My Adventures in Putting

[sandsaver01]

I am writing this even though I know most people reading it will scoff, especially the good players. I take the Game seriously and wanted to play it the best that my limited talent would allow, so scoff away!

When I started playing TGC2019 about six months ago on a PS4, I really enjoyed the game. I improved slowly, starting out on Pro clubs and then switching to Masters in a month or so. My ball-striking got better as I kept playing and practicing, although it is at best middle of the pack in CC-D.

All that was well and good, except for the PUTTING! I adapted to speed and distance alright, but I could not judge the breaks to save my life, green grids or not. I looked at various videos on the subject, and the method that seemed to work best was the technique in North47’s YouTube videos of reading the angle of the grid lines.

It helped, but I had a great deal of difficulty in discerning the difference in angles by looking at the grid on the screen as compared to the bottom of the screen – the difference was too small to be accurate for me. My putting was so frustrating to me I was on the verge of giving up playing and just sticking with designing. So I decided to get more quantitative with it.

Looking at the little bars as they went across I wondered if they could be timed, and this time could be translated into a number of “clicks” of the left/right button. Some experimentation showed that this relationship held up pretty well – for example a time of 2.7 between gridlines meant it took 8 clicks to start the ball in the right direction to the hole one grid away

Anyway, after a great deal of tedious analyzing of time vs. clicks on my practice green setup I generated a set of 10 times from 1.6 to 15.7 seconds giving 17 to 0.6 clicks respectively. From this data I used a free online curve fitting program to generate the following equation which closely matched the data points:

Clicks = -0.6174348+(18.61634- -0.6174348)/(1+(Seconds/2.29237)^1.320662)

I did a fair amount of putting with this method using a time vs. clicks table, timing the bar across each grid between the ball and the hole, and adding up the clicks. Lo and behold, the method worked quite well; getting less accurate as the number of grids got bigger. After six or seven grids mistakes in speed start having a bigger impact so it was probably only 50% better than guessing.

Being a science guy, I decided to make this easier on myself, and made a small Google Sheet spreadsheet to do these calculations and sum up the totals for me, using the modified equation below:

B2=ROUND(if(C2=0,0, -0.6174348 + (18.61634 - -0.6174348)/(1 + ((C2/10)/2.29237)^1.320662)),1)

The extra stuff( the ROUND and if functions) are there to make sure blank times show zero clicks, and to round the clicks to the nearest 0.1, the C2/10 is there so I don’t have to enter any decimal points, i.e 2.3 seconds is entered as 23, etc. I use my phone as a stopwatch and my pad for the Google Sheet.

The link to the spreadsheet on Google Drive is Time vs. Clicks Spreadsheet. It is set up for edit, but please don’t change the equation if you decide to use it.

This method is really tedious and slow if you have more than a few grids distance or if the bars are really slow, so I would never use it if I was playing with other people (then my putting would just s**k like it used to). I do use this for any tournaments though, and I hope that will keep moving up in TGCTours, even though I know I will never be good enough to get to the Euro or PGA.

So laugh amongst yourselves if you must, but it works for me.

[ohheycat]

Thats actually pretty close to our formula that we only allow the pga club access to

[sandsaver01]

I KNEW there would be scoffing cat, I just did not expect it this fast!

[ohheycat]

In all honesty this is an interesting read.

[mrohde4]

I found this very interesting too. If it works, do it.

Curious your experience on downhill putts vs. uphill putts. I've always believed downhillers break much more than uphill, but I wonder if the elveation change could be another variable into the equation.

[sandsaver01]

Oct 4, 2019 14:33:02 GMT -5 mrohde4 said:

I found this very interesting too. If it works, do it.

Curious your experience on downhill putts vs. uphill putts. I've always believed downhillers break much more than uphill, but I wonder if the elveation change could be another variable into the equation.

I don't really have any feeling about that. It would be hard to separate out the effect of up/downhill from just hitting force or speed of the putt. I did all my experiments on a level side hill green. I don't know whether it would be possible to generate enough data points with the two variables of side slope and up or down slope. Also a lot of putts go both up and down on the same putt so the complications are mounting.

[Riotous]

Good on ya for sharing a tip Mike particularly one that’s taken a lot of effort

[Generic_Casual]

I like this! It's very interesting! I can't imagine the amount of time this must've taken. 😲😲

I use the grid boxes as well. I take the length of putt and make it a decimal. Then, judge the speed of the beads off feel. I get my final product like that.

20 feet is 2.0, then 1, then .5, then .25, and finally between that and the hole.

A quarter box is half between the hole and first grid line. Half box is on the first grid line over. One box is to the middle of the next box over.

This gets strange when it breaks to .7 or 1.15, or .6, or some other strange decimal.

However, the foundation for the basics is there for it all.

I make my fair share of putts to be honest. Misses are more on me due to speed.

Edit: This method does NOT break down due to green speed or incline of putt. It's the same formula/breakdown on ANY length, green speed, or incline. However, it's quite finicky and take some getting used to.

[ezzinomilonga]

Interesting..but I'm not a math guy, it would be too much complicated to follow for me.

I use my method, that starts like your (a "click" for every "grade" of speed of every break), but developed in a way very basic and more simple..but I'm very happy about it, cause it works with every distance quite consistently. I give a click on my putt direction judging the speed of every breaks I see. Is important to give these clicks when I'm using the standard putt cam, not any kind of scout cam, cause the clicks are way "bigger", with this cam. Also, i'm used to play mainly with fast greens, so it works particularly good with those greens, with medium greens I need three more clicks at the end of the count, if the putt is longer than 4 meters. 1 and a bit for the shorter.
With slow greens I struggle mainly for the strength..but is also true that I use it almost never if not on tour...so i need to work on it, and soon or later I'll do it.

I couldn't explain myself better..even cause is obviously all related with the speed of the ball..and for that I use just my feeling, that is particularly good I can say, at least with fast greens.

But I'm really happy with that. If I miss a putt, 85-90% of times is cause I miss the blue cone, at some point. Especially with longer putts.
And this is what scares me the most, about my future switch to master clubs..

About the breaks on downhill, of course breaks have more impact on the ball. A lot. But starting only by the point in which the ball starts to lose the initial speed. I, generally, for those putts uae my normal count, then I add clicks depending on how much strong is the downhill and starting from what distance/break I suppose the ball will start to roll just for the gravity.

With the shorter putts with strong or very strong breaks, I prefer to use just my feeling, cause with these kind of putts, the count don't works at all in the proper way.

[sandsaver01]

Oct 4, 2019 14:33:02 GMT -5 mrohde4 said:

I found this very interesting too. If it works, do it.

Curious your experience on downhill putts vs. uphill putts. I've always believed downhillers break much more than uphill, but I wonder if the elveation change could be another variable into the equation.

OK, my interest in this question was piqued enough for me to do some rudimentary investigation. The "experimental design" was as follows:

Player putting from 14 - 15 ft away 1" or 2" above or below the hole (it is difficult to get more slope without a lot of fooling around to keep the side slope from getting too steep) using the "Time to Clicks" data from a flat putt. Masters clubs, 187 greens. Three putts hit each up and down with making sure the line stayed in the meter cone.

Any effect shown in this small trial was within the margin of error, meaning sometimes the ball fell into the high, middle, or low side of the hole. That also could have been due to varying power of the putts, which I cannot quantify.

I am NOT saying up or down slope has no effect, only that it did not show up under these tests - who knows, maybe with more height difference or slower green speeds it would.

[ezzinomilonga]

I think is this that makes impossible to have a formula good for everyone on putt. The speed of the ball is a part absolutely important of the equation..and I suppose that anyone has his habits on this. Me, for example, have a putt really sweet, in terms of speed. I adopted it from the start, when i realized that the speed i was used to have on TW was good just to hit bombs everytime, here..then i changed again, slowly, to have a putt still sweeter, in order to learn how to putt properly when the cup is downhill.
So now is hard that my putt goes over the cup more than few feet, even if is uphill.
Often, my putts goes in with the last roll or something like this. Sometimes I see how other guys putting, and, especially in the shortest putts, they smashes the ball into the cup in a way that I couldn't ever do

[ezzinomilonga]

I wish to exploit this thread to ask if some of you ever experienced what happens sometimes to me..and if there is a reason why this happens.. or if I'm just mad.

I just played a round at the country club at castle pines, a lidar course in Colorado, designed by Jack Nicklaus. A pretty fine and interesting course, by the way..also well designed, for the little I can understand.

Anyway..considering that I still must play my last round of this week tournament, I used the setup that I'll encounter on that round, using then soft fairways and greens very firm and fast. A setup I like particularly and that normally i read pretty well.

But while putting, i noticed quite soon that the breaks worked in a really different way than normally. A lot stronger than usual.
And i don't talk about one or two holes..i mean constantly. On every hole.
This thing happened to me also in some other course. Is rare, but sometimes it happens. I don't remember the conditions every time, but I'm pretty sure they were various.

Now my question is..considering that i'm absolutely sure is not a matter of wrong reading of the breaks, there is a technical reason why this can happens?

[sandsaver01]

Oct 5, 2019 13:38:49 GMT -5 ezzinomilonga said:

I wish to exploit this thread to ask if some of you ever experienced what happens sometimes to me..and if there is a reason why this happens.. or if I'm just mad.

I just played a round at the country club at castle pines, a lidar course in Colorado, designed by Jack Nicklaus. A pretty fine and interesting course, by the way..also well designed, for the little I can understand.

Anyway..considering that I still must play my last round of this week tournament, I used the setup that I'll encounter on that round, using then soft fairways and greens very firm and fast. A setup I like particularly and that normally i read pretty well.

But while putting, i noticed quite soon that the breaks worked in a really different way than normally. A lot stronger than usual.
And i don't talk about one or two holes..i mean constantly. On every hole.
This thing happened to me also in some other course. Is rare, but sometimes it happens. I don't remember the conditions every time, but I'm pretty sure they were various.

Now my question is..considering that i'm absolutely sure is not a matter of wrong reading of the breaks, there is a technical reason why this can happens?

I have heard (read?) others saying that there are mystery breaks on Lidar courses Ezzino. I have not experienced it myself but I have not played that many Lidar courses. I did not encounter it on Pine Valley Lidar.

[ezzinomilonga]

I'm not sure that is related with lidar courses. Normally they plays flawlessly about this.
The problem is that I really can't remember the other courses in which this thing happened to me. I'm almost sure they were not all of them lidar courses..but who knows..maybe is just me that can't remember and they were actually all lidar. Dunno.

But on this course, for example, the breaks really worked on the ball almost with double strength they should have normally. Something very strange to see. And obviously very tough to deal with. I scored -8 but I missed a HUGE amount of easy putts. And not by few inches.

Edit : Anyway..for what I experienced, the issue don't seems to be related to some kind of sporadic mystery breaks. Cause it was constant. On every green. It seems to be..i don't know..but as if the green speed was not the "fast" I selected, but actually something between a medium slow/slow speed.

[cseanny]

sandsaver01 interesting technique. I'll have to check it out a bit more.  More comments to come after I've had a chance to investigate.  I love the intricacies of figuring "stuff" out, and putting that hard work to use; Boom stick and in the hole!


mrohde4 Downhill indeed break much more. Take a 16F, 2in down putt. You double the downhill, so it would be 16 + 4 = 20F adjusted. If it was 16F, 4in up, then you simply subtract 16 - 4 = 12F adjusted (uphills don't get doubled). You then take the adjusted distance and multiply it by the speed of the dots (beads) and arrive at an aim point. So obviously, when you hit the ball softer, the break increases, and likewise, hitting the ball firmer decreases total break.

Aim points would be, center mass hole is Zero. The very edge of the hole is .6 aim point. 1/2 cup outside the edge is 1.2 aim point. In between the hole and the 1st vertical grid line would be 5 aim point. Between the hole and 5 aim point would be 2.5 aim point. Between 5 and the 1st grid line is 7.5 aim point. The 1st vertical grid line would be 10 aim point. In between the 1st vertical grid (10) and the next vertical grid would be 20 aim point. The 2nd vertical grid line is 30 aim point, so on and so forth. Basically, the distance between each vertical grid line is always 20 total points of aim, which you then divide into the appropriate distances.

Approximate dot speeds and flow %:

- 1.5s = 1.2x
- 1.8s = 1.0x
- 2.0s = .9x
- 2.5s = .8x
- 3.0s = .7x
- 3.5s = .6x
- 4.0s = .5x
- 5.0s = .4x
- 6.0s = .3x
- 7.0s = .2x

Two complete examples would be: 22F, 8in uphill= 22F-8= 14F adjusted. The speed of the dots averages out to a 3 second count (start counting when the dots are at center hole), or .7x multiplier. So we're left with 14F*.7= A 10 aim point, or the 1st vertical grid line.

2nd example would be: 15F, 5in down= 15F+10= 25F adjusted. The speed of the dots averages out to a 4 second count, or .5x multiplier. So we're left with 25F*.5= A 12.5 aim point, or just beyond the 1st vertical grid + 1 cup distance.

My base formula is on 163 green speed. On 170s you add +6% to all breaks, 180s + 13%, 150s -6%, 140s -12%. By the time you get to 119s, you're closing in on around -40% (it doesn't quite scale perfectly). Distance control more or less corresponds and parallels, break increase and decreases. But of course, not all 160s, 150s, 170s, or ANY green speed always acts the same. Certain green splines change the characteristics and behavior of the actual green speed, and or break. Sometimes 160s break like 180s but retain their same distance speed (Nomad comes to mind). You pick up on the subtle nuances for each course/greens after a few holes or so.