be slow it's uphill but say say I was over here and this putt seemed flat but this side was burnt out then I would know that it might not be breaking much but it's probably going to have a little bit of a tendency to go left cuz cuz the grain's going that way just kind of a nice little trick you can have if it putts seems pretty straight you can go look at the grain see what it's doing and you know hey you know it's probably going to move just a little bit that way or a little bit this way because the grain's going that way which means that slope is that way so also you can tell by if you have a longer putt say you have like a 50 footer you might see sometimes that like the first part of the putts really dark the grass is really dark and the second half is really shiny and bright if you're looking at a Bermuda green and it looks really dark that means it's going to be into the grain if you're looking at a Bermuda green it's really shiny that means it's down grain with a grain so shiny putts will go faster dark putts will go slower okay now I'm going to go over what I think about when I'm reading a green first things first what I do I I have this ball right here let imag him in a tournament I hit this ball right here got like a what is this 10 got one two 9f footer for birdie mark my ball all that first thing I do is I try to pick where I think that ball is going to be rolling into the hole I'll look at this this and I kind of do it by a clock system so if this would be 6:00 right here I see this putt it's breaking left for sure I see it coming in the hole about right here so about five about I say it's probably 5:00 4:30 5:00 so I can imagine that putt going into that part of the hole what I do from there is I will pick a middle point where I think it's going to be rolling over so I try to see where that Ball's going in I try to draw a line visually back where I kind of think that ball is going to be rolling in the middle of a putt let me read this I see it I kind of see a little spot right here that I imagine seeing roll or I imagine it rolling over so I'm just going to put a big old hole there okay so I kind imagine it rolling over that next thing I would do is I will pick a starting point from there so obviously I'm not going to be starting it at my Midway point where I think the ball is going to be rolling rolling cuz it's going to have a little break on it early as well so I'll start it right at that I'll kind of match up from where I'm see it rolling to where I should start it I say probably starting it maybe just barely right of my spot maybe right here it's going to have a little bit of break get it over that spot and then it's going to roll in where I think it's going to be so then I'll what I do is I line the putt up and when I'm lining my ball up I just line it simply on the start line that I believe I should start it on now see if I read it [Music] right [Music] I feel like that's was pretty good I went through all that and what I'm trying to do with that and the grand scheme of things is I'm trying to visualize a line I think putting is so important when especially green reading visualizing a line is super important and I think it's good because if I can have a line in my head I see from behind the ball and while I'm over the ball it's just it's almost like I've already made that putt like I'm trying to see it going in I'm trying to see where it went in I'm trying to see this line so I can imagine that ball just rolling down that line I think it just gives me a lot of confidence knowing that I can see that line going in I know some people who can visualize that line very easily for me I don't so that's why I kind of have to go through each step from the hole where it went in a Midway point where it's rolling and then a start line I kind of connect the dots as I go back to my ball so obviously it worked there that's the grand scheme of things I am just trying to draw that line in my head visualize that line but going through each segment individually to draw that line line and being very precise about it is super important because obviously an inch here or there on reading greens can mean making and missing a putt so I try to be very as precise as I can with it and just try to make sure to get that line drawn in my head visually so I have a great drill for y'all that I do quite a bit haven't done it in a little while but um did it all throughout college and while I was playing professional golf yeah so it's called the gate drill yeah the biggest thing about one of the biggest things about this drill is being very intentional about it and taking your time and hitting just one ball a time you're not just hitting ball after ball after ball because I think putting practice the best thing to do is be very intentional in your putting practice and try to make the putting green as much like the course as possible hitting ball after ball after ball just quickly and putting just doesn't work in my opinion so be very intentional with this take I mean go through routines and try to take as much time as possible and try to really learn how to read greens better and try to just be very intentional about it so what you do is you pick putts from anywhere about 7 to 20 ft if you want to work on more 8ft length that's fine if you want work on 20 Footers that's fine just somewhere in that very makeable area but a putt that's going to have some break to it so I'm going to do I'm going to pick this putt it's probably about say it's probably about 11 12 ft so the first thing I do like I said earlier is I pick a point where I think it's going to be going in the hole I'll pick my point I think it's going to be right about in here so what I'll do is I will put a te on the low side of where I think it's going to go in actually I'm going to move that a little bit one more right here the reason I put the te on the low side of the entry point into the hole is because missing low is one of the worst things you can do when it comes to Green reading once it misses it's going to tail off more have a longer length coming back if you miss a high kind of eats into the hill it'll end up getting closer to the hole so a longer lag putt it's very important the reason Pros miss high so much is because if you do miss it it'll end up close to the hole but it will always have a better chance of going in if you barely miss your line a little high then it will if you barely miss your line a little low so I try to put that t on the low side and what I'm doing with that is trying to get myself I'm trying to get it to go in right here but also I can miss it a little high and it'll still be going in but I just don't want it missing hitting the te or missing low because I'd much rather air on the high side with my putts all right the next thing I'll do is again it's kind of like I was what I was doing with the green reading earlier it's just setting up te's to kind of make a drill with it so next thing I do again will be pick a middle point in the putt where I think the put's going to be rolling over I have my entry point I'll try to connect that line that line I'm visualizing try to connect it to a middle point I kind of see a middle point right where this little that little piece of cotton or something is right there so what I'll do is put two t Downs two T's down right there and obviously I I make them maybe about a putter length apart but that just gives me a nice visual on I'm trying to putt this ball through those t's next up you want to go starting line so my starting line will be my starting Line's probably about right here or so uh a little more so what I'm doing is I'm starting at this T trying to roll it through here and then try to get to go in the hole right there obviously I'm trying to be very precise with this green reading I mean I could have this red completely wrong I don't know but I have to commit to this if I'm very precise it gives gives me a little leeway that if I do hit a putt a little off maybe I do barely misread it then it still might have a chance to go in so let's try this putt let's see I'm going to line my ball up to that starting point line try to hit good speed and uh try to hit a good Putt and we'll see what happens I mean I thought that was a perfect read cuz I even I don't know if I pulled that or not it did go through the post right about here and then it went in the hole about here so it was a little bit left of everything that I wanted so I might have pulled it or maybe I just read a little too much but it obviously wasn't too bad cuz it still went in another thing that I'll do that'll get really precise with things is if I'm putting right here like I just puted from I will set up a camera in line with my starting line and then I can really tell that hey I started or I started that one a little further left than my starting line I pulled it but I read it great or maybe I started right on my starting line right a little too much brake on it whatever it may be so this is just a very good way to be able to to break things down you can visualize things with te's and um you can really see what your Tendencies are so say I was doing this drill for an hour and I kept hitting for instance this left T then that means I either need to work on my starting line I'm not starting on the line I want my Strokes not very good maybe I'm not hitting my line or maybe I'm just not reading enough break and those are the things you can kind of if you do this for an hour you will start to see some tendencies in your green reading it should help a ton and like I said I mean I just spent what 2 minutes mik setting that up it can be 2 minutes for one putt you want to be intentional with this you don't want to just start putting te's down be like uh maybe here uh maybe here really be intentional be precise on what you want to do with this drill and if you go for an hour and hit 30 putts or 40 putts that is fine you know be intentional with it you want to make sure to break green reading up into those three segments entry point into the hole a spot where you think the ball is going to be rolling over and a starting point try to visualize that line and connect the dots and having that line that visual in your head I think it helps me a ton with more making more putts I think it'll help you out too that's it for the video thank you for watching uh I hope this can help you green reading I luckily have always been a pretty good green reader in my past these are the secrets that I have I try to break it up into three parts visualize the line and if you're precise with it then it should help out your green reading a lot so I hope you can use these tips to shave a few Strokes off your score next time you go out make sure you use this drill be intentional about it and yeah but thank you so much for watching there's a lot more good stuff coming up soon on good good Labs we appreciate it thanks for watching [Music] peace

Channel: Good Good Labs

Views: 28,325

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Id: KBukWk8Fltg

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2024