Reading Putts

[ezra76]

On Fri. I played 27 holes with 1 3putt hole. (including putter off the fringe). My speed was very good, I rarely left more than a 2 footer on a miss. I had many putts that were just off by inches and an inch past the hole. I have a lot of trouble with my reads, I could have dropped at least a half dozen of my missed putts. Does anyone have any tips or secrets to better read putts?

[vincel]

My speed was very good, I rarely left more than a 2 footer on a miss. I had many putts that were just off by inches and an inch past the hole.

EZRA, sounds to me like you had a pretty good day! I usually read the break well but my speed is terrible. If you are just missing like you posted they will start to fall.
Vince.

[ezra76]

Originally Posted by vincel

EZRA, sounds to me like you had a pretty good day! I usually read the break well but my speed is terrible. If you are just missing like you posted they will start to fall.
Vince.

I've been practicing a lot in my living room. I stick to the same preshot routine. Read the putt, two practice strokes to feel the distance, then I stand over it and go from the hole to the ball 3 times with my eyes and just "burn" a line into the green. I swear I can almost see it sometimes. Speed is the most important thing to me. I don't get upset with a miss, as long as I can tap it in on the next one. I hear a lot on TV about putts breaking toward the water or "into the grain". I don't know too much about these factors. I did pick up a tip though, hinge the wrists a little on the uphill putts. I made a nice 12 footer uphill using that advice.

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

If you're lagging them a good distance, I don't think you should worry too much. I'd say the one thing you might want to watch for is if there is a pattern to your misses. Are you more consistently missing to the high or low side of the hole? That could tell you if you are tending to under or over read the putts.

The last bits about tendencies of putts is just ideas of general principles to keep in mind. A course I frequently play there is the 13th green that looks fairly level, but if you play it, you know that the putt tends to break towards the pond that's in between the fairways of holes 10 and 13. So you always play for the putts to move towards that pond way off in the distance.

Grain refers to some types of grass, and the directions it lies. Imagine that blade poking out and folding over in a particular direction, some types of grass will very frequently grow towards the west and the setting sun, and as a result, putts going with the grain will roll more easily, and putts into the grain will slow up quicker since the ball is pushing up the grass blades.

[DouginGA]

Best advice i ever got on reading questionable putts is to consider drainage. if the surrounding ground drains to the left, its a safe bet that the green will too, even if it does look level. even with drain pipes under the green, they didnt build the green to trap water. Plus optically, surrounding ground sloping to the left, and a green sloping to the left look parallel, and your eye sees it as level. just a thought, could be BS, but seems to hold true IMHO.

[Matthew_22]

For me, the less complicated I make reading the greens the better. As soon as I start over analysing my puts become a lot less accurate.
So maybe you were in the 'flow' and weren't analysing it so much that day, which is why you putted so well.
If you are getting that close I think now it just comes down to practice and sorting out those little inconsistencies.