Hole More Breaking Putts on the Greens, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Hole More Breaking Putts on the Greens, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Any golfer that has a little bit of experience of playing out in the golf course will understand that most of the puts you ever hit on the golf course aren’t straight puts. Most of them will have some curve or some break and here’s an exercise to help you understand how the break is going to happen and where you actually need to aim the put. When you start off on the golf course, what I’d like you to do is line yourself up to a put and just look at it, get down nice and low if you need to like you see the guys on the TV doing, have a good read of it. And then look and say to yourself if I had this put straight will it go in? That’s the first thing because if it’s a straight great go for it but most aren’t.

If I hit this straight, will it go in, which way is it going to move and then on the standard about 85% of puts that are hit on the golf course by amateur golfers would miss the hole on the low side. So if you see that it’s breaking from right to left you need to allow more break than you would normally think. And this exercise is going to help you understand that. So what I’d like you to do is set yourself up to a put and I like to say that the camera over where you are over there, that’s the hole that I'm aiming for and this is where my ballis sitting here.

And it’s going to break from right to left as it runs down towards the hole. So what I would like to do is go and mark the highest point or the apex that I think the ball will travel along. So what I’m going to do is walk out onto the green and push my tow stick into the floor and give me an apex point. Now it’s really nice because it’s a quit a high big visual stick. I want to work out the fact that I don’t want to go anywhere near this I want to go round it, round the outside of it. I don’t want to try and cut the corner of and go straight for the hole. The hole is like a big magnet that when I see the hole around here everyone is sort of looks at the hole, aims at the hole, points the hole, body at the hole.

Then they remember the pull out break and they end up shoving the pull, pushing the put out with their hands. So many times we see golfers aim quit straight and then trying to push the ball wide, they never quite push it wide enough, it never gets to the apex and it curves and misses, 85% miss on the low side. So what I would do here with my tow stick is stick it in the ground on the apex of the curve. Now the important thing to remember is I don’t aim at it, really remember that, don’t aim at the apex, think about it, if you aim at the apex of a curve the ball will never reach the apex, it will have already fallen off the apex.

Because it doesn’t start turning at the apex, it starts turning the second you hit it. So as soon as you hit the put you start to die away from the apex and finishes low and that’s why people miss puts on the low side because they aim at the apex. So this is purely a marker, I must get my ball around it. So consider that you need to be aiming wide of the apex, you need to be aiming above the apex. Get the ball round the stick and then let it break in, don’t be tempted to cut the corner off. If you can allow more break on your puts and you can aim to go round the top of the apex keeping it on the high side, you won’t be guilty of missing 85% puts on the low side.

You’ll have a high percentage chance of holding your puts and you’ll certainly be tapping in for a two put more regularly. So mark the apex, don’t aim at it, aim to keep the ball on the high side of it and that will help improve your putting.

 2013-06-27

Any golfer that has a little bit of experience of playing out in the golf course will understand that most of the puts you ever hit on the golf course aren’t straight puts. Most of them will have some curve or some break and here’s an exercise to help you understand how the break is going to happen and where you actually need to aim the put. When you start off on the golf course, what I’d like you to do is line yourself up to a put and just look at it, get down nice and low if you need to like you see the guys on the TV doing, have a good read of it. And then look and say to yourself if I had this put straight will it go in? That’s the first thing because if it’s a straight great go for it but most aren’t.

If I hit this straight, will it go in, which way is it going to move and then on the standard about 85% of puts that are hit on the golf course by amateur golfers would miss the hole on the low side. So if you see that it’s breaking from right to left you need to allow more break than you would normally think. And this exercise is going to help you understand that. So what I’d like you to do is set yourself up to a put and I like to say that the camera over where you are over there, that’s the hole that I'm aiming for and this is where my ballis sitting here.

And it’s going to break from right to left as it runs down towards the hole. So what I would like to do is go and mark the highest point or the apex that I think the ball will travel along. So what I’m going to do is walk out onto the green and push my tow stick into the floor and give me an apex point. Now it’s really nice because it’s a quit a high big visual stick. I want to work out the fact that I don’t want to go anywhere near this I want to go round it, round the outside of it. I don’t want to try and cut the corner of and go straight for the hole. The hole is like a big magnet that when I see the hole around here everyone is sort of looks at the hole, aims at the hole, points the hole, body at the hole.

Then they remember the pull out break and they end up shoving the pull, pushing the put out with their hands. So many times we see golfers aim quit straight and then trying to push the ball wide, they never quite push it wide enough, it never gets to the apex and it curves and misses, 85% miss on the low side. So what I would do here with my tow stick is stick it in the ground on the apex of the curve. Now the important thing to remember is I don’t aim at it, really remember that, don’t aim at the apex, think about it, if you aim at the apex of a curve the ball will never reach the apex, it will have already fallen off the apex.

Because it doesn’t start turning at the apex, it starts turning the second you hit it. So as soon as you hit the put you start to die away from the apex and finishes low and that’s why people miss puts on the low side because they aim at the apex. So this is purely a marker, I must get my ball around it. So consider that you need to be aiming wide of the apex, you need to be aiming above the apex. Get the ball round the stick and then let it break in, don’t be tempted to cut the corner off. If you can allow more break on your puts and you can aim to go round the top of the apex keeping it on the high side, you won’t be guilty of missing 85% puts on the low side.

You’ll have a high percentage chance of holding your puts and you’ll certainly be tapping in for a two put more regularly. So mark the apex, don’t aim at it, aim to keep the ball on the high side of it and that will help improve your putting.